Time Spent on Workouts

I work out a lot. I have a bit of a reputation at my office as the crazy-workout-girl (seriously – I just ran into someone in the kitchen who called me that). My reputation has developed over a few months. I don't talk about running too much at work, but it's not something I hide either. 

Sometimes I pass up happy hours in favor of workouts. When people complain about the rain because it slows the Metro I might mention that it's also annoying for running, and when we go rock climbing my arms might be a little tired from the morning's pool run. No big deal...just facts.

A year and a half ago, I calculated how many full days of mylife I’ve spent running - at that point it was up to 1,780 hours , or 74.16 days.

In the past few months I’ve been doing less actual running and more cross-training/yoga, which takes even more time.

I don’t mind – I strongly believe that time spent on workouts is time well spent. For runners (and other kinds of athletes), working out is a lifestyle, not a chore. It’s just something I know I’m going to do every day. I definitely run into scheduling conflicts, but with some planning and foresight (and a willingness to work out at odd hours), it’s not that hard to fit running into any schedule.

And I think this sort of lifestyle is more common than most people think. Not everyone talks (or blogs) about their workouts all the time, so you may not realize how many friends and co-workers are also on the excessive-workout-train.

Obviously I have nothing on my marathoning or triathlete friends, but here’s an “average” week for me right now:

• Sunday – afternoon run - 1 hour
• Monday – evening run – 1 hour
• Tuesday – morning pool run – 1.5 hours, evening rock climb – 2 hours
• Wednesday – evening run – 1 hour
• Thursday – morning yoga – 1.5 hours
• Friday – morning run – 1 hour
• Saturday – pool run – 2 hours, yoga – 1.5 hours

(All these times are estimated, and  I’m including warm-up/cool-down time, since that’s part of the workout.)

Week total time working out: 12.5 hours

What do you think? Totally normal, right?