blot out the world or live in it?

Time for me to get the latest tri-magazine/modern world blues off my chest, I suppose, and I'll lead into it with the 'two clocks' theory, which has its foundation in the work of that well-known triathlete Albert Einstein. When you're dealing with a long workout, problems tend to be a result of the you having two clocks to refer to. Consider an evening spent with someone you are falling in love with: it will seem to pass in an instant. That moment when you both look at your watches as the waiters pointedly start putting chairs on tables, when you both gasp in mock amazement at how the time has flown, and catch each other's eye in acknowledgement of how human chemistry has warped time. (Next is a cab home, and make it snappy...) Your own clock and the one in the restaurant were at odds, but the odds were in your favour.

Now, at some stage in a 5-hour ride, when your crotch is sore, you might be a little irritated when what feels like three hours of elapsed time turns out to be two. Since in general we tend to look at the segments of our days passing by in fairly short time-frames, this primal capacity to accept time for what it is is one we find difficult to apply.

Ideally we would like every activity or session we embark on to seem like a pleasurable and comfortable expenditure of time. Not long and boring, nor over too quickly to experience it. Both clocks in synch. And one of the key ways to achieve this is by association, which, as any sports psychologist will tell you, involves tuning in to yourself, your movement, your exertion, and your relationship with the world you are moving through. 'Etre engagé' as Camus would say. Being responsible for your own thoughts and actions instead of allowing them to be whitewashed over with a thick layer of externally manufactured input.

How do more and more people work out now? In gyms with harsh light bouncing off mirrors and polished chrome machinery, banks of TV screens set up in front of treadmills; spin, step and pump classes which resound to the thud and wail of track after track of hardcore disco; ubiquitous MP3 players plugged into the one-track minds of commuters, cyclists and runners. 'Please distract me!' sports people appear to be saying. 'I'm only exercising to avoid looking bad on the beach, not because I enjoy it, so sweeten the pill.'

Which brings me to an article whose strapline tells us that more and more triathletes are using music to aid their run performance. I believe that more and more people are using music to blot out the world and avoid having to pay any attention to what is going on in their minds and bodies. Citing one of the fastest runners in history, Haile Gebrselassie, having used music to run a fast time, or indeed any elite athlete, is disingenuous to say the least, and in the article the distinction between using music for arousal then going out and performing, and staying plugged in to an MP3 player for the duration of a workout is blurred. The former can be a good thing. The latter is denying you are alive.