Consequences

Today in church, Pastor talked about consequences. You know,"you reap what you sow", "the chicken always comes home to roost." "You'll get what you got, when you do what you did." What stays in Vegas never really does, Pastor said. Well I made sure I told my wife after services that I never cheated on her in Vegas.

There are consequences in our training programs. I took six months off for rehab, I can't expect to run a PR at a local race. You can't be a balanced triathlete by focusing on hammering a great bike and run but neglect swimming. You'll flounder in the water and no matter how fast you are you will not catch up.

I felt like I ran a good race yesterday. But by yesterday afternoon I was a zombie, asleep on my feet. I have run 8K's on a daily bases while putting in 10-12 hour days at work but the whole 'race day' mentality and anxiety really had me drained afterwards.

There is something about a race day that really gets the adrenaline up. Even when your over trained your body goes through a range of reactions you don't even know exsist. Dr. John Maxwell calls it "lifting your lid". At Officer Candidate School its called "Expanding Your Stress Envelope". Whatever you term it, competition is good because it shows you your weaknesses. My weakness yesterday was that I overtrained last year, did not listen to my body, ignored pain and as a consequence was forced into rehab for several months.

Now back to Pastor. He said God will show you grace when you ask him to forgive you for your actions but God will make you pay the consequences. Well I got some of that payback yesterday when the old man in the white knee high socks with two red stripes at the top, wearing a Nike shirt and short combo I would swear he bought in the 70's past me in the last half mile. God may have shown me grace and healed my shoulder, and made me strong enough to race yesterday but he has a twisted sense of humor showing me consequences for training too hard a year ago.