A different perspective on time

The other day I was questioned on the amount of time per week that the training involves, and how does it affect the rest of my life, my family, etc. This year in particular it really is a large amount of time, and not something I intend to sustain in the future. I mean, consider the number of extra training hours it takes to shave off a half an hour from an Ironman triathlon. You are basically sacrificing many hours per week for *months* in order to get that time savings... not exactly a great cost/benefit ration; unless you're really gunning for a slot to the Hawaii IM World Championship or something similar.

However, I started thinking about some of the things that I used to do, which nobody ever questioned. How about watching college football games on Saturday for a good portion of the day, and sometimes into the evening; or going fishing all day. How many people do that, and nobody gives it a second thought? Yet if I spend my Saturday morning and early afternoon doing a long bike ride, people often act like I'm practically sacrificing my life. Similarly, if I told people that I spent my lunch break sitting in front of the tv (I work from home...), it would barely blip on the radar. But tell them you spent an hour running 7 or 8 miles, and all of a sudden you are a crazy person. I know it's not a perfect analogy, but like the title of the post says; perhaps a little different perspective on the time commitments that go along with triathlon training.

Quick update on training, since I haven't posted in a bit... this past week was the last of a three week heavy block of training. Finished up the week with a 95 mile bike ride and a 12 mile run, now I'll be tapering and recovering, getting ready for the triathlon that I'm doing on Sunday. Still way too hot down here, right around 100 or slightly above nearly every day, with rain a very very rare commodity.