I got off to an early (5:30 AM) start on my Ironman training last Friday, 100 mile bike ride followed by a 19 mile run. The temperature was low enough early on, but by run time (11:30 AM) it was mid 90's and the heat index was approaching 100. I was fine through mile 17, but then it hit me - my run slowed to a shuffle, I had no water left and I was dehydrating. I could sense the initial signs of heat stroke. I was out on the Mountains to Sea Trail and still had two long miles to go.....at that point two miles seemed like twenty. I was also bonking - in endurance sports, particularly cycling and running, hitting the wall or bonking is a condition caused by the depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles, which manifests itself by precipitous fatigue and loss of energy. The combination of dehydrating and bonking isn't pretty, and it's rarely something from which one recovers once either sets in.
Fortunately I found a small creek, and I stumbled down into it. I drank from it and sat in it for several minutes until I regained some sense of coherence. I knew I had to finish the run no matter how long it took or how hard it was. Staying put simply wasn't an option. So I gathered myself together pulled my body out of the creek and pressed on. It wasn't pretty, but I finished the run. I re-learned several lessons that day - you'd think after 25 years training and competing I'd have committed most of them to memory - but we often repeat our mistakes despite fully knowing in advance how things have played out in the past. Crazy, but clearly a human condition. I knew it was hot, I knew one water bottle wouldn't get me through 2 1/2 hours of running, and I knew hitting the trail would keep me from clean drinking water or a store where I could have bought some Gatorade to refuel. And yet I still ventured out on a 19 mile out and back run on a 90+ degree day after biking 100 miles and carrying only 16 ounces of water.
We do the same things every day as we go about living out life. We make decisions knowing full well the past result, expecting a different outcome or perhaps realizing we'll get the same outcome but momentarily rationalizing it just the same. We belong to a God who allows us the freedom to keep making those irrational decisions but fully expects us to eventually learn from the fall-out caused by our poor judgement. We can't stay where we are and still finish the race. We can't expect to keep making the same mistakes, carrying those same burdens, and still grow towards and in His likeness. It's just not possible. And if we stay well connected to our Lord and Savior, He simply won't let us stay where we are. He wants us to get up, dust ourselves off, move on and finish the run.
"Let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us" - Hebrews 12:1
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