That's exactly how I feel about powerlifting. Once you get to a certain level, the attention to detail, specificity, and focus you need to progress are great analogues to other areas such as programming or entrepreneurship. It's become my personal meditation time where I disconnect from everything else and focus intensely on optimization and improvement.

If anyone is interested, this book has given me a vastly different perspective on things like exercise (or in parent's case, martial arts): http://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfill... When put in that perspective, I think exercise would greatly appeal to most hackers.