The agony of faithlessness

Today, Monday, is Memorial Day, and a holiday from work.

About 2 pm, I take the rollers and the track stand to nearby school track. My plan is to pedal at least one hour and run after that. The weather is about 80 degrees and partly sunny.

Yesterday I put a cyclecomputer onto my bicycle. So, riding the rollers, I would have the display to look at and the timer.

I decided to ride the rollers first. The first ten minutes went by without much strain. I was happy about that. I took a break for water at 20 minutes, and again at 40 minutes. About a minute & 1/2 each, and I remain on the bicycle, just stop pedaling. Plus a short stop in pedaling at 30 minutes.

The last twenty minutes I stopped a couple of times. Turned a bigger gear some of the time. Why this is so hard I can't understand.

But, I will say, today, I began to wonder why I am struggling to train. At best I'm getting in 6 hours of training per week from May 6 to June 16. And of that, only three are pedaling. That's hardly enough to ride the 117 mile Tour stage on July 8 or thereabout. On top of that, I'm pressed at work, to complete a load of tasks prior to June 30. The Etape is starting to seem a futile endeavor. And, that makes it mentally tough to train.

Then, after pedaling to about 1 hour, five minutes (extra five to account for the breaks), I stop, rest a lot, then change clothes to do as much running as I could.

And the running too was mentally difficult. I like to run. I was so slow, and on more than one occasion, I had to stop and walk. This is pitiful, discouraging. All I wanted to do was run three miles, and that with sit-up breaks in between. I did not manage even that. I walked 400 meters between miles. Worn out, feeble, exhausted, both mentally and physically.

I hope that some of this weariness was a result of not enough calories this morning. I had two Cliff Bars. But of course, I'd eaten plenty the day and evening before.

What it seemed like was that I did not have the heart and faith to do this training. Thoughts of aging, weakness, mortality and my life's purpose, along with doubts, thoughts of failures, mistakes and sins and struggles likewise about work tasks, all filled my mind and oh what torture and agony.

I said, to myself, I must call on the Lord and his word, to encourage myself in him. But in that, I have to wonder, what does he think about two hours of exercise and an attempt to ride L'Alpe d'Huez?

What a great God who has loved me and cared for me and has all wisdom and power, who hears my prayer I trust, who is near, and I will let my requests be made known unto him and trust that the peace of God will keep my mind and heart through Christ Jesus.

Sunday am run, exercise

Weather was superb this morning. I ran and exercised from about 7:30 to 8:55.

I ran to a nearby school, and there I did sit-ups and jump rope, followed by more running and then the exercise again. I do two-leg and one-leg jump rope. I can't jump rope more than about one minute on one leg. I think that this jumping is helping strenthen my legs. That's good. But it's going to take me more than one minute to ride up L'Alpe d'Huez of course.

Wed. am I go to the doctor to have my cast removed. I can wiggle my thumb and still get pain. So, it's not repaired yet.

A sermon this am by Ray Prince of Berea Baptist Church in GA. His son Matthew has been with brain tumor for about a year. He preached this morning on the fact of evil in our lives, such as a dying son. It's NOT all good. But, God works things together for good. In our deepest trials, we as believers in the God of creation and in His immutable, infallible word, we must, we can only, go to those words we know to be true. Where else can we go, "you have the words of eternal life."

Five minutes seems like ten minutes

Used to be four.

Tonight I pedaled an hour. When it seems I've pedaled ten minutes, it's really only about five. I'm getting more used to pedaling in place. Four used to seem like ten.

The rollers on Sat. were more trying. Three/three & 1/2 seemed like ten. And the last ten of an hour were torture. Not that I was pedaling that hard, simply the monotony of it and the static position on the bicycle. On the track stand, one has more options - pedal with one leg; sit upright; etc. Probably someone could do that on rollers, but not I.

Cross-training

Eq. total miles*: 579 + 34 = 613

Sat., May 20: Pedaling about 1 hr., 15 minutes - one hour of which was on rollers; plus run and exercise one hour.
Tues., May 23: Pedaling one hr., run and exercise one hour

Last week was quite busy. I think I ran once or twice in these past two weeks, without pedaling.

Management 101

I studied engineering in school. Then, out of school, I worked as a government environmental regulator. No design engineering, although I did two or three small projects that involved design.

Management as a job position never interested me. What is management anyway? I've seen the Dilbert cartoons. I know management staff are not really like that. Actually, I know there is a need for management. Okay, but I'm not interested.

I changed jobs about two years ago, and since there was no one to report to me, I figured I was safe from management responsibilities. That may be true in some sense, at present, but there are numerous projects to accomplish, most of which involve other people's work in addition to my own to make it all happen as it should. Maybe I need to learn something about management. Uggghhhh....

Get enough sleep, get exercise, follow directions, listen to my management's direction. Pray, read Proverbs, ask the Lord for wisdom, trust Him and the mind He has given me, though my mind is tainted with sin and faulty. But the Scripture says, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind.

While pedaling in place this evening, I listened to a teaching tape on management. The speaker made several points - let's see what I can remember.

- Management (of people) is essential in a business. There must be persons who don't do any work, except to oversee the work of others. One reason this is needed is that our own natures are wayward, we want to do things our own way.

- Management is, to a great extent, personal interaction with those one manages. Sure, we can have SOPs, standards, performance criteria, but people have to be personally coached and confronted with these standards.

- The manager's decisionmaking. He made an interesting point. Significant to me because I constantly second-guess myself, especially when decisions involve directing people. The manager has to make the decision or take the action that is needful, as he sees the need. This is true for all sorts of jobs and decisions. It was a significant point for me because I am quite aware of the process often in my mind - "so this is what I think, but there may be a better way, so let me get more data."

A couple of other management principles I have accessed recently, via a book and via other connections in my brain:

a. have a set of decisionmaking principles, communicate those to all levels of management and staff, and all know that we make decisions based on those principles;

b. be faithful to the law - the law might be, in fact, the local, state or federal laws that are written that regulate my work resonsibilities. In the law, at least in the case of my job, there are standards and do's and don'ts. Be faithful to accomplish those standards. So one has to take the steps that will lead to those standards.

Today, I managed to pedal one hour again. Then I ran and exercised for about 30 minutes.

I am eating a little better, but I'm not sticking to the diet that was so easy to write down a few days ago.

Eq. total miles*: 549 + 30 = 579

* This assumes 15 cycling miles for every hour pedaling on the track stand.

One hour pedaling, one hour running

Sat. I rode around my block, to consider if I would be safe to ride out on the Trace. The ride informed me that braking the right lever/rear wheel is awkward. I can do it though. Also, a couple of times I hit a bump in the road, and with my right hand and cast on on the bar, my hand got quite a jar. I could feel a twinge of pain in my thumb. (I think I am going to get a sponge of some sort to make resting places on the bar.)

So, because of those, and because of the time involved in driving out to the Trace, I stayed home and pedaled on my Rivendell on a Blackburn TrakStand. I was pleased with how well it did. I rode one hour, looking at the watch off to the side about every ten minutes, hoping 30 minutes had passed. Then I went out and ran, did sit-ups, and torso rotations, and jump rope, for about another hour.

Still hoping to ride Alpe d'Huez.

5.8 miles, jump rope

Monday, the day I took on the cast, after work I ran 5.8 miles, a good run on a loop through the park.

Wed. am I did some exercises, including jumping rope and sit-ups.

That's it for this week so far.

Maybe I spoke too soon, saying, "no road riding." Thinking about riding Sat. am on a long, straight, low-traffic parkway, the Natchez Trace, which will provide a very predictable ride. I hope I can manage that. Check my blog next time.

Now what?

There is now a cast on my right forearm in order to immobilize my right thumb. Not a broken thumb, a damaged tendon. Cast comes off end of May, to be replaced probably by a removable cast for another two weeks. No road riding during 1st three if not all five weeks. Full recovery in six to eight weeks.

Wow, now I realize how much I enjoy cycling. And how useful my right thumb is.

Also, looking at some photos of me recently, I see I have a bigger belly than I thought.

Okay, here's the deal:

Only fruit and vegetables after 6 pm on nights I don't train. No eating past 9 anyway.
No soft drinks, except diet ones. I don't like them, so there won't be many.
Fasting one day per week. Usually Sunday.
And, running and abdominal exercises.

Robert

Accident on a 75 mile ride

Miles this week: 108
Miles to date: 549

Lessons learned or reminded to me
- Don't follow too close to a rider I don't know.
- Be especially alert if riding with riders I don't know.
- Be observant of warnings.
- Don't change your plans except with good reason. See v. 23.
- This is not about chasing my brother's training miles.
- How important are all the different parts of the body to our life. See v. 15.

Okay, I don't feel much like writing, but I am thankful to be writing.

I could not go out with my brother this am, who was leaving early. Rather, I decided to attend a men's breakfast at my church. The speaker spoke about hell. Yes, hell. See at the end of this blog some of what he told us from the Scriptures.

So, I left home about 11:34. My goal was to take the same route as my brother, who left about 8:30. He was going to ride 90-100 miles. I proudly would do the same. What an opportunity to see how we compare in fitness at this point in Etape preparation.

But, I had an uneasy feeling about this plan. For one, I would be returning rather late if he did 100 miles. Of course, I was taking my cell phone and so could check up on his route.

Basically the route takes me southwest of Nashville - the Boulevard, the park, Vaughn Road, Sneed Road, the Trace to Leipers Fork, then - I will fail to remember the roads (it's the Glenn Wanner Snow Creek ride from there) - Sulphur Springs, Snow Creek, and so forth, back onto the Trace and back to Leipers Fork, then back home somehow. By that point, the somehow would most likely be the most direct.

However, I began to tag along with a couple of other riders on the Trace about one hour & thirty minutes out. Off the Trace, they offered me to join them. I hesitated, still wanting to do my brother's route. But, I was not sure at this point the exact route he had taken. And, since they were going to shorten my loop at this point in the ride by about eight miles, this would get me home quicker.

After riding with them about an hour, and I was usually in the second position, we had an accident. I went down and jammed my thumb, scraped my knuckles, and did some damage to my thumb at the fingernail. Not too bad, though the results of the thumb damage is possibly yet to be determined.

At the time of the accident, I was in third position. The rear two of us had been t alking about my bicycle (Rivendell) and had drifted behind rider no. 1 about 30 yards. As we were wrapping the conversation up, we were also closer to rider no. 1. All the sudden, rider two is hard on the brakes, rider one is stopped or nearly stopped - what is this!? We are going 22 mph or so and have an abrupt stop! My front wheel gets about a two-three inch overlap on the rear wheel of no. 2, he turns right a bit to avoid no. 1, and that pushes my tire to the right and I go down to the left, sort-of toward no. 1. I may have reached out to stop my fall to no. 1. I can't recall the details of the fall. My left hand and arm must have broken the fall somewhat. But, somehow, my right hand gets to the front of my body - chest or stomach or maybe waist area, and gets pinned between the asphalt and my body as I slide forward some small distance on the road. I could feel it being scraped rather harshly. The thumb was turned toward the asphalt.

All in all, in the big scheme of things, minor injuries. I should be thankful. I am thankful that I have my thumb. But injured and tender and hurting, I realize I am quite dependent on it about every 30 seconds of my waking life for something.

Turns out the rider no. 1 stopped because a couple of dogs were barking and I guess moving our direction from a yard on the left side of the road. I don't stop when I see dogs. 50+ % of the time they don't seriously chase me. And if they do, it's mostly for show. The rare dog that seems to want to bite and gets close, I can usually scare away. In fact, in 18-20 years of cycling, I may have been bit once, not seriously.

There was something of a foreshadowing of the abrupt stop for the dog. Earlier, we had rounded a curve and about 50 yards down the road were two dogs beside the road. Rider no. 1 noticed them first and gave us a heads-up. I thought that was a bit odd. Why such an alert for two dogs. Turns out those dogs did not move one foot as we passed.

My brother thought it fitting to tell me, after my ride home, that he always thought I followed too close on the wheels of riders I did not know. He's right. That may have had a little to do with my going down today.

We finished their ride, back to their car. They realized I needed help. They went rather slow for me the rest of the way. I did my best, but they were stronger riders - they had not ridden the one hour 1/2 prior to our hooking up either. They took me home, shortening my ride another 15 + miles.

My total mileage was about 75.


Hell. A place where God's wrath against unholiness burns forever. Where unredeemed men/women will spend eternity. How can a holy, pure, sinless, just God forgive the sin of a man? Can he ignore our sin and be just? No. How can the justice of God be satisfied if men are to be saved from his wrath?

The Scripture teaches a hell. Against all my rational thinking, then, I acknowledge it is so. Hell, the place of eternal, unquenched fire. Not one second in a burning oven, not 15 seconds there, not one minute, not one day or one year. In each case, if I knew it would end and I would remain, there might be some way my mind could survive it all. But eternally.

The Scripture teaches that Jesus Christ is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

The Scripture teaches that many men throughout the ages will reject God's salvation. How many of Noah's day rejected? All but eight. Eight. The rest perished. And in hell, they will still not repent.

For by grace are you saved through faith - faith in the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ for the sin of men - and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.

If you have not trusted Jesus Christ's sacrifice for you, consider the Scriptures promptly in these matters, and believe on the the Lord Jesus Christ.

45 minutes on bicycle yesterday

Yep, that's it, 45 minutes or so, which I squeezed in after work and before a Wycliffe Associates banquet.

I did hook up with my brother; of course, after I turned back, he continued. You can probably check his blog for how he finished.

Speaking of my brother, he's looking to purchase a bicycle as a temporary bicycle for the Etape. Okay. But get this, he placed a bid on a Trek 5200. That is a carbon fiber bicycle.

Somehow, to me, riding a carbon fiber frame up L'Alpe d'Huez cheapens the ride, a mount made famous in cycling history by the Tour de France and the great climbs on steel frames of Eddy Merckx, O. Bottecchia, Fausto Coppi, Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault. They all rode steel. My brother will probably wear synthetic clothing up the alpe too.

Oh, good news, this just in, he did not win the bidding on the fiber bicycle. Yet another chance to buy steel.

Anyway, my ride tonight was about a 13 mile ride I guess.

Miles to date: 474
Miles this week: 33

Another historic ride

Miles last week: 109
Miles to date: 461
Miles this week: 20
Weight: Guessing 156 lbs

Three rides last week. The one, Tuesday, 4/25, in previous blog post. I also rode Thursday, 4/27, another late after work ride about 18 miles.

Then, on Saturday, April 29, my brother and I rode from Nashville to Trenton, KY, via Elkton, KY.

This ride to Kentucky is a ride my brothers and I began doing about 12-13 years ago. How rewarding it is to ride from Nashville to Kentucky. By car, on the interstate most of the way, it's about 62 miles I think. The cycling route is not much longer, somehow. I think it's about 63 miles. So this is another ride that recalls earnest rides of years ago. In my own small world, a "historic" ride.

Now, our ride Saturday included an additional loop of about 12-14 miles or so.

The ride is also historic because it finishes at a house built about 1832. What a great place to finish a cycling ride.

So, how was the ride? Well, you can read my brother's blog for more detail. For me, I was happy to do it, though in the end the preparation, riding and returning home consumed practically all of Saturday. I did not budget for all day, and so, the end of the weekend arrived too early.

Sunday, no exercise.

Monday, yesterday, I forced myself to go ride. Oh, not that I did not want to, just as usual wondering how other stuff is going to get done. It got done, about 12:30 am Tuesday.

Still hoping to do a big ride in Chattanooga this weekend. Unlikely, but if all goes well this week, I get a lot of sleep. Not sure I'm ready for it though. Over 100 miles.