Off season, mind & faith

Well, its officially off season for me.  Actually its been off season for a while and I'm really enjoying it.  Currently my schedule is do something one day and do the next thing either three or four days later.  It could not have come at a better time as my mind and shoulder needed it.  

I explained the shoulder thing last week.  The mind is a very different problem.  It is harder to overcome then a physical aliment. The mind / spirit needs to be strong to overcome many of the discomforts and challenges this sport brings.  Although I love what I do it was getting to me and this rest has provided the rejuvenation I needed.   When I jumped back into the pool this week my spirits soared, I smiled and felt like I belonged there. While walking this week with my husband it was everything I could do not to run. I will be ready to reach deep to meet the training requirements for the Full when Coach decides its time to start that.

Not only do we need a strong mind we need faith. I'm not sure my tri buddies would call it faith maybe they would use the term self confidence or mental fortitude. "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen " Hebrews 11:1  It often happens while listening to Rev. Larry's sermon at Faith United the words can be incorporated into my crazy world of triathlon.  In the sermon Rev. Larry mentioned a song Michael Card wrote about faith -  “To hear with my heart, to see with my soul, to be guided by a hand I cannot hold, to trust in a way I cannot see, that’s what faith must be.”   I realized during this sermon triathletes need an overabundance of faith to sign up for a race.  We need to have faith in our coach(es), our training plans, our nutrition, our family to help and our own mental fortitude to push through whatever comes our way.  There is a lot of faith involved because when race days comes we have the assurance of hope we will cross that finish line but never know what challenges the race course will bring on that day.  To read Larry's sermon go to:   http://faithunited.ca/content/130804-faith-pt1-yes-lord

So while its off season I'm working on my mind/spirit and faith to hopefully get to that finish line.  I'm also working on another very hard demon which I'll call the cookie monster.  Yep, when it comes to food I can be like the cookie monster. In the off season we need reduce our calories and if required, like me, try to shed a few pounds before race season begins again. 

I'll leave it this week by saying have faith in yourself and try something new.  You never know where it will take you.  It could be triathlon.