People hear “endurance in faith” and picture me gliding through zone 2 with a serene little smile, humming a hymn while my legs do all the suffering for me. I need to correct that image immediately. My faith life on the bike looks a lot more like muttering “Lord, give me strength” through gritted teeth at watt number four hundred while also silently negotiating with God about whether I really need to finish this interval. It’s not glamorous. It’s not Instagrammable. But it is real, and it’s the thing that’s kept me upright — literally and otherwise — through more sessions, races, and load shedding schedules than I can count.
So today I want to talk about the part of my training nobody sees in the Strava upload: the praying part. Because faith isn’t just something I do on a Sunday. It’s stitched into every ride, every early alarm, and — as you’re about to hear — every single one of the worst 10 kilometres of my life.
Where Faith and Wattage Meet
My faith isn’t a separate compartment I open on weekends. It’s woven into the ordinary, unremarkable bits of daily life — including the 5 am alarm that goes off before load shedding decides whether Zwift is even happening today. Before I clip in, there’s usually a short, unpolished prayer. Not the kind with beautiful language. More like: “Okay Lord, I don’t really feel like doing this today, please meet me halfway.” Somehow, that counts. He’s not precious about the wording.
Training around a full-time job, real-life admin, and a body that doesn’t always cooperate is its own kind of spiritual exercise. Faith is what stops the whole thing from becoming an identity crisis every time a session goes badly. It’s the difference between “I had a rubbish ride, that’s disappointing” and “I had a rubbish ride, therefore I am a rubbish person who should sell the bike.” Faith keeps me in the first sentence. Most days, anyway.
The Version of Faith Nobody Puts on a Reel
Let’s be honest about something: sometimes my “faith” during training is really just me being cheeky with God. “You gave me these legs, You can jolly well help me use them” is a genuine prayer I have prayed on a hill. I don’t think that disqualifies me from anything. I think it’s just what an honest relationship with God looks like when you’re tired, sweaty, and slightly over it.
There’s no highlight reel for the version of faith that shows up on a Tuesday night trainer session with sore knees and a long work day still sitting on your shoulders. But that’s exactly where it matters most — not in the big dramatic race-day moments, but in the small, unglamorous decision to keep showing up, keep believing there’s a purpose to the suffering, and keep trusting that it’s not all pointless watts and wasted energy gel.
The 50km That Nearly Finished Me (Instead of the Other Way Around)
Now for the story you actually came here for. I did a 50km ultra marathon — the kind of distance that sounds like a lovely idea three months before race day and a deeply questionable life choice at the actual start line. The first 40km went reasonably well. I had a plan, I had a rhythm, I had a moderately convincing sense that I knew what I was doing.
Then the last 10km happened.
I don’t know who decided that the final stretch of an ultra should also double as a spiritual trial, but whoever designed that course clearly had a personal relationship with suffering. My legs stopped taking instructions from my brain. My pace fell apart. And somewhere around the 42km mark, quietly negotiating with myself stopped working, so I did the only thing left — I started praying out loud.
Not a dignified, composed prayer either. A proper out-loud, slightly desperate, “Lord, please just get me to that finish line” kind of prayer, repeated every few hundred metres like a very unpolished mantra. I imagine the runners around me thought I was either deeply devout or mildly losing it. Honestly? Both. At kilometre 45 there is no separating the two.
“Lord, I know You didn’t carry these legs 45km just to abandon them now. Get me home, and I promise I’ll never complain about a Zwift workout again.” (I have already broken this promise. God, I assume, saw that coming.)
Here’s the thing — the prayer didn’t magically remove the pain. My legs were still on strike. My feet still felt like they belonged to someone I didn’t like very much. But something shifted. The panic quietened down. I stopped spiralling about the distance left and just focused on the next lamppost, the next water table, the next breath. One foot, then the other, then a mumbled “thank you” every time I passed a marker that meant I was one kilometre closer.
I crossed that finish line an absolute mess — salt-crusted, wobbly, slightly tearful, and completely convinced I hadn’t done it alone. Call it endorphins, call it faith, call it a bit of both holding hands across the finish chute. I know what I believe. I prayed, I finished, and I have never meant “thank God” more literally in my life.
Why This Keeps Me Sane, Not Just Upright
Endurance sports strip you down to who you actually are beneath the fitness and the gear list. There’s nowhere to hide at 45km, and there’s nowhere to hide on the trainer either, on the nights when motivation has clearly booked leave. Faith is what fills that space for me. It’s the reminder that my worth isn’t parked in a finishing time, a Zwift race result, or how many watts I could hold on a bad day.
It keeps me focused because it takes the pressure off the need to prove something about who I am in every session, every race. And it keeps me sane because when training feels like it’s swallowing my whole life — job, admin, load shedding, the lot — I have somewhere to put it down. Faith doesn’t make the hills flatter or the last 10km shorter. It just makes sure I’m not doing it alone, which, if I’m honest, is really all I ever needed.
🩷 Want to Sit With This a Little Longer?
If this piece hit home, I’ve put together a 6-week Endurance in Faith Bible Study Companion — six scripture passages, honest reflection questions, prayer starters, and practical “on the bike/road” prompts for tying it into your own training. Print it, work through one week at a time, and let your training and your faith finally have a proper conversation with each other.
🩷The Endurance Diaries🩷
