That’s right you carbon brake lever maniacs, there’s something else you’ve got to put on the scale: your time. When you are operating with a limited resource, the value of that resource increases exponentially. Think supply vs. demand…the less you have of something, the more important it becomes. If you really think about it, time is probably the most limited item you have. Period.
How many times have you thought of doing do the laundry walk the dog ride my bike 6 hours anything, and realized that you simply didn’t have the time to do it? If you are anything like me and my athletes, you do this several times a day. But that isn’t even the real problem…the real problem isn’t enough time, it’s what you are actually doing with the time you already have. We’re all on 24 hours here, and none of us can “play with baby daughter” and “ride 3.5 hours of tempo work” at the same time (note: I have tried on the trainer…my butt and my daughter’s patience gave out at about the same time — one hour).
So you know your time is important and limited, and that you can’t train like the pros…what do you do? First, you have to make the most of the time you actually have. Second is the make each chunk of time count.
Making the most of your time means planning properly. From a 10Hours perspective, you can batch your swim/runs in the AM b/c you can run from the pool and still shower. You would stretch @ lunch instead of run b/c you can get more done – and still look like an uber-employee in the office. You can know your core workouts, for example. For more info on this, check out all of the posts here tagged as “planning“.
More importantly, from an athletic perspective, is making each chunk of time count. So if you have an hour to workout, it’s that FIRST fifteen minutes that matters the most. If you can get those first 15 mins in, doing the other 45′ is easy. This could mean walking away from the computer or just being firm with a deadline, for example.
The FIRST 15 mins are important too to nail the intensity of the workout. Start too hard and you’ll die, start too easy and you’ve lost 15 mins. So you must be purposeful with your exercise time as well.
Nowhere is this more evident than on race day / crunch time. When the rubber meets the road in triathlon, it’s what you do don’t do that makes the different. Not messing up your pacing by starting too fast, not rushing through transition and leaving food behind, not skipping an aid station to make up time, these are all things you don’t have to do on race day to be successful. And guess what, they happen at the beginning…of the race and of each leg of the race.
Get the proverbial “first fifteen minutes” done right and the rest will follow.
Happy Training,
Coach P
Hi, I'm Patrick McCrann. 
