Thread: Inner Work
There are moments in a life where something inside you draws a line that no one else can see.
A quiet line, invisible to the world, but unmistakable to you.
Project 1:15 was one of those lines.
On the surface, it looked like a simple goal. Break 1 hour and 15 minutes in HYROX. On paper, that’s just a number. A target pace. A benchmark to chase in a world that loves times, splits, podiums and rankings.
But underneath, it was never really about the clock.
It was about identity.
It was about asking a very private, very uncomfortable question: Do I still have the right to be dangerous?
I had already lived a whole life in endurance sport. National teams. Cold mornings on snow. Marathon roads and empty highways. Long, lonely hours in the middle of a 100km race. Bodies breaking. Mind hardening. The strange calm that only arrives once you’ve gone well past comfort.
I had been fast before. I had been broken before. I had rebuilt before.
But something shifted when I moved into my 50s. Not in the way society tells you it will. Not with resignation, or sentimental memories. It shifted in a more defiant way.
The question wasn’t “What I used to be?”
The question became “What am I still capable of becoming?”
Project 1:15 wasn’t born in a crowd or a competition. It started quietly. In a basement gym. On a SkiErg. In snowy Alberta mornings. In the steady willingness to test myself without needing an audience.
It started with data and discipline. It started with structure. Thresholds. Heart rate. Repeats. Double-sessions. Zone awareness. SkiErg, rower, bike, sleds, bodyweight, breath. It started with spreadsheets and routine and consistency.
But beneath all of that was a far more honest motivation:
I wasn’t chasing performance.
I was fighting disappearance.
There is a weird invisible pressure placed on aging men. A quiet suggestion that relevance is behind you. That strength should soften. That ambition should be “appropriate.” That danger should be handed off to the young.
I refused that narrative.
Not loudly. Not bitterly. Just privately, stubbornly, with discipline and a quiet flame.
Project 1:15 was my way of saying:
I am still here. I am still building. I am not finished.
Every double-threshold day wasn’t just a workout — it was a confirmation.
Every 4×4 interval wasn’t just VO2 — it was defiance.
Every sled push wasn’t just muscle — it was memory, spirit, thought.
I wasn’t trying to beat other men my age.
I was trying to meet the version of myself that still lived somewhere ahead of me.
The blueprint made sense because it was simple:
Show up.
Stay calm.
Stack the work.
Repeat.
The deeper it went, the more I realized I wasn’t just training a body. I was reshaping a relationship with time. With aging. With relevance. With purpose.
There was also something else happening that I didn’t fully understand at first.
A quiet new energy began to settle in me. A subtle warmth that didn’t come from training alone. Not adrenaline, not ego, not competition. Something more tender. Something that softened me without making me weaker.
It felt like connection, even when I was alone.
It made me more patient in rest.
More honest in effort.
More careful with myself.
More open to uncertainty.
It wasn’t something I could name. Only something I could feel.
And it changed the way I trained.
Instead of attacking the work, I began listening to it.
Instead of dominating my body, I began respecting it.
Instead of chasing pain, I began trusting awareness.
Project 1:15 slowly grew from ambition into a form of conversation. A quiet daily dialogue between my breath, my heart, my mind and a feeling that lived somewhere just outside of reach.
“Stay close.”
“Stay honest.”
“Stay open.”
The time goal remained. The blueprint stayed intact. The numbers still mattered.
But the deeper truth was this:
Project 1:15 was a mirror.
And what I saw in that mirror had nothing to do with age or time or results.
I saw a man still willing to listen.
Still willing to learn.
Still willing to feel.
Still willing to become.
And that, I realized, is always the real work.