In his book The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis gives the dialogue between senior devil, Screwtape, and the junior devil he is teaching, Wormwood. The instruction given to Wormwood on how to deal with man’s disappointment and discouragement is eyeopening.
"Work hard, then, on the disappointment or anti-climax which is certainly coming to the patient during his first few weeks as a churchman. The Enemy [God] allows this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavor. . . . It occurs when lovers have got married and begin the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing. The Enemy takes this risk because He has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into what He calls His “free” lovers and servants—“sons” is the word He uses. . . . Desiring their freedom, He therefore refuses to carry them, by their mere affections and habits, to any of the goals which He sets before them: He leaves them to “do it on their own.” And there lies our opportunity. But also, remember, there lies our danger. If once they get through this initial dryness successfully, they become much less dependent on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt".....
Used to love turning binoculars around when I was a kid and
looking at stuff…made things seem so small, so far away. I've used this thought at times in life when I
have “things” going on…Problems (or what I think are problems)-difficulties, whatever.
This week I turned the binoculars around and used them
proper. I magnified everything, and it
sucked.
I’ve gotten e-mails from readers saying they like the things
I have been posting-I am grateful, it’s been cooler than I had imagined to “blog”
and, I love bragging about the people who enable me to do this. Unfortunately…when I crumble, those people
are the ones who get annoyed. Those crumbs
are the annoying boulders in the bed your kid was eating potato chips in. It’s amazing how last week at this exact
moment-I felt like I conquered the world putting in a super solid volume
week-and here I sit a little sappy-just seven days later.
I think the best way
to help you-is list what I did and give some notes on how to avoid the same pitfalls.
Before I go on….The major theme here for me ultimately is my
relationship with Jesus Christ.
I find it funny how
when I veer off and sack my time in the morning with a few moments in the Word
and prayer, I start off sideways. As in training…When you get up to head to the
pool-don’t head to the computer. This
leads to twitter, which leads to slowtwitch, which leads to…. ___________ I
find the same sometimes happen when I plan on waking early and taking time to
give thanks for drawing another breath. This is my new plan-It’s actually the same
plan, just a new week….
1.
Get up
2.
Drink 20 oz. of water
3.
Pour coffee
4.
Read and pray.
5. Sit and
shut up.
It would go against
the tenants of my relationship with God to lie and pretend I don’t struggle. (I
do- More so than I’ll ever lead on…that’s why I love U2. I think Bono relishes
as much in the bleeding as he does the healing.) Maybe a better word would be discipline. Discipline is hard. Discipline means sometimes going to bed
hungry, or waking early and leaving your family on a Saturday to go to the
pool. On days like this *** get up super
early--get back before anyone is up. Have breakfast and a French Press ready.
-problem solved.
Discipline smells what it can’t eat and revels in the
strength of not eating it.
Take home points-post big week….
1. Not preparing the fridge (Like I planned) for
the recoil of a heavy week. Have GOOD
food at hand. Not your kids lunch snacks
2. Do not…repeat-DO NOT use a recovery week as an
excuse to stay up late throughout the week.
Just because the schedule is a little less structured should not give an
excuse to skip the chance to sleep.
3. Monitor your mood with the decline in training
volume. Of all the errors this week-this
was my biggest one. I was moody, and
irritable. This should have been
counteracted with proper handling of 1-3 listed above, and just relaxing.
4. Don’t be short with the ones you would die
for. Ian and Evelyn told me a few times
to “Chill man”, and Rhonda thought I
should go get some pamprin.
5. Fight the urge to do projects around the house.
6. Don’t get discouraged. Screwtape used this-it works. I thought of my nightmare in Canada a few
times. Again-remember--- DO. NOT. GET. DISCOURAGED.
7. Don’t think you can do it alone.
8. Let your body absorb what you have done. This doesn’t even have to be after a big
week. This happens to me more and more--
means you are gaining fitness.
9. Stay off the scale. (Yes in Build 2 and the
build leading into a priority race, weight should start to be taken more into
consideration. Just be careful.)If you
are eating correctly you are OK.
10. Pray.
11. Be grateful and thankful. Contentment is a great excuse to watch a
movie-not peer over the fence and see how green your neighbors grass is.
Having said all that I did wake up most times I found myself
slipping this week. This morning I had a
solid result as I did a 2k test/race pace swim.
Tomorrow I have a race pace run simulation, so-the week is not over. It
just stinks when you get in a slump man. Keep up the work you
are doing-you know who you are. Stay in
the zone you should be in, sleep when you should, eat what you should, drink
water, kiss them, run strong, practice form, dial in pace, pay attention…..
I better send this before I re-read it and hit delete.
That would have been number 12 on my list.
