Countdown to Triathlon – 158 Days, 22.71 weeks to Race Day (See Installment 72 of "The Journey", 220 mile bike ride, below)

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - (This is a repeat) - "If you haven't quit, you haven't failed!"  I haven't quit yet!!!

I'm still having terrible pain in my arm and cannot swim yet.  I'm going to walk Roxi today and try to gradually get going on the training again.  If I can't start doing some real training soon, I'll not be able to participate in the triathlon. 


The Journey - Installment Seventy-Two

        At this time, just a week or so before the ride, I was still getting physical therapy for my knees.  I was doing the exercises at home and praying that the knees would cooperate.  The physical therapist recommended that I not ride the week before and that was really worrying me because if I didn't keep riding, what would the knees do for the three-day ride?   Would they feel better and allow me to ride without so much pain because they had rested a week?  Or, would they be stiff and make riding harder to do than it already had become?  In my heart, I knew I needed to keep riding.  I continued to go the the therapist and do the exercises he recommended.  He gave me  battery-operated muscle stimulators which I would put on each knee when I began the ride.  As I think back, why didn't I get extra batteries?  The batteries only lasted one day.  I continued riding alone but chose some different routes than I normally rode.  The ride was coming up in only one week.  I couldn't believe that the time was almost upon me.  I continued to sing my song as I rode, "Change My Heart Oh Lord!" and to remember the verse my drapery customer gave me,
Proverbs 3:5:
 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

And lean not on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge Him

And He will make your paths straight.”

My husband Bob said this ride was a real significant episode in our lives and was a very significant way to begin our summer.  He sees a message in this event and won’t tell me what he thinks it is until he feels that I have discovered it for myself.  He feels if we cannot understand or learn from what God is teaching us then it is better that we do not attempt the project.  I don’t agree with him that we shouldn’t attempt the project.  We all learn differently and at different rates.  Some of us are slower learners than others but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t allow God to lead us into projects.  We will learn what He wants us to learn when the time is right.  I hope that at the end of this ride I will have discovered the answer for myself.

As I rode, I also kept saying my motto of the ride over and over - "The power behind me is greater than the task ahead of me” and kept repeating "Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power." Ephesians 6:10 .  All these reminders helped as I rode along the road outside Hughson and in the country. This all sounds like a lot of talking to myself, and it was. However, when I was riding out in the country, there wasn't a soul to hear me but the birds.  And I had not seen even one dead bird since the last one on the Sunday when I told God I didn't need any more dead birds.  Obviously, He took me at my word.