If there’s one resource every hybrid athlete wishes they had more of, it’s time. I originally wrote this out in September, and can't believe it's already December. My baby is almost two years old, and soon we'll have another little rugrat keeping us up at night. Training, recovery, travel, nutrition, family, work—everything is pulling at your schedule. And unlike calories or protein intake, you can’t simply “add” more time into your day. That makes time the single most valuable asset you have.

But here’s the twist: you can change the way you experience it. Time doesn’t always feel the same—sometimes it flies by, sometimes it crawls. The science of perception shows us that how we pay attention determines how we experience time. And for hybrid athletes who train hard, travel often, and compete in races around the world, learning how to savor time could be the secret to both better performance and deeper life satisfaction.

Why Time Feels Like It Slips Away

Psychologists call it “time perception.” Your brain isn’t a clock—it processes time based on novelty, attention, and emotional engagement. When your days look the same—same gym, same run route, same office commute—your brain compresses the memory, making it feel like it passed faster than it actually did.

A 2013 study in Psychological Science showed that new experiences stretch our perception of time because the brain encodes more detail. That’s why traveling to your first HYROX or Spartan race felt like the weekend lasted forever, but by your third or fourth trip, it starts to blur together.

For athletes, this has massive implications. If your training, racing, and even travel all feel like they’re flying by, you might miss the richness of the experience. Worse, the sense of “lost time” can add stress, as if you’re constantly chasing the clock.

Making Time Slow Down: The Athlete’s Advantage

The good news? Athletes are wired to experience time differently. Training itself—especially in endurance and hybrid sports—can create a flow state, where time feels suspended. Neuroscientist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (yes, it’s a mouthful, but it's cool, we're friends) described flow as the state of total absorption in an activity, where minutes can feel like hours and hours can feel like minutes.

Runners know this as the “runner’s high.” Business owners call this "deep work." Rowers, lifters, and racers all experience it too when training hits that sweet spot of challenge and skill. It's all the same shit. These flow states don’t just feel good—they literally change how you perceive time.

But you don’t need to wait for flow to happen accidentally. By designing your training and race travel with intention, you can make time feel slower and fuller.

Strategies to Savor Time as a Hybrid Athlete

1.Inject Novelty into Training

Your brain encodes new experiences more deeply. That means if every training day looks identical, your weeks will blur together. Add variety:

• Switch up your run route.

• Train in a new gym or with a new partner.

• Try a different style of interval workout.

Even small changes can stretch your sense of time and make training feel more memorable. But don't change it too much. Keeping things the same ensures that you'll keep progressing weight or intensity. Changing accessories is okay, but keep the meat and potatoes of your training the same.

2.Practice “Slow Travel” to Races

When you’re flying to a race, it’s tempting to treat it like a business trip: get in, race, get out. But the athletes who feel like they’re truly “living” this sport take the time to soak in the experience. Instead of rushing, give yourself moments to pause:

• Walk around the city you’re racing in.

• Journal about your pre-race mindset.

• Have a meal with fellow athletes.

These don’t just make for good memories—they expand your perception of time.

3.Mindful Training and Recovery

Mindfulness isn’t just for yoga—it’s a performance enhancer. A 2018 study in Frontiers in Psychology showed mindfulness practices reduce stress and improve athletes’ ability to stay present during training and competition. By anchoring your awareness in the moment—whether during a tough sled push or while foam rolling post-run—you make time feel fuller, not faster.

Try this: During your next long run, focus on one sense for a few minutes (the sound of your breath, the feeling of your feet hitting the ground, or the scenery around you). It’s a simple way to savor time and focus on one step in front of the other.

4.Celebrate Micro-Moments

Big milestones—like hitting a new PR or finishing a race—are easy to remember. But life is mostly made up of the in-between. Celebrate the micro-moments:

• The first sip of coffee before training.

• That feeling of chalk on your hands before a heavy lift.

• Laughing with a friend mid-workout.

Pausing to notice these makes them stand out in your memory, stretching your sense of time. Small victories add up over time.

The Science of Savoring

What you’re really doing here is engaging your hippocampus—the part of the brain responsible for memory and time perception. Research shows that when you slow down and pay attention, your hippocampus encodes richer memories. Those richer memories make time feel longer in hindsight.

For hybrid athletes, this means your life as an athlete doesn’t have to blur into a cycle of train-race-recover-repeat. Instead, each season, each trip, and each workout can feel longer, more vibrant, and more meaningful.

Time as a Performance Enhancer

There’s another angle here: when time feels slower, you perform better. Athletes in high-stress situations (think carrying a sandbag up a mountain or grinding through the HYROX wall balls) often report that “time slowed down.” This isn’t just a perception—it’s your brain’s heightened attention kicking in. Training your ability to slow down time through mindfulness, novelty, and presence can help you respond better under race stress.

Final Thoughts

Time is the most valuable asset you have—not just in training, but in life. You can’t buy more of it, but you can change how you experience it. As a hybrid athlete, you’ve already trained your body to push through walls, lift heavy, and run far. Now, train your mind to stretch time, savor the moments, and make every race, every trip, every lift last.

Because in the end, it’s not just about how many races you run—it’s about how fully you lived them.

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