On the bright side...

Since deciding not to do the half Ironman and backing the training volume down to virtually nothing, I have had the very enjoyable experience of being a normal human being again.

When I started feeling bad about my decision I took a minute to think about all the things I have done in place of three hour bike rides, and two hour runs, and it makes me pretty darn pleased with myself.

Here are a few:

• Golfed with my dad.
• Got the brakes checked on my car (ya, this was loooong overdue....$600 estimate overdue)
• Enjoyed a Saturday morning at the farmers market.
• Went out on a Friday night and didn't worry about how many drinks I was having.
• Had a campfire after spending the day at "the farm" and grilling out with the fam.
• Caught up on filing the paperwork of life....the bill statements, the receipts, and other assorted fun stuff.
• Shopped for and bought a fancy-schmanz new camera and have attempted to learn how to use it.
• Played personal photographer and support crew for friends at a race, rather than racing.
• Finally took a load of stuff to Goodwill.
• Had a long dinner with some of my favorite girlfriends....the kind of dinner where you're not worried about what time you'd like to get home so you can get x hours of sleep, or where you have to be the next morning...so you can actually relax, enjoy the good company, and catch up in a way that's more than just "here's what I've been up to."

I'm sure there are many more that I'm not thinking of, but you get the picture. Could I have done these things while working and training full time....sure, if I didn't need to sleep and had a personal chef. But in reality, a lot of these things just got pushed to the back burner because time and energy were being diverted to all things triathlon.

Not to say that devoting your life to triathlon is bad. But its a choice. Its the unspoken requirement that you commit to when deciding to tackle something like a half Ironman. Eventually your life begins to revolve around your workout schedule because it has to or you won't be able to fit it all in. If you want to succeed, triathlon will rise to the top your prioritization list.

When I opted out of the race and deleted triathlon from my priority list (even if just temporarily), I kinda freaked out. I was relieved to not have to train in pain anymore, but if I wasn't doing triathlon what WAS I doing? In reality, this break has been a nice reminder of the things I wasn't doing.

In the future, I'm hoping triathlon can play nice and bounce around harmoniously with all the other things on my prioritization list, without having to always monopolize the top slot.