I came across Mark Twain’s quote the other day and smiled. I’d seen it before, but sometimes we need to see, hear, or experience something multiple times—or at different points in our lives—before it has an impact on us. I’ve worked through a lot of anxiety in my life. Anxiety that resulted from imagining “terrible things in my life.” And that’s the insidious nature of anxiety…

In November of 2018, I was having a conversation with my then girlfriend — now wife— as we were sitting at a tiny kitchen table in a tiny one-bedroom apartment in St. Paul, MN. We had both recently completed our first Ironman triathlon — a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and a 26.2 mile run — and we were in a bit of a searching period. We didn’t know how to fill our days or what to chase after. “What’s your next Ironman?” I asked her…

This is a question that I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. I have tendency to choose the easy path. I’d much rather put something off. I prefer to coast. And what I’ve finally realized—and its only taken 41 years to figure out—is that choosing…

The pattern of the Main Set is as follows: 4 X 25 IM order swim by round, 4 X 25 IM order kick by round, 4 X 50 freestyle drill, 200 freestyle. The goal of the set is to find a 200 pace during a fully broken 200 (8 X 25 with flip) and then hold that pace throughout the set as you build up to a full 200 freestyle.

Nothing fancy here; just lots of leg work, which is easy to neglect as so much focus in swimming goes into stroke technique. The goal here is to alternate between fast kick and recovery kicking while progressively increasing the distance of the fast kicking. Your fast kicking times…

This week, I revisted James Clear’s Atomic Habits. I first read his book when I started my business in January 2020. I wish his ideas had stuck right then and there. Had they stuck, I would have saved myself a lot of time—free of the paralyzation that stemmed from constantly trying to…

This morning I was reading James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits, and came across the above diagram with the following caption: “The difference between a good day and a bad day is often a few productive and healthy choices made at decisive moments. Each one is like a fork in…

I was looking forward to today. Saturday: a day I’ve looked forward to for a long time. Over the years, Saturdays have become a day to keep my same early morning routine while not having the pressure to get to work by a set hour. As an endurance athlete who…

The purpose of this set is to work on controlled distance swimming early on where it’s easy to burn the “wick” too early and not have anything left to burn at the end of the set. The goal is to descend the first 3 500s on an interval of 6:30, and then descend and compare the next three…

The other day I came across an article outlining categories of professionalism for writers on Medium. There wasn’t a category for me. And, as I was reading the article, I knew there wouldn’t—and shouldn’t—be one for me. And, no, it’s not because my level of professionalism exceeds…

Fast 100s: Scare yourself a bit on these first two 100s. “Can I keep this pace up for the whole workout?” “Shoot, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do 8 of these.” Allow yourself to go all out early on and trust that your body will…

Emotional are clouding your perspective. Remain objective…“We reason and plan to achieve a goal, but in the heat of action we become emotional and lose perspective…The extended vision that rationality brings us is often eclipsed by…

Have a dream. Set a goal. Then, start small. The big stuff—the work that you have to do—will take care of itself. You’ve already been doing that stuff for a long time. The little things—the work that you want to do—need time to develop. Habits need to form…

Change your habits to change your story.

“Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.” — Lao Tzu

“When it comes to mastering a skill, time is the magic ingredient. Assuming your practice proceeds at a steady level, over days and weeks certain elements of the skill become hardwired. Slowly, the entire skill becomes internalized, part of your nervous system.” — Robert Greene, author of Mastery

The alarm goes off at 4:20am every morning. And, every morning, I have two persistent early morning hopes: That I’ll pop out of bed and be MOTIVATED and INSPIRED. It never happens…

Lessons, through quotes, from Caleb Dressel: Olympic Champion, World Champion, World Record Holder

TO COMPARE IS TO DESPAIR

“I have some goals that I would like to accomplish…

The process of training for big goals reveals the same thing each time: a consistent routine develops over time and that routine is what leads to success. Habits are habits. When chasing a big goal, especially a fitness goal, you simply choose habits that benefit you. 

We had a really hard swim practice on Wednesday. Thursday morning called for a hard bike-run brick effort. Driving to swim practice on Friday morning, I was tired and trying to find the enthusiasm for a 90 minute practice. When I pulled into the parking lot, I saw that everyone was congregated at one end of the pool, “huh, I wonder what’s going on?”

The days when I want to are bliss. It’s easy to get up. It’s easy to get out the door. It’s easy to get started. Unfortunately, they are few and far between. As the damn process would have it, the days that I don’t want to are far too often. And, it has nothing to do with enjoyment. I love working out. I love challenges. I love hard. But, I think as humans…