I owe everything

 Every great story has a small beginning. A spark that starts the fire, a thought that leads to an idea that turns into a wanting that forms into a plan that makes one embark on a journey. This one starts, as many do, with failure. There have been many things in my life, more than I care to mention that I have started, failed at and never finished. Things that meant alot to me even if it was only at that time. I have held these failures up as badges of inadequacy and shame for most my life.

 Of course success has been inbetween those failures but we never seem to holds those quite as close do we? Why is that? Is it because of the lessons we learn from it or some kind of primal instinct to remind us we are mortal? Maybe both, maybe neither. The answer is not the purpose here. The purpose is to chronicle the journey of someone who decided that he wasn't going to stop working towards his goal because of failure this time. No matter how trivial that goal may have been.

 I have been falling in love with the sport of weight lifting (Snatch/Clean&Jerk) for the last year or so. I had been using the lifts in training for about 5 years now but never had paid them any serious attention until recently. I under stand that at my age and ability I will probably never qualify at the olympic or national level. I do not care. I have found, in these lifts a certain clarity and grace that I have not found in anything else in life. This brings me to my goals.

 I have had the dream of achieving a total of 275K (125k/275lbs. snatch and 150k/330lbs Clean&Jerk) for about as long as I have been interested in the sport. This was when my TOTAL numbers were more along the lines of 161k. My numbers are now at 241k (107k/236lbs snatch and 134k/295lbs Clean&jerk) and I have hit a stand still. These are respectable numbers for most in the line of training I do for a living, far from where I started but no where near that goal. So I ask myself how do I continue forward? How do I adjust my training and make that dream real? Should I even care? Is there any money in it? No. Is there any glory? Maybe a little but certainly not much. Is there any significant reason at all to keep beating myself half to death for this goal even if it seems I'm swimming against current and making no progress?

 The answer is yes and not for any reasons to do with weightlifting, health, fitness, work, money etc.. The answer is yes because the clarity I found at the start of this courtship, I have found again in the follow through and process of it. The answer is yes because every day I don't try is a day closer to that complacency. Complacency is not living. I have settled for so many damn things in my life that it makes me physically ill. It wasn't until I met this sport that I began to not accept where I was or what I was doing as OK and try to push forward. As silly as it is, this sport has put me in a position in life that I can honestly say I am happy with and proud of. This sport, cliche as it may be, has in many ways saved my life. So how can I stop pursuing the goal that has been the vehicle to my happiness and success? It's simple. I can not.

Make no mistakes about it. This blog is not a how to on weight lifting, health, or fitness. It is not something I am doing for anyone else or to gain notoriety by. I have no plans of choosing my words carefully or making this an inspiring story with a happy ending. What I do plan on doing is using this blog as a tool to force myself out of bed and under the bar everyday because I owe it to the sport. I owe my drive to it and I am going to make good on that debt.

So I start this story with failure because that is the spark we all need.

Today I stalled on front squat for the first time in 2 months. I have been climbing up from 275 for three by five pounds a week and today that stopped.