Phelps and the shark

Romans 6.6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
Recently, another Shark Week concluded on the Discovery Channel. The big draw this year was a race between Michael Phelps and a Great White Shark. The race did not happen the way I had imagined but was all computer time trails of Phelps and said shark. But this, oddly, got me to thinking about life, the universe and everything.
One might ask how, exactly, this made me think of those things. It made me think about all of the baggage that I have collected over my forty plus years. I mean, you can swim the 100 meters in full turn out gear with an SCBA (that cool stuff we firefighters wear) but, why would you? It would slow you down and weigh you down considerably. Look up a video of Olympic swimmers. I don’t think they shave all their body hair (some, their heads as well) and wear those little short britches for style points. Olympic style swimmers do these things to reduce friction and weight. To make them go faster. Less resistance.
Many of us continue to carry around all this weight which increases our amount of friction, which hinders our walk with Christ. How can we expect to pull close to Christ when we hang on to so much of our old self. All dead weight. All increasing drag. Keeping us away from our Holy Father.
I have had such struggles in my life with letting go of the old self. I let the world slowly creep back in to my life to the point that I have lost focus of the prize, to finish the race that Jesus has set before me. So now I am chipping away the excess making myself more aerodynamic. So I have less resistance keeping me from Christ.