Friday!

Ohhh man, thank goodness it is friday. So this past week Gary, my swim coach has been pounding us like nobody's business. On wednesday at 5 am we had to do twenty, 200's freestyle with only five-ten seconds rest in between each set, then had recovery practice that evening; thursday morning we did dry land and weights for two hours which were killer, then that same evening we had a main set of ten 100's blasting all out, whatever energy you had left. It's pretty incredible what goes through your head when you look at a set like the ones previously mentioned. You are suddenly aware of every single muscle in your body and just how tired and fatigued they are....and then I try to strategize how I might go about swimming this thing....should I save my legs for the end? Should I focus on using my arms more or will they die towards the end of the set? Who's in the lane next to me? Would they be good for me to pace off of, or should I do my own thing and see how far and fast I can get? --soooo many things to think about before and while I'm swimming. So many thoughts can consume my head but it was amazing because although I repeat words to myself while I swim to keep my focus on what I am doing, I pray! I pray that God can help me and keep me going even when my arms and legs are stiff from lactic acid pumping all throughout my body. I thank God for the priviledge that it is to swim, to be able to work hard, push my body to it's limits, and for the fact that I can use this ability to celebrate God! To my suprise, on those two sets, I was going at a one minute pace, meaning it took me one minute to complete four laps at the feet! This is pretty good for how beat up I felt! -I think God was giving me a little bit of grace on those sets...I think he knew that I needed a mental uplift. :) But my connection between swimming and God can be summed up in a quote by good ole' Prefontaine, "to do less than your best is to sacrifice the gift!" --I agree. I will probably be mentioning swimming in quite a few of my blogs here for this year, but this is only because it has been such a big, and impactful part of my collegiate career/life, that it's kind of unavoidable I think. In fact, if it weren't for swimming, I probably wouldn't even be going to a University...I'd probably be at Bellevue Community College or something...there's a long story behind my whole acceptance into Whitworth, but maybe I'll share that another time...or maybe in person with you...but it's a great story nevertheless, and God was DEFINITELY glorified through it. :) So anyway, I've chatted long enough I think so I'll let ya'll go now. :) Have a great Friday everyone!