Sometimes I feel like I’m swimming against the current. If I can maintain a certain speed, I can perfectly keep pace with all of the tasks life throws my way: oil changes, work reports, groceries, dishes. But at some point, I get fatigued and need to slow down temporarily to recover. During this time, the current of the river sweeps me downstream, and I drift farther from my end goal of “finally being on top of things.”

The thing is, that end goal will never happen. It’s a meaningless concept. It’s like saying “if I can just run fast enough, I’ll be able to outrun this treadmill.” Life will always be sending a current for me to navigate, so I’ll always be swimming. The act of swimming is what makes life, life.

It’s ridiculous to think that one day, I will reach a state where life just stands still. But I’ve convinced myself that I can’t relax until I reach this day. “If I can just get through this next month, then things will finally slow down…” I’ve told myself this for the last 20 years of my life. Things are never slowing down. Even a successful retirement requires that one finds a way to “stay busy.”

This might seem like a heavy thought to start your week, but it can actually be the opposite. There is something light and freeing once you realize you’ll be swimming in this river your entire life. You can stop chasing the nonexistant state of the perfect life, and you can embrace that you will always be a Work In Progress.

And that’s great! Being a permanent Work In Progress means you get to:

1. Always be building towards something better. You don’t have to accept things as they are now, you can improve and find purpose in this growth.

2. Start living your life right now. You will always be imperfect, so it doesn’t make sense to put off enjoying life until you reach perfection.

If you can’t learn how to find peace amidst the chaos in your life right now, then you won’t ever find peace. For me, this peace comes from chasing progress and not perfection. I do my best to enjoy the swim, because I hope to be in the river for a long time.

Training Updates

I can definitely feel my running volume while deadlifting. This is the part of the rebuild where I’ve got to remind myself to stay patient. Before I can put in the training sessions needed to powerlift 1000 lbs and run a sub 2:30 marathon in the same day, I need to build up the capacity to do these training sessions. Baby steps.

• I had to combine my lifting sessions into 2 full body days, which means I only did core lifts and no accessories.

  • Bench: 4×4@215 lbs, with some build up and back off sets really focused on form. Completed both lifting sessions.

  • Box Squat: 5×5@285 lbs

  • Squat Stance Deadlift: 2×315 lbs, 4×3×295 lbs

• I ran 36 miles over 5 days: 0,6,8,6,4,0,12

• Average “freshness” of 7.0 (a bit better than last week)

My Goals For This Week

• Final week of repeating the same bench workout before upping the intensity:

  • 4×4×215 lbs with some warm up and back off sets, twice this week

• Box Squat 5×3-5×305 lbs @ RPE8.

• Squat-stance deadlift: I hit my limit last week, so I’m going to back the weight a bit and just focus on some quality volume for the rest of the month.

  • 5×3-5×295 lbs @ RPE8

• Run 40 miles w/ a long run of 12-14.

A Challenge For The Week

Is there something you keep pushing off doing because you are waiting for life to be perfect before you do it? Does accepting that life will never be perfect change what you want to spend your time on?

Real Training means embracing progress over perfection.