Sometimes I weep

What focus means is saying no to something that you, with every bone in your body, you think is a phenomenal idea and you wake up thinking about it, but you say no to it because you’re focusing on something else.

~ Jonny Ive from, https://fs.blog/focus-to-win/

I have a lot of ideas. (Perhaps your experience is similar?) For most of my life I thought all of my ideas where good ones. Sure, there were some insane bicycle accidents and spectacular snow-tubing disasters, but in the minutes following an incident, I still thought it was a good idea. Poorly planned, poorly executed, or both, sure. But life seemed to be an endless parade of good ideas each affording an opportunity to grab life by the choose-your-own-metaphor. In hindsight, I think it was all simply poor—or, if I’m honest, a complete absence of—impulse control.

In recent years it has become apparent my time on Earth is limited. (Perhaps your experience is similar?) These days that stream of ideas continues. What if I installed a motion-activated auto-targeting water sprinkler filled with Capsaicin-laced water to keep the squirrels away? (Yes, really.) …and okay, well, the ideas don’t all seem like good ideas anymore. Fine. I’m cool with having limited time, limited resources, and possibly some added social awareness.

But every once in a while, I have an idea which is blindingly awesome. Even if I have one such idea only once in a while, that still means I have more than I can try, and then I have to choose. I have to choose some, and say no to others.

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In the history of bad ideas…

(Part 34 of 36 in series, 10,000 Reps Project)

Today I passed 6,000.

So it turns out it is just barely possible to pull this 10k thing out of the hole.

Friday, instead of 50 reps of things, I kept plugging away and got to 120. (140 bar precisions as I had 20 to catch up from a wet bars rain-out on Wednesday.)

So today (after doing my usual short run and QM workout in the AM) I did two separate 80 reps workouts to get me 160 reps for the day. 160 reps is doable. I’m totally standing on a 1″ resistance band for the pull-ups though.

Screw it… I’m going to make a run for the finish! I’ll even add more resistance bands for the pull-ups if I have to. (Whatever it takes to avoid injury and keep good form.) I want to be done with this before my trips coming up in August!

So with that in mind, I set about juggling numbers in my workbook. There’s a hole coming up when I’ll be in Boston for 5 days at an event; No way I’m going to get any of my structured workouts in. So I marked that in the book. Then, back-figuring… There’s no way I can train every day; I must have rest days. The math leads me to the surreal goal of doing literally 200 reps every Monday, Wednesday, Friday AND Saturday from now to the 365th day on July 20th.

I have a rest day tomorrow (Sunday) and then Monday I tackle a 200-reps day. I’ll [attempt to] do two, 100 rep workouts. I’ll do one in the morning and one in the evening. Counting Monday, there are exactly 20, 200-rep-workout days remaining. (The very last workout is actually less that 200.)

In the history of bad ideas, this has to be up there…

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