Lost opportunities?

Well its been about 1 month after the Singapore 70.3. I had to nurse a bad case of road rash; daily dressings on my ever increasing scars on my shoulders and hip; i ruefully noted i had fallen on the same spot 2 times in 2 years! Thereafter it was the frozen shoulder as a result of reduced mobility that took 1 week to sort out.  I also made the ill-advised attempt to switch to barefoot running and after running twice at a grand total of 5 km at true worm pace of 8min/km, i developed a tendo archilles strain that wouldn't go away. Finally I was all ready to go and then I came down with the flu for a whole week. At the start of the week, I was all raring to go and then suddenly I had a heck of lot of cases to clear at work, including a near all-nighter of a case. Thankfully I fixed the problem by midnight but the die has been cast, no training the next day as I was dead tired from the surgery.

Lost opportunities or part and parcel of the game. My good friend CH and I always remind ourselves in our pursuit of triathletic passions that we remain grounded and not be deluded into the possibility of being podium finishers. In short, we are the Ironman journeymen, the guys who go out to race because we enjoy it; the sure act of endurance training day in and day out( ok, not quite daily) justifies and makes up for the numbers on race day. Personal victories in dealing with what we initially thought to be insurmountable odds; the pursuit of excellence other than our vocations which for the greater parts of our lives was an all- consuming passion.

But in pursuing this hobby, we end up with adopting attitudes akin almost to "resenting our occupation getting in the way of our past times" and gasp God forbid, family time eating up our training time because of our obsession and we view them as lost opportunities for training. That is what I thought would be a sentiment which requires thoughtful rejection.

As such, I am grateful for the opportunity to train and engage in what I enjoy when time permits and numero uno is family time and work time: maybe that's why I am crap at triathlons!