Has anyone taken time off and come back easily?

Maybe a silly question, but I’m new to ultras so I’m asking anyway…

I’m running my first ultra this year and I’ve genuinely loved training for it. I’d love to keep doing ultras in the future. I am struggling a bit with the time commitment though. I’m a slower runner, so even 5-6 mile easy runs are 1-1.5 hours multiple times a week, and the long runs mean my entire weekend is spent pounding pavement (or dirt, or gravel…). Which would be fine if I didn’t have dogs that need attention, and a spouse to spend time with, and my share of the chores, and two jobs… it was manageable this summer, but I don’t know if I can get away with it every summer.

Has anyone taken a year off to run shorter races (half marathons and trail 20-30ks, maybe), and been able to come back to ultra running without a huge loss of progress?