100+ Audiobooks

Shortly after I started riding my bike to work, it dawned on me that I should try to find something productive to do during the two hours a day I was spending commuting to and from work.  When I drove to work, my options were limited basically to just listening to music or the radio.  When I rode the Metro to work, I could play games on my iPod while listening to music or whatever, or I could read the newspaper or a book.  Luckily for me I don’t get motion sick very easily so I could spend the entire time on the Metro reading, even while the train was underground.  When I switched over to biking though – something that didn’t shorten or extend the amount of time I spent commuting, it just changed my commute from stressful to satisfying and rewarding – I basically just listened to music the whole time on my iPod.  This was cool at first, but after a few weeks or maybe even a month, it just hit me: “I’m listening to the same songs on the same playlists everyday…what a waste of time!”

I had heard and seen countless ads on the Internet for Audible.com, a website that sells audiobooks, and I immediately knew that I should give this a try - and the rest is history.  I started listening to audiobooks and haven't ever stopped.  I got free audiobooks from lots of places: the Alexandria library, the Arlington library, both libraries' online selection of audiobooks which could be downloaded instantly, audible.com (almost always through free promotional offers), and I even bought a few.  I've learned that just about any book is out there for free through one library system or another, or through Audible’s never ending promotions. 

A few weeks ago, I hit the 100 book mark, but have already gone through another four or five since then.  It’s amazing how many books I am able to listen to by just using the time I spend commuting listening to books instead of music.  I find listening to books to be an extremely rewarding experience.  I know not everyone would benefit from listening to books as much as I do – some people can’t focus on audiobooks as well as if they were reading the physical book.  Fortunately I don’t have any issues listening to and following the books I listen to.  In some ways, it is even better than reading the physical book.  This is because there is no skimming or glossing over sections when you're listening to an unabridged audiobook, you have to hear and experience each and every word the author decided to include in the book.  Furthermore, when it is the author himself reading the book (which is rare but not unheard of), you get to experience the book with all the emotion and intonation of voice that the author himself had in mind while writing the book.  All in all, I truly love listening to audiobooks.  Deciding to get into audiobooks was almost as good of an idea as starting to bike into work was. 

More Triathlon Milestones

For the first time, I swam 6 miles this week.  That doesn't sound like very much, now that I am actually typing it out on the computer.  I went to the pool before work three times this week and swam 3,200 meters (2 miles).  I hadn't ever swam this much in one week. 

In regards to my running and biking training that I have been doing, I also recently met major milestones.  A couple weeks ago, I reached the 1,000 mile mark for miles ran this year.  Last week, I hit the 6,000 mile mark for cycling.  Since then, I have already biked another couple hundred miles. 

My motivation for my third Ironman distance Triathlon in a little over a month remains solid; although I will be glad when I don't have to worry about getting all the swimming work-outs in.  Swimming is the one aspect of Triathlon that I still struggle with.  In my swim this morning for example, I was pretty tired.  I had woken up at 4:00 am and ridden 13 miles to get to the pool with enough time to swim 32 laps (it is an Olympic distanec pool) before having to bike 5 miles to work (I will also bike 14 miles home from work today as well).   

I am not sure why I struggle finding the motivation to work hard and improve at swimming because I actually do think its fun.  My best guess is that it is because swimming is the hardest of the three sports that make up Triathlon.  This is sort of a strange phenomenon to me.  The swimming portion of an Ironman is 2.4 miles, and the time limit to be finish that leg of the race is 2 hours and 10 minutes.  This is by far the shortest part of the race, in both distance and time.  Nevertheless, I find it to be the hardest sport (out of running, biking, and swimming) to make significant improvements in.  It is not that hard to shave off a few or even a lot of minutes off of a marathon run, if you are willing to put in the effort.  In terms of biking, the time it takes to bike 112 miles will dramatically improve if you just stay consistent and train for it -- or at least this has been the case for me.  Swimming is just so technical though.  If I work my tail off, train and really push myself in the pool, I would be lucky to shave off a few minutes from my 2 mile swim workout.  I guess that's the way the sport of swimming is though; afterall, in the Olympics world records are set when swimmers make improvements of just hundreths of seconds.