42 Hours

Do you ever notice how you spend your time?  Time flies.  Time drags.  Either way, it's the only gift we really have, and how we choose to use our abuse our time significantly determines the quality of our lives.  Maybe we are not to blame for the things that befall us, but we can certainly detemine how we respond to that which we are given. 

In a way, I am afraid of time.  My oldest daughter will turn 8 in just over two weeks.  If her life goes according to the plan, that means in a little over 10 years she'll be headed off to college.  I know it may be a "glass is half empty" attitude, but these last 8 years have flown by and I'm afraid of how quick the next 10 will go.  I'm not ready for her to move away from home.  Usually.  10 years may be a long way off, but as time passes, the years seem to pick up momentum.

I also feel blessed by time.  8 years is an awful lot of weeks, days, hours and moments to share with someone you love.  The memories we have created together are countless, and those that we will share from this day forward are, God willing, infinite.  How fortunate am I to have even one moment of true love and affection shared with those so dear to me?  That's a rhetorical question, so don't answer...

For the typical 9-5er, the "average" work week lasts 40 hours with a lunch break worked in somewhere in the middle of the day.  I'm still not sure what my average work week looks like.  I can't remember a single day that was 9-5.  Some days it has been as "normal" as 8-5, and some days it has been as long as 7am-10pm or later.  I'm not complaining but merely emphasizing that my typical day and typical week at work are entirely a-typical.  I work long days and long weeks and I'm on call 24/7, and yet, I live 3/4 miles from work and I make a point to have lunch with my wife as often as possible and dinner with my family practically every night of the week, even if it's a quick bite before returning to evening commitments.  And still, with all of these hours, time passes behind my back as I wonder where it went.

I looked at my November training calendar yesterday and discovered that I trained 42 hours in the span of a month, and that's only because I had a light week when I traveled out of town for a friend's wedding.  42 hours.  That's longer than the "average" work week, and with no breaks for lunch.  I was at the gym last night running on the treadmill when a friend mounted the treadmill beside me.  When he asked how my Ironman prep was going, I revealed the extent of November's training as I brought the month to a close beside him. 

"That must be all your spare time," he said. 

99% of my daily training is completed before 7am, so I said, "It's not spare time, it's found time".  And that's true.  It wasn't too long ago that 4:30AM was not even part of my vocabulary.  Now it's become a part my day that I anticipate with enthusiasm.  42 hours of found time.  In 42 hours of found time I am leading my body and my soul on a journey to Madison, Wisconsin, and to places unknown.  In 42 hours of found time I am chasing dreams.  I know that, as September grows nears, 42 will grow.  But for now, 42 has become a symbolic number for me.

What would you do with 42 hours a month of found time?  I challenge you to find so time in your life, in your month, in your week, in your day and claim it.  That time is a gift and it has the power to bring you to new heights.  Look over your calendar and see how high you can climb.