Following the 'Chart' or giving my Best ...?

One might think that having been on this early morning routine for over a month now, it would be almost an autopilot activity, but Sunday nights and Monday mornings usually are not.  Last night and this morning were no exception; what I continue to learn is that even regular disciplines still require discipline.

I know that I have to get all my clothes and gear ready the night before, so that in the morning when I get up I just have to get dressed, make a water bottle and carry the rest of my gear to the garage (it's important that I do the mental work the night before as the brain is a few steps behind in the wee hours of first getting up).  This morning I forgot to put my HRM with my stuff and had to come back in to retrieve it. Last evening I put my bike back on the trainer - after taking the trainer apart in hopes that a good cleaning would return it to it's 'new' working condition.  

As I reflect on it - there is a fair bit of work and time required just to be able to start the exercise Monday morning. All the work and busyness can get the focus off of the exercise and on the preparation or even just on completing the 'time' of exercise with out giving proper thought to the 'quality' of that time. This morning on the bike it was a struggle to work very hard - the excuses were plentiful, but thankfully they were identified as just excuses. For me it was a struggle to 'give my best' - which is what I want most, even more than obedience to my training schedule.  So I put in the 60 minutes on the bike (obedience to the schedule), but more importantly a portion of that time was wanting to not just complete the time but push hard and give some of my best effort. That was good and appropriate. Not only is intensity required for improvement physically in our activities, but it seems to be required mentally as well - to push ourselves to give 100% taxes so much more than our physical bodies, it gets into the core of who we really are and even want to be.  

So this morning on the bike in the garage, listening to the audio book "Walking with God" by John Eldredge, it was a good time of deeper personal thought and reflection.  I do enjoy exercising, but I don't want to exercise for only the sake of exercise.  For me I want it to be an offering to my God - an expression of who I am.  I want to give my best.  Like David said about not offering anything to God that cost him nothing; or how he danced before God with all his might and strength - so to I desire that my exercise be a pleasing offering and sacrifice to God.  Not an end to itself, 

but a part of a whole life desiring to be pleasing to God.

After my time on the bike this morning I was able to get in my new reduced weight routine.  With the quantity of time much reduced it was nice to have a renewed focus and intensity for that time of sacrificing, of giving my best ...

Much of my thoughts this morning were on the 6 day ride and even bigger, on the purpose of it and our role as riders 

- as those going before, in a very real sense preparing the way. It is costing me something already: time, energy, money, commitment, perseverance, sacrifice, ... much like it will cost those of the DRC who follow.  It's a worthy task.

So I started and will now end this posting with a picture of a flower and a thought: don't be so distracted or upset by what isn't - that you miss what is.