Time vs Reward ?

So as most of you know i have been pretty busy this year. I spent 9 weekends away on the Bar-one Manhunt TV show and so this left me with little time to train and even when i did have time to train during the week i was exhausted. I mean try flying all the way to Dubai for 28hr shoot and then fly back again all in a weekend. CRAZY

So this has left me with a limited fitness level, i think looking back over the last 6 months i have managed to run about 15km a week average and bike around 70km and swim around 2km per week, this would give me around 6hrs a week.

Not a lot at all, considering the athletes i know putting well over 20hrs per week.

Right now at this point i am not saying that any of you should try this or that i am now onto a new type of training programme or anything. I know i have been going for about 4 years and i know about muscle memory and race experience and knowing how to handle the pain and the dark cloud that settles in. Plus if you know me you know i have all the toys as well which make it easier to go fast.

This weekend i decided to race not once but twice. Saturday saw a new venue for open water swimming come up, just off the highway at edenvale and it was gorgeous and i loved being in my new Orca Alpha Wetsuit again and feeling the excitement of a start line. It was a 3.5km swim and remember that i have swum all of about 8km a month for the last 6 months.

I managed to swim 1hr 01min and was super happy with that. Which started me thinking about how much faster i would of swum if i was super fit, maybe 5 or 6min ?? I also must say that our new Stinger gel with lots of Caffeine also helped pull me along.

Then Sunday i did a Olympic Distance Triathlon, stiff from the day before, i came out the water around 45sec behinde the guys i normally come out the water with, had a solid bike, loosing only another 2 min odd and then ran just over 41min for a 10km.

So i ask this question, how is it that i was only about 5 min off where i normally race ? I know the 500mg caffeine i took in in about 2.5hrs was a big help as i stay off caffeine during the week.

Today i am tender but not broken, and if you consider i have been saving 9hrs a week of training time x 4 weeks is 36hrs a week x 6 months = 216hrs that i have saved not training all the time and only 5min slower on race day ??

Look at other things in your life and weigh up what the Time you put into it gives you in reward.

Maybe we should all be looking at this and trying to find the things that give us the most reward and then focus on that.

50km Loskop Ultra Marathon this weekend, should be very interesting…watch this space