Ironman - The Journey - Week Two

Sometimes it still hard to believe that am on this journey. Today is about six months to Ironman Texas. Six months of training one notch above anything I have ever done. If someone would have asked me what would be my personal dream six months ago - besides world peace and stuff like that - I would have wished for 6 months of over-my-head training to an Ironman. I am blessed. Week two was no smack-down training week but considering I had vehicle repairs and Thanksgiving thrown in: it wasn't all that bad. I am not overly fatigued and that is good because I have a pretty tough week scheduled. In the mix this week is a doctor appt for my wife, but I have scheduled all that in. My job is to work the plan; follow the schedule. My overall plan is to focus on accomplishing one week at a time; knowing there will be obstacles regularly strewn across my path. This isn't supposed to easy; if I am to continue I will have to constantly overcome. So, I begin week three with joy, plodding forward one step at a time, depending on God to get me through or stop me cold. I will be just moving forward the best I can, the rest of it, the results, are up to God.

Thirty Years - Thanks to God: I Can Run

Today marks 30 years at this. It is hard to imagine that 30 years ago I couldn't jog a quarter of a mile. Fitting that the anniversary should be on Thanksgiving. I am so very blessed and eternally thankful. Below are some excerpts from a story I wrote about the experience. Several times when I was young I came close to dying from asthma, pneumonia, or the medication itself. Many times I really wondered if I was going to be able to take that next breath I had no shoes to run in so I laced up my hunting boots and started a slow jog down the dirt road in front of my house. I was going to run the quarter mile to the end of that road if it killed me. It very nearly did. In fact, after only a few moments, after less than a hundred yards, I was bent over with my hands on my knees, seriously struggling for air. Asthma had beaten me again. To think that I did all that, yet knowing all the time I am really nothing special, just a no talent, ordinary person who hung on. I am so grateful! I feel so blessed!! May I never lose that childlike wonderment at all this. May I never forget that first frustrating Thanksgiving morning in 1982. But even more importantly, may I never forget to give God the thanks, that I can run!!

Journey of Adventure: Week 1

I love it, this ironman training. such a challenge to get all this training in. Such a challenge to sift through life's moments to try to choose the most important to do with what time and life force I have. Such a challenge to say no to the tempting "good" things to do with myself, and say yes to the best thing I should be doing. The challenge seems to involve an ongoing personal audit, beginning with introspection and ending in prayer. I did OK in week one; not great but pretty good; a learning experience. This is not going to be easy. And, I can see the need to develop more focus, a tougher mind. It will come, along with the thrill of this journey of adventure with all its unknowns, scaring me some, drawing me closer to God. I prayed a lot out on the roads that my efforts might not be ego-bound, but truly be for the Glory of God. And, I prayed for a strength and endurance I do not have. But, my prayers brought realization of those in tougher straits than I: those that are hurting, or going through terrible trials, those that have serious health issues. And my prayer list got long as I contemplated their struggles while I was blessed to be out on the roads reveling in life. So, I pray for a person from this tree to the sign post or something like that, and then pray for another between this marker and that, and so on. When the list is completed, repeat. As I begin week 2, I feel so blessed for these days and this opportunity even though I am really not that good at this sport. But, heh, its all good. Emanuel: God is with us.

Miles of the Journey: Ready to Be Offered

Miles of the Journey: Ready to Be Offered: Beginnings can be a little scary sometimes. Beginning my ironman training today, carries some worry baggage into this day. Last year I ha...

Ready to Be Offered

Beginnings can be a little scary sometimes. Beginning my ironman training today, carries some worry baggage into this day. Last year I had signed up for this same ironman event and cancelled my quest about a month in. Wife was sick, my mother in the nursing home had some problems. I got a URI. All that, and I just lost heart. Something is especially scary about this new adventure. This year, my mother in the nursing home had a minor operation, my wife has been sick for almost a month. Again, I got a URI in October. And, right in the middle of all that - some of the things that broke my spirit last year - I signed up for Ironman Texas. There seems to be a different resolve, and a no-matter focus this time that can be scary too, and take me unto my own undoing. But, I have prayed and prayed about this, and feel the calling to step out in faith; to go forward into the teeth of all that seems reasonable to fear. So it begins today. When I get up from this computer, I will go outside and run. Who knows where the run, the journey will take me - prayerfully, hopefully, to the finish line. It is out of my hands. I give it all to God. Take me, break me, or let me lift my hands under the banner of the finish line in praise. I am ready to begin: ready to be offered. And when I push beyond myself, when my steps grow weary toward despair, continue to carry me on, that I might finish this race with grateful humility. In Jesus' Name---Amen From Miles of the Journey: This Triathlete's Prayer - http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5768864484024943517#editor/target=post;postID=8807813372005395687

There All the Time

It was there all the time. The storm clouds covered us all afternoon. Then, in late afternoon, the clouds opened up and the sun's light burst forth in an instant. The sun had been there all the time. In spite of what I call my own limitations to do an Ironman; in spite of my own storms that sometimes keep me inside myself, in spite: there is the light, waiting for the moment, in the "fulness of time" to burst forth and put forth rout to all that is that would keep our souls in hiding; to give light, to shed hope on all that is possible. Beyond our clouds, and through our storms, is an overarching Radiance above us.