Published anyway

Three weeks ago I told you I'd publish eight athletic baseline numbers on September 29. Tested and published either way.

Then I did the thing I always do. I started looking for the right week to test. Not a good week, the right one. Rested, fed, nothing on the calendar, a clean run at it. I know this pattern in myself. I wait for conditions I never actually get, and the date drifts while I wait.

It took me two weeks to look at the calendar closely enough to see that testing week was also conference week, and that I'd be flying coast to coast in the middle of it. There was never going to be a clean week. There isn't one in November either. That’s life.

I played college football. I know what I used to be able to do. Publishing what I can do now, at 40, after fifteen years of building companies instead of training, is a different thing than talking about it.

So here they are. There are ten, because I made a change.

The number I'll remember from this week isn't in that table. It's a Sunday afternoon and a twenty-nine minute window to complete a 5k. I'll get to it.

First, the change.

My original list had a 2,000m row on it. I put it there because my neighbor owns a rower and I figured I'd borrow it.

Then I thought about December. A benchmark I can't repeat under identical conditions isn't a benchmark. Borrowing means depending on someone else's schedule and someone else's machine, and I'm not buying a rower to rescue a number I put in print. Rowing is also a skill I've never trained. Testing it cold tells me almost nothing about where I am today.

So I called an audible. The row came out. The standing broad jump went in, because it needs no equipment and it measures power, which is the quality that goes first. Bench press went in too, because it's the lift a former collegiate football player gets asked about.

I may buy a rower during these 90 days and start learning it. That's a separate decision from this list, and it should be.

Then the week happened.

I'm in California. The panel I was moderating was in Columbus, Ohio. So the week ran like this:

Monday, at home. Back squat and pull-ups, in the afternoon, on one meal, after 45 minutes on the elliptical in a weight vest and about 90 minutes of walking and talking while on back-to-back conference calls.

Tuesday through Thursday, on the road. Push-ups in two minutes on Thursday morning in Columbus, on conference day, on recovery sleep from a red-eye.

Sunday, home. The 5K.

Monday, the last three. Bodyweight, waist, and the resting heart rate pull in the morning. Broad jump and deadlift after the work day.

Almost every number here is conservative.

I squatted on legs that had already done 45 minutes in a weight vest. I ran on quads that were still sore from squatting. I tested push-ups on a conference morning after a red-eye. I held the deadlift back to keep my form clean. I hadn't done a standing broad jump in years, and I slipped on the first attempt.

All of that is true. It's also exactly what someone would say if they wanted an easy December.

So I'm not asking you to take my word for it. Every condition is written down: the date, the time, the shoes, the route, the elevation, what I'd eaten, how I slept. In December I repeat the conditions, not just the movements. If I test fresh and post better numbers, the comparison is broken and I'll say so.

Here's why I didn't.

I run ISO 17025 labs. When we validate a method, we don't validate it on the best day with the cleanest sample. We validate it under the conditions the method will actually run in, because a result that only holds on a good day isn't a result. It's a claim.

A baseline taken on a perfect week has the same problem. If I'd rested three days, eaten clean, and tested fresh, I'd have gotten better numbers and a useless comparison. Then in December I'd retest on a normal week, see a decline, and not know whether I'd gotten weaker or just gotten honest.

So the conditions are part of the data. The journal records the time of day, what I'd eaten, what I did earlier, what I wore, how I slept. December has to match.

The 5K is the one I'll remember.

Sunday was the only window. Both kids asleep at the same time, which is the whole window a parent of a 1.5 year old and a 4.5 year old gets.

Then it shrank. My wife and daughter had swim practice, and the overlap went from about ninety minutes to twenty-nine.

I hadn't run a timed 5K in years. I knew I could go under thirty on a good day. This was not a good day. Six days earlier I'd squatted 295 for five, and my knees and quads were still sore from it.

I put on A$AP Mob and went. 3.11 miles on sidewalk concrete, out from the house and back, Nike Vomero Plus, mid-afternoon, sunny. 28:25.

Here's the rest of what the app caught, because the time alone doesn't tell you much:

That elevation number is the one I care about. 225 feet of climbing over 3.11 miles is a real hill, and it's part of the route. If I run somewhere flatter in December and post a faster time, that's the route improving, not me. So the route is now part of the benchmark. Same streets, same direction, same shoes.

The effort score is the other one. Six out of ten means I had more in the tank. 28:25 is a floor rather than a ceiling, which is the honest way to read it.

Not a good time. It was the fastest I was going to run that day, because my wife needed to leave and a football coach of mine used to say you're late if you're on time and on time if you're early.

The easy lesson is that pressure makes you perform. I don't think that's what happened. Pressure I invent for myself is negotiable, and I negotiate with it constantly. This deadline belonged to someone else. My wife needed the car and my daughter needed to be in the pool on time, so the window wasn't mine to move.

I've been trying to build motivation. What actually worked was an obligation I couldn't reschedule.

On the bodyweight number.

190.2 is higher than I wanted. I'm publishing it anyway, because a baseline you adjust to protect your feelings isn't a baseline. The work of figuring out what's driving it goes in my log, not in your inbox.

My predictions for December 20.

I'm writing these now, before the training starts, so the retest is scored rather than narrated. If I miss, you'll see me miss.

Two of these I'm predicting big jumps on, and you should know why before you see the numbers. The deadlift and the broad jump are both movements I've barely trained. I stopped the deadlift where my form got ugly, not where my strength ran out, and my three jumps climbed the whole way, 80 to 85.5 to 90, because I was still remembering how. Gains there will be mostly skill. I'd rather say that now than take credit for it in December.

The number I'm watching isn't the squat.

It's the shape of the push-up set.

I got 85 in two minutes. But 50 of those came in one unbroken run of about 50 seconds. Then I rested ten or fifteen seconds and got 25. Rested again and got 5. Rested again and got 5.

The total is a measure of how much I can grind out with rest. The first unbroken set is a measure of what I can do before I need any.

Those improve for different reasons. The total responds to willingness to suffer. The first set responds to actual conditioning.

So in December, if the total is still 85 but the first set is 65, I got meaningfully fitter and the headline number hid it. If the total climbs to 100 but the first set is still 50, I mostly got better at pushing through discomfort. Both are worth something. Only one of them is the thing I'm training for.

One more thing coming.

I've also been running bloodwork and biometrics. I've got a first set of results and more being drawn, and I'll publish those too. That's its own issue, and the numbers deserve more room than a footnote here.

What I'm testing next.

Looking at the nine together, the pattern is obvious. My strength numbers are well ahead of my conditioning numbers. A resting heart rate of 63 and a 28:25 5K sit next to a ~2x bodyweight deadlift and 16 strict pull-ups. That's what a former football player who lifts and doesn't run looks like at 40.

So the next 90 days go toward conditioning. The strength work maintains.

Five sessions a week. Retest around December 20, on an ordinary week, same conditions, same standards.

What's one advantage you could compound from here?

Hit reply and tell me. I read everything, and what you send shapes what I write next.

— Austin

Austin Stevenson is CRO at ACT Global Lab Services and a co-founder of Vertosa.