Day 417 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: 7am drill at The Barn.

Day 416 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: Some live wrestling / sparring this morning. Maybe four six-minute goes. Let me tell ya, wrestling for six minutes will cook you. Headache.

Day 415 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: Hard week. Slept way later than I usually do. Full body lift today. It is easy to get down this optimization rabbit hole where you’re constantly looking for some kind of quirky way to make hard stuff easier. There is a great story from The Boys in the Boat about Joe Rantz, who won a gold medal for the U.S. rowing team in 1936. He talked about how he needed to get stronger over the summer so he took a job working a jack hammer on a tunnel or highway project or something like that. What to do is often times not very complicated, it’s just difficult. That thought process of trying to over-optimize things I think is a way of running from hard and that can make you a chicken.

Day 414 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: A little worn down this morning. Wrestled every day this week. Plus two lifts. Another lift tomorrow. Three workouts over the past 24 hours. Stay the course.

Day 413 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: Wrestled this morning and lifted later in the day. I have wrestled or been around wrestling for my entire life. I know what it’s supposed to look and feel like. This is good and bad. Bad in the way that for many months I’d walk away from the room like well this was all garbage. It is hard to keep running back into the fire after feeling like that for so long. Good in a way where you finally hit it and you’re like hell yes that was it. Maybe one or two exchanges today I felt were good, real wrestling. Beat inside, work back in, snap, move my feet, pull on the head, fake, pressure in, snap again, cut an angle, shot. A common theme I saw when I worked in the NFL, particularly among coaches, is there is a point you get to where the losses hurt worse than the wins feel good and that is when you know it’s over. I do not feel that way and that is how I know it is not over.

Day 412 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: I had this coach at Bergen Catholic who was a great heavyweight for the Dominican Republic. Used to tell me stories about wrestling Karelin and how he hated Matt Ghaffari because he claims he’d always step on his feet. He said he used to eat five pounds of salmon every day. Was a gargantuan human. Idk if it actually happened or if the lore has evolved in my mind over the years but I believe I witnessed him doing pull-ups with one arm. I had a pound of salmon with dinner last night just because it was all thawed and I needed more calories. I felt good pretty good wrestling this morning. Maybe he was on to something.

Day 410 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: Drill at The Barn this morning.

Day 409 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: Full body lift today. That one takes a while. Watched the matches from my weight class. Russia won 3/4 medals at 78kg. They’re good but anyone can be beaten. Stay the course.

Day 408 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: Upper body lift today. My weight class wrestles tomorrow in Jordan. I have 1 year to get it right. Stay the course.

Day 407 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: Had to be up and out early today. Circuit first, though. Have to have good habits. You’re getting better or you’re getting worse. No in between.

Day 406 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: Run this morning.

Day 405 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: Good hour of wrestling this morning. Kinda tired but this is also extremely hard so that shouldn’t surprise me.

Day 404 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: Light practice this morning then lower body lift in the afternoon.

Day 403 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: Getting better. Felt a little weak. Muscle endurance. Will work on that.

Day 402 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: I know, absolutely, from my experience, that there are no free lunches in this life, and eventually we all have to accept full and total responsibility for our actions, everything we have done, and have not done. Hubert Selby Jr.

Day 401 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: Run today. Was a lighter week. Hard to get on the mat. Not a lot of people available. Do what we can with what we have. 3x lifting, 2x wrestling, 1x running.

Day 400 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: The time will pass anyway.

Day 399 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: First day in my life I have been able to bench my body weight. Stay the course.

Day 398 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: Nobody could wrestle today. That was a bummer. I don’t compete until March. Just keep it slow and steady. Lifted today. Want to get up to 180. Weigh 174 right now. There is a massive difference between being in good shape as a civilian and as an athlete. Two totally different things.

Day 397 of training for Veteran’s Worlds with @BuFuApp: Wrestling today. Only par terre. I don’t think people dedicate the appropriate amount of time to that. Great wrestlers make it look easy but it’s very difficult and highly technical. Statistically speaking, you have a 3% chance of winning if you give up a takedown and turn to start a match. I forgot to take a picture of the mat so here is a bowl of grapes.