I'm very lucky in a lot of ways, but one of them is that I'm able to build most of my life around things that I enjoy. My work-life is interesting, engaging, and exciting. My personal life is filled with great people, and my personal time is filled with, well, mostly pain and suffering. But in a good way, for some reason I like that stuff.
But everything is relative and there are always going to be aspects of things you do - even things you generally enjoy - that get old or entail doing some groundwork that isn't that much fun. For example, even at a great job, there are things like review time that aren't all high-fives and moon walks. And, in my case, there is a constant tension between what I've chosen to do (Ironman) and what it takes to do it (a lot of time commitment).
For the most part, I love the training. I love being fit and I love working towards a defined goal. But I tend not to love it when the alarm goes off, like it did at 5:50 this morning for example. It's amazing - the first 5 minutes of every day of my life involves mumbling that goes something like "uhhhhh...what the heck do I do this for...after [event x]...I'm done with this." Then I get moving and get out there and I'm fine. Some days are better than others. It's not unusual for me to consider exactly how long I'll be able to keep this up. Turns out I have no idea...I suspect I know when I'll get there.
But change is good - it keeps things fun. When my coach and I did our 2007 post-mortem, I told him that I wanted to do two things leading up to the 2008 season: run a lot, and do some bike racing. Hewas supportive of this, but he's reminded me that the bike racing isn't optimal for my Ironman goals. He's also been clear that the "fun factor" is very important - if it's not fun, it's not worth it. Fortunately, that was the tie breaker, and I've done some bike racing this year. With April's Ironman Arizona last year, that wasn't really feasible and I missed it terribly.
Since my training doesn't focus on some critical aspects of bike racing - intervals and max-power outputs - there are skills that I lack to be truly competitive. But it doesn't matter -- I've had a blast just getting out there. Bike racing is incredibly hard and demanding - in a totally different way than Ironman. It's one of the few areas in which I'm comfortably mediocre.
The picture above was taken last weekend - my team hosted a criterium (small loop) race here in Seattle at Volunteer Park - yes that's yours truly leading the charge. The weather was unusually nice for this time of year and was the first time most of us could break out the short sleeves and lose the leg/knee warmers. In my category, it was 85 riders on a 3/4 mile course going basically all-out for 40 minutes. You will never be fully "present" in your life like you are in one of these races. There is just no room for other thoughts in your head. I like that. A lot.
But it's a change of pace that keeps it fun. I've been surprised how much it's helped me get "charged up" for the big push to Ironman Coeur d'Alene in late-June. I think some of the work I've done, and the racing itself, will have some benefits for me on the bike in Ironman. But that's less important. It's just good times.
A little fun goes a long way. A little change goes a long way. It's easy to forget as we get wrapped up in day-after-day of our routines.