spinning and paring

today was our first day of spin class 6-6:45 am. it's official: i'm insane.

had you any doubt?

the spin class instructor, however, was smart and slept in. or whatever their reason was for not showing up to tell us what to do. so we got a refund for the day, a free pass for an evening spin class session and permission to work out in the gym while we were there.

so we cycled for 30 minutes. it was, maybe, 2 minutes into the workout when i thought, "can i really do this?"

the ms150 is really 164 miles. split between two days that's appx 80 miles a day. i am told there's a rest stop at about every ten miles so we're looking at about eight jaunts of ten miles each on both days. that sounds more doable when you break it down like that.

plus i heard there was a barf bus (that's what my bro calls it) that will be following us and if you need more than just a pull-over-to-the-side-of-the-road break, they will pick you and your bike up and take you to the next rest stop.

that's good to know. just in case.

after our workout it was still dark outside. my bro tried to make me feel better by calling it 'cloud coverage.' he's a good man.

read judges 6 and 7 this morning while i sipped my coffee and ate an egg and tomato sandwich. i think it's interesting that God told gideon he had too many people on his side for battle and that if they won with that many people they would say it was because they won it and not God so he pared down their number to 300.

i think he does that in my life a lot. reduces my 'size' (read: pride, confidence, ability, resources, etc) so that there is no way for me to claim that whatever success was achieved was due to me. he had to pare that down so i could only say, "God did this thing."

and yet during the paring process we whine and moan and complain and make ourselves and everyone around us miserable because we are so focused on ourselves we can't see what God is trying to accomplish through us (do we even get the enormity of that - of God allowing us to participate in his work when he doesn't need us a whit?).

maybe we should learn to be more patient and watch for the outcome before being such a pill.