Like so many people throughout the country, Shannon Spake has had to find the proper balance between working from home while also home schooling her children after the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered schools and turned parents into full-time teachers.
Finding that right balance has not always been easy for Spake, a FOX Sports host and reporter, but it has led to some moments of self-discovery for the mother of twin fourth-grade boys. Particularly when it comes to guiding her 10-year-old sons Brady and Liam in their school subjects.
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“I know adjectives and verbs and nouns and obviously those things, but I don’t know how to flex sentences or what’s like the proper form for grammar,” Spake said. “It’s been forever since I’ve done fourth-grade grammar and I had to look up how to multiply fractions. So, yeah, it’s been really challenging. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to sit down and kind of dissect all the different parts of a sentence. Sometimes I just look at the kids and I’m like, ‘Alexa, what’s the pronoun?’”
As many parents have done, Spake has embraced the challenges brought about by social distancing while also appreciating additional quality time she’s getting with her sons and husband Jerry. She’s even learned to combine teaching her sons with another passion of hers: maintaining a rigorous workout regime as she trains for the Ironman World Championship later this year in Kona, Hawaii.
When Spake embarks on one of her daily runs, sometimes one or both of her sons will accompany their mom on their bicycles. And as Mom pounds the pavement, she uses the time to quiz them on state capitals — a refresher course-turned-family tradition.
“It’s funny because I remember doing the same thing with my dad when I was young,” Spake said. “I was riding my bike and he was running and we were doing like multiplication tables. So hopefully one day my son will remember that we did it together as well.”
Triathlons are a passion for Spake, who began competing in 2016. She has since completed five half-Ironmans (also known as 70.3 triathlons), which consist of a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bicycle ride and 13.1-mile run.
In 2018, she had been training for her first full Ironman (2.4-mile swim/112-mile bike/26.2-mile run) and was two weeks away from the race date when Hurricane Michael struck the Florida panhandle, forcing organizers to postpone the event, set to be held in Panama City. With the full Ironman no longer an option, she audibled and instead entered the New York City Marathon that was to be held that same weekend.
(FOX Sports)
This is the year Spake planned to accomplish her goal of competing in a full Ironman. Yet, similar to what occurred two years ago, circ*mstances beyond her control may curtail the opportunity for her to check that box.
While the Ironman World Championship is scheduled for Oct. 10, its fate is still to be determined as the novel coronavirus has forced the postponement or outright cancelation of sporting events around the globe. There is a chance the Ironman could be rescheduled if a second wave of infections occurs in the fall, as many medical experts predict.
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“It’s hard when you sit there and you go, ‘Oh God, I wonder if it’s going to happen,’” Spake said. “I’m only human, right, and I think every one of us has lost a little motivation from time to time. I just try to keep on focusing on a goal.”
Spake’s weekly training program includes running 25 to 30 miles and bicycling up to eight hours. To ensure she gets that in, plus helps her sons with school and other activities, and manage her duties with FOX Sports, there are some mornings where she’s up before dawn. It is a level of commitment that Spake relishes as she describes herself as a “100 percent all-in” person.
“We’ll tape the ‘Race Hub’ shows on Monday, and then I’m trying to book these ‘One Up, One Down’ episodes all week long,” she said. “I usually do about two a week. So other than that, we (Jerry, Brady and Liam) do school from 8:30 to 11:30, 12 o’clock almost every day. And then I’ll get on the bike or I’ll go for my run. … I’m up at 4:00 a.m. and on my bike by 4:30 so that I can get my workout done before the kids get up or before I have to take them to school or before I have to go to work. So I have had the luxury of kind of pushing that a little bit into the afternoon.
“It’s a little structured until I would say about two or three o’clock in the afternoon. Then we just kind of hang as a family. We’ve been eating dinner every single night together, which has been great. … I try to keep as much routine as possible. You kind of have to with kids and you have to, obviously, with what I do professionally and personally as well.”
Her dedication to being a top athlete not only pays dividends in health benefits, but Spake believes it translates when she’s interviewing other athletes, be it a driver on the NASCAR studio show “Race Hub,” which she co-hosts, or on “One Up, One Down,” Spake’s new long-form interview series that’s recently featured in-depth discussions with the likes of Jimmie Johnson and Christian McCaffrey.
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“It helps me so much understand the athletes that I cover, knowing them when they’re in a zone, knowing the disappointment of an injury after a significant amount of training, knowing some of the questions that I would want nor I could ask myself when I’m training,” Spake said. “A lot of times when I am talking to athletes I ask myself, ‘How would I ask myself this question if somebody was asking me about my Ironman stuff?’
“And I really feel like it’s helped me relate to them in a completely different manner, especially when I’m covering the NFL. I’ve never played on an NFL team, I was a swimmer. I’ve never even been part of team sports. But in terms of just the mental and the physical determination and focus that it takes, I feel like I really kind of get a feeling about what they go through.
“People often say, ‘How do you do it physically?’ And I’m like physically is one part of it, but it’s such a mental game when you have to spend that significant amount of time kind of in your own space. The hardest part of any endurance race is staying focused for the entire event because it’s so easy to lose your focus and start to drift.”
(Photos courtesy FOX Sports)
Jordan Bianchi is a motorsports reporter for The Athletic. He is a veteran sports reporter, having covered the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball, college basketball, college football, NASCAR, IndyCar and sports business for several outlets. Follow Jordan on Twitter @jordan_bianchi
