Once Again for the First Time

This afternoon, on my "wog" (walking and jogging), I was thinking it had been seven years since I started training for my first triathlon.  That would have been elegant.  Seven is a number of completeness, a biblical symbol of wholeness, a symbol of full circle and Sabbath and returning to the beginning.   Its been eight.  So, oh well.  This doesn't have to be deeply symbolic to be true.

A lot has happened in eight years.  Three triathlons, countless 5k and 10k races.  Two half-marathons (one of them a failed full attempt).  Two stress fractures, a calf injury, more stops and starts than I care to count.  More significantly, deepening a marriage, a child born, sent to daycare, preschool, kindergarten, first grade.  Another through grade school, then middle, then starting high school.  Another with a Masters, another into college.  Seminary.  Call.  Graduation.  Ordination.  Trying to adjust to the blessings and challenges of life as a full-time pastor.

And now.  Today.  The fire again.  I want to go back to where it started.  Lake St. Louis.  Sprint this time.

I'm not yet sure how.  But I saw a 10 week plan on my Sufferfest app and something jumped in me.  So, the plan for now is build a base until late June.

I'm publishing this to make it real.  For posterity.  For motivation.  And to start writing about this again.  Writing does something for me.  Heals, bolsters, encourages, challenges.  Maybe it will also save my congregation from hearing about training every other sermon.  Maybe it will connect me again with the amazing triathlon community that I experienced before.  Maybe it will just be words lost in cyberspace.

But its a good day to start something new.  The last day of 2014, a tough year for many of us.  A tough year for my city.  Its a good day to start over again for the first time. May it be so.