Psalm 37

So...I get to blog again today cause my job is doing nothing thus far this morning. I've been pretty productive: set up online giving, filled application for FE, written thank you notes, emailed peeps, and blogged!

If you've haven't picked up on my blog, faith is a big part of my triathlon experience. God has been a great "motivator" I guess you can say, and the reason I quotation that is cause it sounds cliche but I say that because I've lately seen the relationship between Christ and training. For example as hard as it is for me to get up at 5 in the morning and go swim, its just as hard to make sure every day I spend time with Jesus. In my head I know it will help me in the end, it plants a seed to grow. With both training and Jesus every time we do quiet time or workout we sometimes expect to learn something huge or accomplish a new goal. However most of the time its just planting a seed that will be a great harvest in the future. With so much going on at the beginning of the summer my quiet times quickly faded. And although life wasn't going bad, it wasn't like I was on cloud 9, I felt complacent, and that was the problem when in a relationship with God you never want that, and I knew I needed to get back on track and spend time with God daily. I knew I might not have a big ah ha moment everyday but I knew it was planting a seed.

I think what God as taught me the most this week is just to find ulimate joy in Him. We read Psalm 37 last night in Collegelife, which is one of my favorite Psalms, and it was great, it was a gentle reminder that I will be OK no matter what. What I must do is just find ultimate joy in Christ and put nothing else ahead of Him. But Gah that is so hard to do, I always want Christ and ... but that's my goal, to always LOVE Christ for what he's done for me, and just delight myself in Him, find joy in just Him and what he's given me. So many times we are caught up in theology and cross referencing the bible we forget the simplicity of God too. Sometimes we just need that rest in Him to get us going again, and that certianly has also been the case this week. I have enjoyed being able to be still and wait on God in his timing, I might have not been patient all the time, but I'm trying to trust God with all my heart even when it seems impossible, whether that be triathlon training or my life's circumstances.

Psalm 37
1 [a] Do not fret because of evil men
or be envious of those who do wrong;

2 for like the grass they will soon wither,
like green plants they will soon die away.

3 Trust in the LORD and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

4 Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

5 Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him and he will do this:

6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when men succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.

8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret—it leads only to evil.

9 For evil men will be cut off,
but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.

10 A little while, and the wicked will be no more;
though you look for them, they will not be found.

11 But the meek will inherit the land
and enjoy great peace.

12 The wicked plot against the righteous
and gnash their teeth at them;

13 but the Lord laughs at the wicked,
for he knows their day is coming.

14 The wicked draw the sword
and bend the bow
to bring down the poor and needy,
to slay those whose ways are upright.

15 But their swords will pierce their own hearts,
and their bows will be broken.

16 Better the little that the righteous have
than the wealth of many wicked;

17 for the power of the wicked will be broken,
but the LORD upholds the righteous.

18 The days of the blameless are known to the LORD,
and their inheritance will endure forever.

19 In times of disaster they will not wither;
in days of famine they will enjoy plenty.

20 But the wicked will perish:
The LORD's enemies will be like the beauty of the fields,
they will vanish—vanish like smoke.

21 The wicked borrow and do not repay,
but the righteous give generously;

22 those the LORD blesses will inherit the land,
but those he curses will be cut off.

23 If the LORD delights in a man's way,
he makes his steps firm;

24 though he stumble, he will not fall,
for the LORD upholds him with his hand.

25 I was young and now I am old,
yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging bread.

26 They are always generous and lend freely;
their children will be blessed.

27 Turn from evil and do good;
then you will dwell in the land forever.

28 For the LORD loves the just
and will not forsake his faithful ones.
They will be protected forever,
but the offspring of the wicked will be cut off;

29 the righteous will inherit the land
and dwell in it forever.

30 The mouth of the righteous man utters wisdom,
and his tongue speaks what is just.

31 The law of his God is in his heart;
his feet do not slip.

32 The wicked lie in wait for the righteous,
seeking their very lives;

33 but the LORD will not leave them in their power
or let them be condemned when brought to trial.

34 Wait for the LORD
and keep his way.
He will exalt you to inherit the land;
when the wicked are cut off, you will see it.

35 I have seen a wicked and ruthless man
flourishing like a green tree in its native soil,

36 but he soon passed away and was no more;
though I looked for him, he could not be found.

37 Consider the blameless, observe the upright;
there is a future [b] for the man of peace.

38 But all sinners will be destroyed;
the future [c] of the wicked will be cut off.

39 The salvation of the righteous comes from the LORD;
he is their stronghold in time of trouble.

40 The LORD helps them and delivers them;
he delivers them from the wicked and saves them,
because they take refuge in him.

Slump

No I'm not talking about the slump test you do for concrete...although those are pretty cool, if you make a good concrete mix. Sorry lame Civil Engineering joke. What I'm speaking of is the kinda funk I've been in for the past two weeks. As much as I love this sport I feel like there comes a time when you have to take a break in your training. This same thing happened with me when preparing for the marathon relay about week 6 I hit a wall and just hated training, I wasn't having any fun...so I took a break for 4 days and was back to running and loved it again.

The same thing happened this past week...this time I got to week 8 though, so I'm improving to say the least haha. I've read a lot about overtraining from the spring and thought it might be that, and I guess it could be. But lately I've just felt like I kept on going and going. Now if you really knew me you'd know that I love me sleep, but in a weird way, I can't sleep more than oh 9 hours, but also I get upset if I'm no in bed early enough to where I'll get less than 7. So needless to say I get me rest each night....ahhhh so great. However I've see that this is really just temporary, I've seen patterns in my life where you can go and go and go for weeks on a time, but eventually life will catch up to you. And I think thats what happened, so what did I do, I prioritized. I was kinda down about not seeing friends and such so I moved them up in time I spent and just chilled out the last week. I put in some tri training but not a lot. Needless to say this week I feel very rested and ready to go hard in any workout. Sunday I did a 50 min tempo run (25 warmup: 20 tempo: 5 cool down) not going to lie it sucked, but I know it helped. Then monday I did a spin class....oh guuu... That was hard I think I flooded the floor with sweat in just the warmup...my shirt (which wasn't even cotton) had to be dried out by the bathing suit dryer haha. And this morning I got the joy of finally putting in 2000m in the pool. So I think I'm back on my way to great potential for the fall to finish my first Olympic distance tri!!!

I got 1st Place

Ok granted it wasn't really a real race, but I soaked it up for the 20 secs after I crossed the line. This was more of a fun run so really it never counted. But Fleet Feet put on a great even last night where we tried out a new timing chip for a local company and they got to just test results stuff. So the idea was we guessed our time and tried to see how close we were to our time. Most people just went out and did a training run...me being the overacheiver was one of the only few that went for race pace. Honestly all I wanted to do is see how fast my 5 k run time had gotten. I guessed I would be at 23:15. Thoughts being that I may have not focused on running lately but with speed workouts and a higher VO2 I could do better. Well needless to say I got with in 10.3 secs of my time! And we all got free DriMax Socks woot woot. My final time was 23:04, I was impressed with myself. I hope to see if I can shave off 30 more seconds which I think is very possible considering it was 85* out. But I thought it was a great improvement - thats a 1 min 35 sec improvement from my 5k in March. Hopefully my trend will continue like it did in swimming back with Clay at Crestwood, every race was a PR for me cause I was so new to the sport.