WAG How far is your gym?

[mOm2gymnast<3]

My dd's current gym is about 15 min away. Its a small gym, I admit not very good coaching at times, athletes are in and out, lots and lots of drama, etc.. My question: there is a great gym that is 1.30 hours away (each way), known olympian coach there. I want my dd to try out team there but the travel and everything else scares me. Is this even possible? anyone else here has driven that far just to get their dd to gym? My dd is 7 yrs old and a lv4 this season and I have 2 other kids.

 

[gymmomx2]

No way would I drive 1.5 hours each way for a 7 yo L4. Maybe for a L10...but I think I'd rather move closer than doing that drive several days a week.

 

[munchkin3]

I used to drive 30 min each way, now i drive 8 minutes each way..........i am simplifying my life.

 

[myliljunebugs]

I drive 30 minutes each way, but no matter what that is the only option (we live 17 miles from the closest town every direction, middle of nowhere). It's a small gym, but the owner was an elite level gymnast with the other head coach also having been elite. It's an awesome gym that is fairly young (only about 5 years old) so I'm trusting that it is going to go places. I don't think I would drive over an hour for gymnastics unless my daughter was training for elite level gymnastics personally.

 

[twinmomma]

Currently we drive about 10-15 min. A gym switch to ANY other local gym would put us at 25 min at best, and upwards of 40 in traffic for some of the options. DD is currently training L4/5, which is why we haven't switched, but that may be on the horizon.

 

[lovemygymnast]

We drive 10 minutes to gym, so we're lucky. And if we ever switch, there's an elite gym within 10 minutes as well. I also have a 7 year old L4 & I just wouldn't do 3 hours round trip for gym at her age. While I think she's awesome & has great potential, there's also a lot of time to decide what to do as far as training as she moves up levels. That drive would be awful especially with siblings. But at some point, it may be something for you to consider, I'd just put it off as long as possible. Just my 2 cents.

 

[SignHere]

DDs old gym was a 5 min drive ( so nice!). I just moved her to another gym 30 miles away. It's 33 min with no traffic, 40 min - 45 min with traffic.

We have 2 other children. I think it's hardest on the youngest, 9 years old - DD is 10 yrs old. The 9 year old misses me. I have not really been able to find a carpool, and hubby doesn't want me doing the round trip twice in the evening, so I stay in the area of the gym. Sometimes I will take the youngest and we will do fun stuff, but I tend not to take her on a regular basis, she gets too tired on a regular school night.

It's a big sacrifice to have mom gone 16 hrs a week at gymnastics driving - so... Good luck.

 

[floppycat]

Drive 45mins but carpool. Moved from a gym 10mins away to do elite. We carpool but still doing half the trips is very tiring and disruptive to the whole family. No way would I travel 1.5 hours each way, I would move I'm afraid. Doing elite you are training 5 times a week so you would never be home.

 

[MILgymFAM]

I drive 45 mins for YDDs gym, it's about 40 miles or so away, but it's the only T&T gym that had room on their team. I drive 30 miles for ODDs team too. There are a ton of gyms where we live, but none in our exact vicinity that would work.

 

[gwenmom]

We did the hour each way thing last year. Killed me. Killed my family. Killed my scale.

Now we only go about 35 each way and carpool. Much nicer

 

[KayleeGymnast51402]

I go about 30 mins each way. I used to go like 5 mins away, yet I enjoy the drive

Edit:

That is without traffic. Haven't been at the new gym for that long, so we haven't experienced traffic.... Yet.

 

[lhmom]

We are 15-20 minutes but there have been girls on DD's team that were driving an hour. One quit when her group was going to start going 5 days a week and the other girl's family recently moved closer to gym where the gym is now a 30 minute drive. An hour and 1/2 would be pretty tough especially when she'd get to 5 days a week.

 

[Scotsgirl]

Hi, we are a 30 minute drive , dd goes twice a week just now but she is only six nearly seven so I am sure we will have more days added in time

 

[mom2newgymnast]

We have about around a 15-20 minute drive, depending on traffic. My dd currently goes 3 times a week for 3 hours. Luckily, I am able to go home during her practice (or sometimes I go to Target for a while). I don't think I could handle much longer of a drive as it is already pretty disruptive to my other kids.

 

[wgymmom]

40 minutes here. It is absolutely the closest, only option for competitive teams. Anything else, we'd be hitting about an hour each way. That does not impress me, so 1.5 hours each way, definitely no! And certainly not at L4. Maybe L9-10.

 

[Byrd_USA]

Talk to the coachs/owners of the gyms.
explain your concerns and goals.
Maybe you could come to an agreement on monthly private lessons.
not everyone goes by the CODE, "with us or against us.."

We have a 40 minute drive and are lucky to car pool with a teammate.

 

[CoachMeg]

My very first gym was about 5 minutes from my house. I loved it. I was there for about 3 years and then it closed, and I was devastated. There was another gym in our area but it was awful...bad reputation for coaching and the gymnasts never scored about 8.0 at any level. So my mom made the decision to move me to a gym that was 1 hour and 15 minutes away (I was training level 8 at the time). I loved the new gym and all the equipment but the drives were AWFUL and my life basically consisted of school/car ride/gym practice/car ride/sleep....repeat. My dinners varied between packed sandwiches at 4pm or fast food at 9pm.

Like I said, this lasted for 1 season. Only because I had NO WHERE else to train that had a decent facility. After that season my parents realized how serious I was about the sport and decided to open up a gym in our area along with a few other gymnastics parents.

 

[wallinbl]

You might be surprised to find there are people from that gym near you and you could carpool. There are people coming 1.5 hours from multiple directions to get to our gym, and many of them carpool.

 

[curlymomof3]

No way I would drive Dd that far for gymnastics. It is already a huge sacrifice with a 15-20 minute commute. We would definitely be looking into other sports close by if we had that much of a drive!

 

[purpleleomom]

We drive 10 minutes in town. We used to drive 30 minutes through the country, and being from the desert, that made me nervous as winter came. Our gym can only train to level 3, so if she sticks with it, we will have to switch to a sister gym in a year or so. I was trying to simplify my life too and cut out stress.