"Important Stuff"

Yeah, this exercise, this training stuff, is such a big waste of time. Yesterday, I had to work on my old tractor. I was under that old thing for five or six hours, alternately doing isometric, half-crunches to get to those hidden, hard to reach parts. Work is done and this morning I am not sore except in the spots that bled yesterday. Many decades ago, I quit being a spring chicken and I can still do this. All that time wasted out on the roads when I could be doing "important stuff."

Age has also taught me that capability is one of the treasure in life worth preserving, worth fighting yourself for. I am no great athlete and certainly no tractor mechanic, but I have sense enough to know that movement, exercise, commitment, and consistency promote a foundational capability to all other areas of life. Yeah, training really is "important stuff."

Days in the Shade on the Side of the Road

That dog that has been on my bike and run course for years, was strangely missing for a few days. I have written about my canine friend here before. He is sort of my dog too and he seemed to be missing. A little more absenteeism and I was going to ask the residents what happened to our dog.

Out on the bike a couple days ago, I saw my old friend, not barking or charging out upon the road to demand attention, but sitting in the shade on the side of the road, wagging his tail. How strange, I thought. So, I got off the road, and gave my old friend some TLC, after which he slowly walked back to his yard. Strange again. Perhaps, he is finally too old.? He does have the gray muzzle and has been on this road for about a decade. Perhaps, he has heartworms, or something else that doesn't let him feel good?

Some days I am like that myself, though. People see me beat up, burned down, and probably wonder if I am finally too old. Do I have some disease or whatever?

But wait! Today, I rode by that house several times and each time, the dog met me with that barking, tail wagging charge, onto the road, I have grown to expect and appreciate. Each time, I stopped and gave him the TLC he was holding me up for.

Today, I had a great ride, I bore into the gusting winds, and charged the long hills, surprising even myself. And this comes following several days of lethargic training. I guess I have had my day in the shade on the side of the road as well.

Today, we are still standing, still charging, and the passion of life still courses through our veins. I know this can't last forever for us, but this day, ah! this day, we lived well.

Small Choices

The war with the self is won in the trenches. The discipline of the training is maintained by many, seemingly small, decisions: to get out on the road though it may be a little cold, to go to bed instead of watching a late night movie because you have an early training day, and so on.

I don't want to train lots of times, and I can find a thousand excuses not to. But my greatest growth has been when I made a small decision to take that first step toward training that day, and then the next. The big bang moments get de-fizzed and leave me flat, but the many seemingly colorless decisions, made consistently over time, have brought me to places I never thought I could attain.

And so, training can become a metaphor for life. We grow and journey toward becoming, through many small choices. But often, in looking back, I find that they really weren't small choices at all.

Hope Looks Up

When really tired, I run like someone boxing a very short person: all hunched up, looking down. Lately, I have been trying to improve my fatigued running style. Bad part of that is: I have to get really fatigued to work on it.

It is taking extreme measures to overcome this awful running style, so I play games upon myself. When I feel my body start to creep into hunched position, I fight back by pulling my cap down low over my eyes. No, I can't see where I am going unless I look up. But my head must tilt back to view the road. When I do, I seem to feel an imaginary string pulling my head up. My other body parts then seem reminded and inspired. The shoulders go back, the hips go forward, and the scuff, scuff is taken out of my step. And it all started by looking up.

Sometime life gets as tiring as the last miles of a long run, and we might be slogging along on a scuffing survival march, looking down, hardly aware of where we might be going. But, hope looks up. Perhaps we were made and set here to give expression of this Hope, so that others may feel reminded and inspired to become part of that Hope God has set within us. Hope looking up may just take the scuff-scuff from our journey.

Finding the Defrag Zone

It happens sometimes. Something just seems to click. The mind, body, and Spirit seem to sing the same tune in harmony, and training just goes into a zone. This week, there have been two such sessions. Out there alone on the road, with minimal traffic, it all seemed to come together.  like I hit that special button and life does a defrag. I was blessed and I keenly felt it. 

Sometimes I think the miles of this journey are as much about finding that button, finding that defrag zone, as it is about the events themselves.  Thank you God for those perfect moments.

The Stone Was Rolled Away

The same winds that have been pushing the Texas wildfires, pushed against my bike and I this morning. For a couple weeks now my training has been less than mediocre. My rides have been short, mostly on an indoor trainer. Sometimes, in times like these, I wonder if I have anything left, mentally or physically. Oh, I have been doing enough to maintain fitness and well-being. It is a signal of serious slippage, when I start thinking of only doing enough training for fitness.

I went to the course with the hills this morning, and rode generally south, mostly into the gusting winds. Today will tell, I thought. About two miles and the hills began. The first one wasn't all that bad. There were several more, and the wind is rocking the pine trees all around me. I can't hear much but the wind. The next hill, the next and I am smiling some. The last hill and I know: it is still there! Yes, thank you God! It was as if on the eve of Resurrection Sunday, when we celebrate that "death has lost and Life has won," that I had been resurrected myself. The stone to the tomb my training had been in, was rolled away on that windy, hilly course.

Tomorrow, we get up early to watch the sunrise, to praise, to worship, to celebrate, that the stone was rolled away for us all.

Need Chocolate !

This urge, this craving; all I seem to think about in quieter moments is the taste of creamy milk chocolate. No, I don't swoon over the healthy dark stuff. I want the down and dirty chocolate, the simple sugar rush.

I have been here before and generally just go on a milk chocolate binge for an hour or so, until I can't stand it anymore. Then I go into confession mode, repent, and back on track. Just another mile of the journey.