Things That Used to Matter

So my friend, fellow blogger and 1/2 of Team Awesome suggested that I let you all (you know, both of you) in on my final thoughts from training for my first tri. I've decided to do this as sort of a series, primarily because I'm sleepy right now and don't feel like writing a whole big long blog like the last two. So I'll start with what I like to call "things that used to matter."

When you take on a big undertaking or make a significant change in your life things tend to, well, change. Before I started training, working out was a priority for me but not to the degree it became. Here are some examples of things that took a back seat.

• Television - The thing about tv is that mine is attached to a dvr. Even with the dvr it used to be important to me to wake up in the morning and spend some alone time catching up on all of last night's drama. Throughout the summer I was literally deleting things that I just couldn't keep up with because that morning downtime didn't exist anymore. Up at 5am, out the door by 5:30am, in the water/on the bike/pounding the pavement by 6 and home by 7:30 or so. Get ready for work, eat breakfast and out the door again by 8:30. TV? Yeah, sorry.
• Showering - Now I'm slightly embarrassed to admit this, but only slightly. All of the important bits were cleaned daily but as far as long, leisurely showers with music blasting, well, those days are long gone and there are 2 very important reasons why. 1. Time. This will be a reoccurring theme. 2. Soreness and general body fatigue. Standing is one of the last things I wanted to do after a 2 a day...or a long 1 a day. Yes, a few baths were taken but sitting generally turned into laying which turned into sleeping. Never good in the bathtub.
• Shoes - Another friend and fellow blogger over in Kaliwood along with my 20 year old self and women all over the country will be terribly disappointed and may possibly stop being my friend over this, but hear me out.When training for any physically demanding activity you really begin to realize how very important your feet are.That's not to say they still don't deserve to look good, but from an athletic perspective, it's more important that they feel good. But just so you don't hate me let's just say that my shoe game has just been refocused to running and athletic shoes.

    I went from these (my feet on the right but I picked out both pairs)

To these...

More designed for comfort than looks but come ON! They're so fun!

• My Hair - Getting my hair messed up or even worse, WET, used to be a cardinal sin (according to my mom, still a cardinal sin...) During tri training, it was wet pretty much daily whether from me forgetting my shower cap and unable to be bothered to reach for it from the shower, sweat or the pool. Training also did much to reaffirm my decision to cut my hair short. Such a blessing.
• Drinking/Partying/General Young Person Fun - Training doesn't schedule in hangover days. Now if you were talking to slightly younger me who could recover in seemingly minutes from a rave we'd have no problem. 24 year old me (yes I've just admitted my age online) couldn't waste what would surely be at least 2 days on recovery from irresponsible decisions. Not to say they weren't good times, I was just looking for a different kind of fun...which was actually slightly torturous.

From this...

To this...

Fair Trade.

• My Ipod - USA Triathlon prohibits the use of audio devices on the course which meant dumping my ipod almost immediately and completely. I've been running road races for years and for many of those years not a one of them was done without an ipod. A lot of people have a lot of concerns (and opinions) regarding the use of ipods during races but as a former ipod wearer to an ipod-less competitor (I use that word loosely) I can honestly say that the ipod was not missed at all during tri training or especially during the race. During the race in particular there's so much more going on than in a running race that your brain is plenty occupied. During training I guess I still could've used it while running but on the bike I was too worried about not hearing traffic and I don't have a waterproof ipod case so with 2/3 of the training in my own head, the music just didn't seem as necessary. Now I did always have to dig out the ipod for a gym workout...but all rules change under those circumstances.

Welp, those are the big things I can think of right now. Hope this gave you a little insight into how my world and priorities changed a bit when I began training. If you're planning to do one or something like it I sure hope this didn't scare you off! Change can be a good thing and when you have to change to reach a goal, and then you reach that goal, it makes it all worthwhile.