Time...

Finally, the never-ending days of winter seem to be over. The floods of the last several weeks have mostly subsided and the sun has shown itself in unseasonable summer weather with temperatures in the 80s. All this in early April for a single day in the middle of the week. Coming off a chest cold, I was determined to get out for a short run, if nothing more than to reminisce about my days in CA where weather like that is an afterthought in normalcy. Routine. So often do I miss those training days…but today was different than the others. I now spend my life in the land of extremes a coast away. Where 30-40 degree swings are common from day-to-day and where every sunny, warm day is precious. I tried to leave early from work. That being said, I rushed out at 5:00 p.m., feeling slightly guilty, to make the 50-mile, one hour plus commute home with pure determination that I would experience part of this day before the sun fell and another infrequent beauty would've passed. The whole ride home, which took an unreasonable two hours today really annoyed me - Murphy coming at me head on once again. A trip full of traffic where there usually isn't any and drivers that can't help but cause delay for everyone. Each second that passed me by, I thought of the second being removed from the duration of my time to enjoy outdoor activity. It frustrated and stressed me out, because commuting is nothing more than a necessary, non-value added, time-consuming activity.

What is time, really, other than just a series of moments linked together in continuum? When I think about time, I usually think of how limited my time really is and a plan for how I can best maximize that time for the benefit of the things that I want to do or to accomplish. Others view 'time as money' and there are times I think that way. Some view time as something to be managed to enable prioritization of life's tasks and requirements. For my interests and life priorities, time is something that HAS TO be maximized and efficient. I've often heard that love can be measured by time. I guess conventional wisdom would suggest that the things you spend the most time on are the things you love the most. That being said, you could presume, that at about 60+ hours a week, I must love working the most. We all know that’s not true, but its conceivable to say I love what working will afford me to do on the outside. So is all that time really well spent? Probably not, and that work-life balance is so critical to in doing the things we really want to do. We work to live rather than live to work, but it sure takes up most of our time.

As multisport, endurance athletes we try and go a specified distance in the shortest time possible, thus being 'faster' than those around us or faster than ourselves at a previous event. To do this we must maximize our athletic efficiencies by leveraging our capabilities in aerobic capacity and muscular endurance. The more quality time we spend adapting to stresses in these areas, coupled with sufficient rest and recovery, the more our bodies begin to move toward our its full potential. With limited time, we must make each of these training sessions consistent, efficient and purposeful. This way, we can reach a particular threshold for a given level of time commitment. If we're able to spend 20 hours a week on these activities, we'll be able to reach a particular performance that the same athlete would not achieve at only seven hours per week. In terms of triathlon, a 20-hour athlete may be capable of a half-Ironman maximum, where the same athlete may be maxed out on a sprint distance race over seven hours per week, on average. The good news is that from a pure workout perspective, triathlon's multi-facets requires us to maximize our workout effectiveness. This training teaches us time management in sport and discipline to work through a pre-determined plan.

In the end, we're trying to beat the clock, but are we really racing through life? Is racing just perpetuating the 'faster' mentality where we don't even have time to stop and smell the roses? We rush to get our training in and make significant sacrifices to spend hours on end alone on the open road or in the pool going back and forth. During the present, time seems to linger, but in the past it's just a blip on a memory. The preponderance of my most vivid memories come from when I'm racing or training. Seemingly counter-intuitive, the peace of being in nature and the mind-body connection that’s associated with pushing the physical and mental limitations that are achieved through endurance athletics requires a certain focus and perseverance that connects us to the space-time continuum and the depths of our own souls. Not going too deep here, but in racing or training, its almost as if time slows and the present can truly be experienced as intended.

Although we can't create time, we can learn so many life lessons from our multisport lifestyle. Time management, efficiency, discipline and living in the present are just a few of them. Each moment is precious, like the sunny, warm day in New England, and each moment, even in traffic or work, should be cherished in it's own special way. Love is time and time is fleeting.