23 Mar Ashman – reflections on a training cycle and what’s next

I step on the platform again in 5 days.

When I first got asked to compete in Detroit I had no intentions of ever competing again until that moment and even after Detroit I said to myself more than once, “one and done for me”.

My best competition days were behind me and I felt burned out from the years of competitive rugby and strongman. I just didn’t want to go through the mental part of it anymore.

That changed when I accepted the invite to Relentless MN.

I had an average training cycle leading up to this, nobody’s fault but my own. I can’t blame bad weather, bad knees, feeling sick, the wind blowing wrong or forgetting my lucky rabbit’s foot keychain.

It just happened and I couldn’t put two solid weeks of training together to save my life.

What went wrong? I don’t know, but I do know that I am committed to compete this week and I am following through on that promise to myself and the kids.

The side-effect of being asked to lift in a charity meet is the fact that it is slowly reigniting my competitive fire that I figured to be long dead from overuse.

That led me to message Steve Denison about USPA in OK and he informed me we have meets coming up in this state. August 22nd is the OK Fit Expo where the meet will be at.

I will be there, I will compete in that and I will keep competing as long as I can.

I am setting goals for myself that I want to attain before I am finished competing. Those goals are written on the gym whiteboard at 405 Barbell. These are goals that will be meaningful to me with all the injuries I have had and the amount of abuse my body took playing violent sports.

They aren’t elite numbers, but they are solid numbers. They are my goals and they are what I want to finish with.

The best course of action for me to attain those is the 3 day a week plan I have been doing recently.

I look back at my mindset before Relentless Detroit and look at it now…. now I WANT to compete again and it’s a good feeling to have that desire back.

At 40 years old, with the wear and tear I have, I will take that as a win and move upward from here.

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