The World's Toughest Race
Emma and I have just started watching a series on Amazon Prime video called “the World’s Toughest Race”. You may have seen it. It’s well worth watching if you get the chance. It features Bear Grylls motivating small teams from around the world to race 400 miles across the mountains, jungles, seas and islands of Fiji in a race against each other and against the clock.
The show is worth watching just for
the sheer endurance of the teams. Featuring Mountain biking, canoeing,
white-water rafting, and trekking through the jungle day and night with next to
no sleep. I don’t know how the teams keep going.
The human angle is fascinating too,
seeing these teams bonding together, sometimes a father with his daughters, a
bunch of over 60s or Team Onyx, one of the few teams in Adventure Racing comprised
of men and women of colour.
Perhaps the most moving part for me
was seeing Travis Macy lead Team Endure which includes his father Mark Macy who
has the early stages of Alzheimer’s. It’s moving to see how he patiently cares
for his dad, whose body is fitter than anyone’s and can race up a hill on
autopilot, but who’s mind is so affected by the disease that he needs help with
doing up his coat and putting on gloves.
One team that has to drop out
relatively early on is the team “Unbroken”. They are US military veterans who
have sustained life changing injuries from active military service, leaving one
of them deaf, and another with 13 screws in his legbone. But they have a good
team captain Hal Riley, who makes his decisions for the good of the whole team.
That reminded me that Christians
have a great team captain, the Lord Jesus Christ, who goes with us through every
danger in life, and who always leads us and directs us for our good and overall
safety, even in these tough Covid times. If you’re a Christian listening in
today, you’ll know just what a wonderful thing it is to have Jesus Christ in
charge of your life. So, as it says in the book of Hebrews “let us run with
perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer
and perfecter of faith”.
Followed by “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor!