finding time (or not)

well, okay, it's been a couple of weeks since i've put up a post. i started sensing that the blog was getting a little lonely and i decided i needed to post something to keep it company.

i don't have much of an excuse, other than that the past few weeks have become extraordinarily busy, and i just haven't had the time to devote time to personal composition. work has taken a bit of a priority recently. it's been heavy enough that it's even started to affect my workout schedule. i'm experiencing the challenge so many people who are pursuing active lifestyles experience: finding the time to do what we want to do.

the problem isn't finding time in general. we can all find bits and pieces of time everywhere in a given day that are available for any number of uses.

the real issue is finding chunks of time. blocks of time. enough continuous stretches of time that can individually accommodate a very specific form of use.

in endurance sports, and arguably any sport, that use is training.

real training, quality training, requires sufficiently sized segments of time large enough to enable the types of workouts necessary to develop the abilities needed to compete in a chosen sport. and in endurance sports, this means workouts that invariably need to be 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 hours at a stretch. sometimes (oftentimes) even longer.

and right now, i haven't been able to find those types of time. and have not been able to get the workouts i need.

which is what i think has really thrown me off-balance. training provides a certain level of regimentation, and regimentation brings with it a certain measure of stability, and that stability converts training into a framework around which the rest of life can be arranged. in a sense, the schedule of workouts operates to organize the rest of life.

i suspect this is why so many athletes become obsessive-compulsive with their workouts. the fixation on the training schedule acts as a security blanket that provides stability in a life that so often has none. and the straightforward layout of effort and time within it acts as a code that offers a measure of simplicity in a world that so often is not. it makes things easy, so we don't have to think. it gives us direction, so we don't have to worry.

which is why i guess so many athletes who leave sports frequently end up going through a hangover phase, when they struggle with feelings of aimlessness, confusion, uncertainty, anxiety, even depression. it's tantamount to mourning something lost. which there is: the backbone of a regimented schedule where everything was understood and everything had its place and everything was geared towards a single recognizable goal of self-improvement.

and i think that's what's really getting me right now.

i know i can deal with it. as much as anyone else juggling personal life v. professional life can. but it's not trivial.