just an observation: been a long hard road

I was looking back through my blog and realized it has been 2 years since I hurt my back doing squats. That injury set me back tremendously! But as I reviewed it, I saw that I am finally back to pre-injury lower body strength! That is significant to me for a few reasons.

First, I hurt myself by going too heavy too soon, and it prevented me from doing pretty much anything which caused me to carry a load on my lower back. Secondly, I was 32 then, and now I'm almost 35. If you aren't in your 30s or older, you might not realize how much you body's ability to heal and grow reduces over this time frame.

In the last 2+ years, I've learned to assess my response to any given training situation as it is happening, as well as after the phase. I am as strong as I've been at any point in my life, and my cardio / stamina / anaerobic endurance is coming along well.

I am suprised at the level of consistency I've achieved simply through my practice of blogging my daily/scheduled results. If all goes according to plan, my wife and I will be performing at our own pesonal peak during the Warrior Dash in Austin this 20 NOV.

Another random observation is that it's easy to make sustained progress when you are focused in only on where you are at, and what improvements you can make daily. By taking my focus off the long term, I haven't had any frustration about need being where I want to be. I've simply enjoyed getting one step further.

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