Hey there. Still doing this training plan over here. I’m basically crushing it. (See that confidence? Wouldn’t have said this about myself a year ago.) Or I’m at least crushing my own expectations of myself, which were admittedly pretty low going in, right or wrong. As I’ve tried to establish, I’m a different person in a new body since the last time I did anything really competitively athletic, so I didn’t really know what to expect. The stakes are low, but I didn’t want to set myself up to fail. Now I’m feeling pretty great about the whole thing. 

The rest of life is way different now though. I have a work schedule. I’m doing these workouts super early to get them done and still be present for family stuff throughout the day. I wanted to follow a plan, not calculating out how long 9 weeks really is. It’s 2 months plus a couple of days. It’s over half a season. When I started, there were feet of snow on the ground. FEET. Now, it’s going to be 60 degrees on this early spring, northern Illinois weekend. 

It takes time and consistency to improve. Once again, my body is a different machine than it was when I started this plan. That’s the way it goes now, right? You set a goal, you follow a plan, you hopefully achieve the goal, then you start over and do it again. There aren’t going to be movie credits rolling with “We are the Champions” playing behind it, which is undoubtedly the greatest sports movie song of all time, as seen in the Mighty Ducks, my second favorite movie heavily featuring Queen of my childhood. (The first, obviously, was Wayne’s World.)

Anyway, life goes on. I have 2 weeks left on the plan, then a super fun virtual erg race, then I need to do something else. I’ll find a new goal but keep the timing of this plan. I’m churning a few ideas that are riling me up a little bit, in a good way.

So try this: pick a goal for yourself. Make a plan. Go for it with reckless abandon. Don’t hold back. Then when it’s done, be proud of what you’ve done, and start the process again. And again. And again. The movie won’t end, but go ahead and play Queen for yourself whenever it feels right.