One minute is made up of 60 seconds. In one hour, there will be 60 minutes. 24 hours makes one day and one day consists of 1440 minutes. No matter how you twist and turn, it will always add up. With all that said, all minutes are not created equal.
Last week, I set out to try my bike legs. My intent is to finish a sprint triathlon this summer and knowing myself right, it suits me better to play around with the three different sports (swimming, biking and running) at my own pace rather than follow a triathlon training schedule.
Unlike most people attempting their first triathlon, I'm dreading the bike leg of the race. A year ago I would have stressed out about the running, but now I feel I have that under control. The swimming is fairly short, I have no time expectations and I know how to swim. That leaves the biking. 14 miles is not too intimidating, but to be honest, my legs have never tried 14 miles of race biking, so maybe it's more being afraid of the unknown.
As my bike is pretty unreliable (I can't switch gears), I figured I would hit the stationary bike at the gym. I mounted the bike and adjusted the resistance and off I went. 1 minute... 2 mintes... 3 minutes... 3 min, 30 seconds... 4 minutes... 4 minutes, 15 seconds... 4 minutes, 30 seconds... 4 minutes, 40 seconds... 4 minutes, 50 seconds... 4 minutes, 55 seconds... 5 minutes... After 5 minutes of utter boredom and mind-numbing peddling, I had gone 1 mile. ONE mile!!! I had 13 more miles to go! I'm usually pretty good at pushing myself, but enough was enough! Time practically stood still. I found myself cursing the timer between each second. I had no idea you had time to do anything between seconds. Feeling a bit defeated I gave up and joined a Zumba class instead.
However, I hate feeling defeated, and I still have a triathlon to finish, so two days later I decided to dust the old bike and have a go at an actual bike ride. Knowing my bike had a few technical imperfections, I set off on my second attempt. 14 miles and well over an hour later I returned home with sore legs (some of the slopes nearly killed me), sweating like a pig but with a smile on my face. It wasn't bad, it wasn't bad at all. And I still don't really know where time went. Imagine, if I had a bike with working gears, I would be unstoppable!
Funny thing, time. One minute can feel never-ending, one hour can feel like a breeze. If riding a stationary bike is at one end of the spectra, gaming must be at the other end. 5 minutes of biking was enough to make me give up, while the 11 hours it took me to finish COD Modern Warfare 3 felt like something I casually did one afternoon.
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