Note: All data as of November 27, 2022.
At a glance
I sometimes waste my time and could spend it on net-positive activities
- Spent ~11-13 days working out
- Ran 82 times, biked 69 times, and worked out 120 times
- Would've thought I'd be stronger at this point
Time
I love working out. It makes me feel better, brings me joy, and helps me think. When I started writing this, I was (still am) considering signing up for a half-Ironman — the Ironman 70.3 (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, and 13.1 mile run). I have a relatively good base level of fitness for running and biking but absolutely nothing for swimming. My primary goal would be to finish, but naturally, my competitive side wants to finish as fast as I can.
So, I looked at some example plans and tried to map out how much time I’d need to spend training each day. Because I want to keep up strength training, it was looking like 2ish hours per day (on the low-end). Over a 20-week plan, that’s like 240 hours or 10 (!) days of training in roughly five months.
After that revelation, I wondered how much time I've already spent this year working out.
Fitness
This year, I’ve gone on 82 runs totaling 363.3 miles, 15,862 ft of elevation gain, and ~58 hours of moving time. I’ve gone on 69 bike rides for a distance of 1626.6 miles, 111,752 ft of elevation gain, and ~118 hours and 29 minutes of moving time. Together that’s around 177 hours give or take.
I also track runs and bike rides with my Whoop (yeah I get it, I have a lot of gear). My Whoop says I've actually spent ~216 hours running and biking because the automatic activity tracker generally includes time spent during brief stops.
Additionally, I’ve completed 120 weightlifting/yoga workouts totaling 103 hours and 54 minutes. I've also participated in and tracked activities like tennis, volleyball, and climbing that I didn’t include because they aren’t part of my core training.
All in, that’s 271 individual workouts totaling between 281 hours and 16 minutes to 320 hours and 8 minutes this year, or roughly 11-13 days spent biking, running, or weightlifting. The chart below shows how the 13 days working out compares to the 335 days that have passed.
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Entertainment (brief)
I’ll probably do a more in-depth review of my year in January, so this section will be brief for now. I spent roughly 65 hours (give or take several hours), or roughly an hour a day, watching Love Island (US & UK) during September and October. About halfway through I didn't even care about the show, we were just watching to watch. So I wasted a good 30 or so hours watching episodes I didn't care at all about. There were some positive aspects in that it was a sort of bonding exercise with my roommates and friends, but spending 65 hours watching Love Island is not something I want to repeat.
What does it matter?
Figuring out how to spend every minute of the day might be useful to some, but not me. I prefer an outline with some flexibility rather than a rigid schedule. Yet, it is useful to understand much time we waste each day doing things that we don’t actually care about. If watching Love Island is the best way to decompress for you, then to each their own. But for me, I'd rather try and find time I can spend writing or working out.
Doing this exercise helps me realize that
- I do have enough hours/minutes in the day, but I occasionally waste them
- Over the course of a year, I spend A LOT of times on net-negative activities like scrolling through Twitter
- Training for an Ironman 70.3 is time intensive, but doable if I’m more considerate of my time