Chrissie Wellington (the former four times World Iron Man champion for GB) was asked once how many hours a week she trained.
The answer she gave was ‘168 hours a week’.
Obviously it took a minute or two for people to understand exactly what she meant by that, especially to amateur athletes who are obsessed with trying to fit in 15 or 20 hours of training a week around family, work and social life.
It was different for Wellington because she was a professional athlete. What she meant was that everything that she did in her life, in her quest towards being World Iron Man champion, was considered with that goal in mind. Every piece of food or drink that she put in her mouth, how much she slept, how much she put her feet up after a training session, how much she travelled and how many things she said no to. These were all related to the ultimate goal of being World Iron Man champion. In terms of active elevated heart rate training, Wellington probably did around 20 – 25 hours a week (maybe a wee bit more in the lead up to the world championships). So in the face of it, it seems like a cushy number, working ‘part time’ doing the things that you like.
The fact though, is that Chrissie Wellington was busy for 168 hours a week doing the things that she chose to do to achieve the things she wanted to achieve; her record in a Triathlon is second to none and speaks for itself, she nailed it.
For the rest of us, particularly those in my age group, we live in a ‘time starved’ environment. We are always ‘too busy’. The funny thing is though is that we are only ever as busy as we choose to be. For almost all of us who live in the Western World we have an enormity of choice. Both in whether we should work or whether we shouldn’t, what we should do for a living, what we should do with our free time, what we should spend our money on, what we should crave and what we should abstain from. It really is the most simple solution overall. If you are unhappy with the way that you are spending your time, then change the way you’re living your life to change the way your time is spent (p.s this is so often to me linked to the way you spend your money).
Blog Post Number - 1342
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