The biggest challenge for any age group triathlete is finding time to train. Throw in college and a few ambitions and it gets down right impossible. Some may find this to be a problem and may be the reason for some that so many expensive bikes pop up on ebay. People start the sport, train a lot for a few weeks, or months, then find out it takes more work to fit in training than its worth to them and they give up. But to me this is what makes the sport so much fun.
To someone who is not involved with triathlon may think that the only difficult thing about the sport is training. They might think that swimming 1.2 miles, biking 54 miles and running 13 miles is crazy! As crazy as they think it might be, tell them how fast you plan on doing it and you'll blow their mind. But what they don't know is that for someone who lives a regular life with a busy schedule (such as a college student), finding the time to be successful in such an activity is just as much a skill as doing what it is you set out to do.
You have to make every training session count. You have to know when to wake up early and when push hard. You also have to know when you need to rest and when to push yourself. You also have to prioritize and decide what things are important enough to you to take a break from training. There are certain things that can only happen once and it's important to realize this. These are the things that you should take time away from your passion to enjoy. If you are unable to do this then you will miss out on some very important times in your life.
I always beat myself up when I can't make it to the pool 3 times a week or get out for a run when I want to because I have something else to do, or I'm just too worn out from school to wake up at 5:45 to work out. Today, one of my buddies got his PhD. I also had swim practice tonight. The plan was to meet up at Cap Ale House to celebrate the ocasion. My idea was to stay only for a little bit and then swim a distance workout on my own. After a few minutes of being there, I decided that my friend will only get his PhD once and it was worth staying out to celebrate (with minimal amounts of beer and junk food of course, I'm not giving up one everything). Time in the pool can wait and missing tonights workout won't make me or break me. But I sure would've felt bad for missing the chance to celebrate my friends hard work. I got home, ate dinner (grilled chicken and potatoes, very tasty) and started on my homework for this ridiculous statistics class I'm taking. By the time I finished it was almost midnight. Well, I skipped swim practice and I probably won't make it to the gym tomorrow morning. It doesn't bother me one bit. It did at first, but after I thought about it, it was worth it.
So all of this rambling about managing your time and knowing what's really important has to mean something. We, age group triathletes that is, should understand what it takes to accomplish what it is we want to accomplish. If you are willing to do what it takes, then you need to do it. But there are also some things which are worth missing a workout for. Because when you look back you will remember those things that matter more than anyone workout. You will also find that your time is much more valuable when there is something you love doing that makes your decisions on time management that much harder.
This may make no sense what so ever. But the things that draw people to this sport and cause them to spend a huge portion of their time training are just as interesting to me as the new Kuota tri bike or how to run a sub 40 10k. I've always felt that for every one thing that will draw someone in, there is 10 other excuses or deterrents that will cause them to lose interest or motivation to do what it is they originally wanted to do.
Set goals. Train to achieve them. And enjoy the ride along the way.
Time trial practice tomorrow with a long run afterwards.
Listening to: Classical radio.
Feeling: Tired of statistics.
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