Sunday, August 29, 2004

Ironman

We watched a bit of the Ironman Canada competition today, passing (in our car, lazy as ever) some participants who had finished their 2.5-mile swim, were nearly done their 120-mile bike ride, and still had to do a full 26-mile marathon before their day was done. Tannis checked the site for results when we got home and we saw this clip:
"The crowd goes wild for the local hero: The crowd here is going crazy in anticipation of the first local winner of Subaru Ironman Canada! Tom Evans, a dentist who is only practicing one day a week in order to train, has seen all that training pay off with a win here today!"
I'm blown away by the obvious lifestyle focus of anyone who can even attempt this grueling event, but there's something really compelling about a guy who only works one day a week so he can prepare for his races. I think that's lifestylism.

3 comments:

E said...

hee hee - I was even more impressed - the first time I read that, I thought it meant that he was only *training* one day a week...

It almost gave me hope that I might be able to run that marathon someday!

Jeremy said...

HA haha...it does seem like that if you're skimming. That's why I put in the clarifier. I suppose it helps to have a job that pays a hundred bucks or so an hour. I think we'd all be happy to be able to live on working one day a week...although I've seen studies that find that people would always work more for more money, rather than maximizing the time they have to do the things they enjoy. The Anti-Lifestylism League!

Jeremy said...

I heard another couple of blurbs about this Tom Evans guy on the radio. He competed in last year's very smokey ironman while on evacuation alert -- his Naramata home was in danger of being burned by our nasty forest fires. I think he got second last year.

Apparently he also used to run a whitewater rafting business in Golden -- methinks he's the prototypical lifestylist.