Interpersonal Level

One of the major barriers from within the Interpersonal Level keeping women from performing at elite sporting levels, like men, is their time management. The barrier ‘time management’ fits into the interpersonal and also the individual level of Figueroa’s framework, as it is all about family care and value. Due to women’s history in sport, they are expected to be the ‘pretty, feminine, motherly figures that support the males in work and sports. They were expected to perform gentle exercise only for health’. This was recognized to some extent after interviewing Maneena Roberts; a mother of three children who sometimes completes triathlons such as the Gatorade Series. 

Maneena Participating in Mini Triathlon Series

The question asked was:

 “Does being a wife/mother act as a barrier and limit your time to train and compete in sports and triathlons?”

Maneena explained that she is extremely limited in leisure time to exercise, as her kids always come first. Before she was married and started a family, she loved touch football. She would play touch football in a team three nights a week and train four times a week. Now with three small children, she has to MAKE time to exercise on the treadmill or go for a run usually for 45 minutes five days a week. Her daily schedule is something like the following, she says: Every morning is a 5:30am wake up if she wants to exercise (she must exercise before 7am or there will be no time later in the day); Then school rush hour (help kids get ready and drive them to school); Work during school hours; After school, drive three kids to their activities (Soccer, Calisthenics and swimming); Go home and help kids with homework; Make dinner for the family and then it is ‘lights out’. Her husband, Ali, trains for soccer on a week night and plays comp on the weekend. Maneena wishes to play in a touch team again but is unable to due to her responsibility of wife and mother. Maneena knows the great challenge of time management as a sportswoman and full-time mother. She said you need ‘mum time’ to do what you love and need to use your time wisely to get organized. Maneena does well to keep her fitness at a healthy level and take part in the Gatorade triathlon series each year. Although, she said that this is not a serious and competitive event. It is mostly about beating your own time and being able to say ‘I am a mum and just did a triathlon’. Although she completes the triathlons in an impressive time, she is far too restricted by time to even consider going elite athlete. Maneena says triathlons are a lot of fun and make you feel great, but it is more important to be there for her kids at home. Realistically, to compete professionally in a women’s triathlete, much more time and training is required.

 Four times Ironman champion Chrissie Wellington’s life greatly contrasts Maneena’s. 

Below is a fraction of an interview which shows the realistic lifestyle of an elite women’s triathlete:

Interviewer: When you are not training are you just resting then?
Chrissie: Yes, eating or resting. I don’t tend to take naps during the day. We train two or three sessions per day, seven days week and between sessions we rest. I spend time on the internet, put my feet up and take it easy. That’s what the life of a pro triathlete is about. Rest is training, eating is training, staying in on Friday night is training so it's a 24/7 job.