I know this about my personality (and if you read regularly, I’m sure you know this too): once I decide I want to do something, I’m not much of a hum and hawer. I go for it. For example:
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In January I had no intention of buying a bike. It wasn’t until maybe March sometime that I thought it may be fun to have a bike that I can actually ride around and do stuff on. So in April I bought my bike.
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I kinda liked riding the bike so I thought some form of a race would be fun. So I signed up for my first du 9 days before the race.
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I wanted to keep going on the multi-sport thing so I signed up for my first tri in just over 8 weeks. I’ll have my next marathon two weeks later.
So when I mentioned the tri thing to someone their response was to ask how I would fit everything in. Good point…
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I want to run 4 days a week
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I have boot camp twice a week
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I’d like to try and swim and make it to yoga once or twice a week
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I want to bike into work on any day when the weather allows it
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I really want to hike and camp whenever I can
So when you add all of this up, plus the fact that I work, when does non-exercising “me” time come in? And can I do each and every one of those activities that I mentioned above as often as I want to? Should I be doing that much? I know that all of the non-running activities that I’ve been doing are making me a better runner. But I don’t want to become so one-dimensional that my life is work, exercise, eat, sleep, repeat. Um…but I think that almost is the case. I guess lucky for me that I’m not married and that I don’t have kids. I should qualify all of this by saying that I am a much happier me when I am so active versus when I was more of a couch potato and I had plenty of non-exercising “me” time. So…I’m thinking about dropping to 3 days of running a week since I have all of these crosstraining activities, and we’ll see what happens from there.
Good post there. I think it’s funny how I thought I didn’t have a lot of time to dedicate towards training, but I somehow came up with at least an hour each day 🙂 And I’m with you in thinking that I’d much rather be exercising than sitting on the couch watching tv. Do what makes you happy and don’t worry about the monotony, I think the varied workout schedule you have will keep you from getting bored.
Good for you for living life by filling your days with what brings you joy!
I will watch for you at Footstock on Saturday.
Andra
I think “overzealous” is my middle name, so I know just how you feel. And it’s definitely a good thing that you feel better when you are active. Just don’t push yourself – don’t think that you are doing a bad thing when you take some time off from all of that and just go live it up!!!
My advice is to first prioritize. Is the tri your priority? Or is the marathon? If the marathon is your priority and your ‘A’ race, the other question is what do you want out of your marathon? A better time? I’d hesitate to drop to 3 days of running if the marathon is the priority. You have enough endurance to get you through a sprint tri, but getting to the pool is necessary as it is a different type of skill.
4 running workouts
2 swim workouts
1 yoga workout
2 boot camp
bike?
That’s 9 workouts plus biking to work. If you look back at your training log, you do that already. You’ve had weeks of 9-11 workouts AND then biking on top of it. So I I think it would just take some prioritization on what you *want*.
Enjoy it though….and it sounds like you do!
Whatever you do, DO NOT BURN OUT!!!
It’s not fun. Back off if you feel it coming on. Otherwise, train as much as you want.
I totally hear you. Just trying to fit in the biking around the running has been hard for me. You do so much more!
I didn’t notice the part about fighting crime, SuperGirl? As Nike would say, ‘just do it’, whatever you fit in you get done. Don’t make it a second job because then it won’t be fun anymore. A lot of us have been there before.
I’m never quite able to get it all in either. I talk big, but find that I need the me time too.