The danger zone - an attempt to stay in zone 2

In 2022 I was blessed to train and complete Ironman Chattanooga. Training is quite time intensive as you may imagine. Weekly target for exercise time was 10 hours most weeks and sometimes approached 18 on the weeks where I had more availability. During training I quickly discovered the potential to burn out. The fear of not finishing the race kept me training but late nights and early mornings made me at times loathe training - and real life. Perspective in something like an ultra endurance triathlon is easy to lose - minimizing the impact on life is foolish and maximizing it is just plain silly for an age-grouper like myself.

My wife, two sons, and me at the finish line

Training schedule was an important perspective to have, but also the content of the training was important. This is where the discovery of zone 2 training became my bread and butter. Most of the time spent in zone 2 previously was done accidently. Some of the benefits I began to experience included longer workouts, less joint pain post-run, and more enjoyment in exercising.

All of this extra time in enjoyable exercise left me a lot of time to think. I began researching why running slower resulted in higher performance as an endurance athlete. The first topic at hand was the energy source question - where does my body get energy while exercising? Is carbo loading a real thing? This led me to finding that the human body has two main energy sources during exercise - fats and sugars. One helpful resource for the discovery of energy sources was Fat Metabolism During Exercise: New Concepts. This discovery led to some debates with friends and over time, resulted in me restructuring my workout plans to help train my body to get better at fat burning, instead of using stored carbohydrates in my muscles. Evoluationary science believes that the fat burning energy source was one of the first - stating that the primitive man would need to walk and endure in order to gather food and to hunt. This made total sense to me - an Ironman was only a step up from a caveman.

Another aspect to zone 2 that I reflected on was the idea that slow and steady in the go-all-day zone was true for more than exercise. I reflect now on the endurance that the Christian must demonstrate. Ingrained from early childhood was the push from church leadership to develop a personal quiet time and to practice it each and every day. Makes sense - what you do everyday is a habit and we all want good habits. Now as I approach 30, a quiet time has been part of my life for nearly a decade and there indeed is fruit. Fruit in familiarity of the Bible, journals filled with prayers, and so many notes and scribbles of things I've been convicted to work on. I want a zone 2 quiet time.

Not only are quiet times and habits meant to be in the go-all-day zone, but also more practical things like finances are more helpful when we operate in that zone. Saving money overtime is mundane and often not instantly gratified, but when done over years and years we are rewarded when we make long term investments and look past the short term problems at hand.

Saving and investing in long term investments takes time where we often don't see rewards for years, but one other life area that we all desire to have is in relationships with others. From your spouse to your coworkers, you want consistency and dependability. When I think about my role as a husband or father, I think about how the demands for my time are an all day and long term sort-of demand. I don't want to pick up good habits as a father or husband and burn out after a week, I want to thoughtfully consider how God calls me to operate in both those roles and to consistently rely on him to help me. And over time, in the go-all-day zone, the Holy Spirit chips away at my once hard heart and opens me to the wisdom of God.

Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (James 3)

So, this is a petition, to realize that in the same way trust is broken quickly and built slowly, gentleness is overpowered easily but we have a God who is not like us, he is slow to anger and is full of mercy and grace. He is long suffering and desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). Let us trust daily in the go-all-eternity God who loves us.