I guess I was a little overzealous in my return to the gym Friday. My arms, chest, and shoulders are paying for it now, two days later. Yesterday I decided that I’d be a base “runner” at my daughter’s softball practice. Last night I started getting pretty sore in my ankles and knees. Today I just wanted to stay in bed.
The thoughts of defeat sure do creep in. “Can I do this? Is it worth it?” Of course it is worth it! God didn’t put those feelings inside of us. That’s Satan, prowling like a lion, looking for someone to devour. This may not be true for everyone, but for me this is a spiritual battle as much as it is a physical battle. I’ll not quit. Jesus has already given me the power to overcome this. Jesus has given me the strength.
Swimming in February. Yep. I went to the gym today to only sit in the hot tub. I’m so sore that I can hardly move, remember? Anyway, yes, I was relaxing in the warm, bubbling waters, attempting to allow my muscles a chance to recover and relax. As I was sitting there, this lap pool kept taunting me. I wanted to relax. The lap pool said that I couldn’t make 10 laps. It said that I couldn’t make 5 laps. Heck, it thought I couldn’t do a single lap. I can’t take that though, you know? As much as I wanted to stay in the inviting waters of the hot tub, I climbed out and into the ice water of the lap pool. For those of you that don’t know, lap pools aren’t warmed. Heck, they aren’t even room temperature. These pools are set at about 1/2 a degree above freezing. After overcoming the shock to my system that those frigid waters induced, I started swimming. One lap down. Rest for a moment. One lap back. Rest. One lap down. Brief rest and then go back. Around the end of lap 3 my right hammy decided to cramp. It sure would have been easy to quit right then. One part of me really wanted to. There was this other part that started to show up though. This part that urged me to keep moving. My leg hurt, my arms were sore, my lungs were burning. I kept going.
Did you know that you can sweat while you are in a cold swimming pool? You can actually feel the sweat coming off of your body WHILE you are in the water. I didn’t know that you could actually sweat in the water. I didn’t think it was possible. I thought that surely there was some sort of scientific law that applied here. I was wrong.
Rob's Big Losers 