I quit. For the past 12 weeks I’ve been diligently plugging away at a 16-week half-marathon training program. In truth, the seeds of that were starting to get planted at least 20 weeks ago.
This week I pulled the plug. I quit. Gave up. Surrendered… not because it was hard, not because of external acute circumstances, and certainly not because I was lazy or unfocused.
To preface this conversation, let’s note that nothing is new and almost everything has been said before. So, let’s set the stage with some folks who have said (and done) it better than myself:
Excerpts from “Quitting vs. Failing” in the “Capacity Manual” by Non-Prophet Publishing (2023):
… A truly self-aware individual might admit, “I failed”, and assume responsibility for this outcome of overwhelming external conditions. On the other hand, “I quit” reserves no ambiguity about who did what and who is responsible for that choice and action.
Declaring that, “I failed after trying as hard as I possibly could and then some,” is not the same as saying, “I quit because it was too daunting to continue,” or “I quit because the outcome wasn’t going to be consistent with my self-image.”…
Egoic self-delusion prevents growth so if I am trying to change aspects of my own human condition I must undertake a ruthless self-assessment and accept my behavior and the beliefs that allow it. In this, honesty is paramount…
Of course, as part of the negotiation I must learn to differentiate the signals warning me of genuine impending harm and those I merely dislike. So I ask myself whether, apart from the acute instances of a poorly executed lift, have I ever damaged myself irreparably in the gym — especially in the context of confronting an Oxygen Limitation, which is when the “Quit/Don’t Quit” negotiation most commonly occurs…
I know there will be many days when my desire to quit will be strong and only I can pay enough attention to persevere. This is trainable and sustainable, but also — when left unattended — prone to decay. Attention must be practiced and Capacity training is the ideal means of developing and maintaining it… as long as I don’t quit.
Parenthetic to the above, and any exclamation of “Quit/Don’t Quit” should also be “don’t be an idiot.” Or, perhaps, we should consider that “until death, all defeat is psychological.”
To be sure, a lot of people give up early, and often. What’s worse is that many more don’t even try. Under the guise of “living a little” they’re not living at all — elbow deep in a bucket of fried chicken and a 2-liter of Coke on the side, washed down with a “couple” drinks.
Just as surely, as I’ve written many times but it’s come to the fore again, many people mire themselves in obsessive minutia — and also cease “living” for the sake of “longevity.” What’s more is that the fear and outrage based neurotic machine known as “media” fuels this. Dully note that the producers of such “content” are beholden to your “engagement”, not your outcomes.
As far as I can recall, though you’re welcome to fact-check my archives, I’ve never referred to myself as an “elite athlete.” I’ve tried my best to only document what I’ve observed, what I’ve done, and what the outcomes were.
I’ve done my fair share of hard things; from black belts and cage fights to climbing mountains and academic / professional awards. Yet recently, the fitness equivalent of “Sunday Scaries” hit me like an existential crisis I hadn’t experienced in quite a while.
What’s particularly troubling about this phenomenon is that we’re not talking about acute stressors — like struggling to get going on a Monday morning. We’re talking about the difference between “I don’t want to go to work today” and “I don’t want to go back to work ever again.” In the case of the latter, a couple sick days, or even a week’s vacation, won’t save you.
What brought this on wasn’t acute injury, though external parameters played a role. It was the culmination of curiosity around “what if I just went back to training / playing my actual sport (jiu jitsu) most of the time?” What if I did that (training) every day and supplemental exercise was just the filler or support?
Pardon the suspense, but it’s necessary framing before we get into the particulars. This isn’t as simple as “I changed my workout plan.” It’s a reminder that our Earth-time is limited and our most valuable resources (time, attention, and effort) grow increasingly scarce.
So, what exactly happened?
I hate running, though less so nowadays. However, I hadn’t really dialed into endurance training in a few years, so it was time. We should also note that the experience of endurance is distinct from the skill / sport of running.
Yes, there was a good bit of running in that prior program, but this time around I specifically wanted to challenge myself to do something I’m not good at and that I don’t particularly enjoy… for posterity you could say.
Sometime early this year (2026) I started every workout with a 1-mile trot on a treadmill and slowly added volume to that. I’m known for insisting on long warm ups, and typically that includes an aerobic component anyway — so 10-20 minutes was suitable.
Then I recalled that there’s a local half-marathon in late September in my area. At that time, 13.1 miles seemed unfathomable, but I had time to work.
I wrote a program for myself that was broken down into 3 x 8-week phases.
Phase 1 - Structural hardening: 45-minute walk daily, plus mobility.
Phase 2 - Volume Accumulation: The goal here was to increase weekly running volume (miles), broken up however was needed throughout the week.
Phase 3 - Consecutive Consolidation: This block focused on continuing skill development days (running better, not faster or further) and included one “long” day per week which focused on stretching the limit (miles per session).
These were morning “exercise” routines on top of BJJ “training” 3 times per week. Much of the program contents were taken from CrossFit Endurance (seminar) and Unbreakable Runner (book).
Knowledge is great for building plans, but until we execute (accumulate experience) and adapt, we are none the wiser. That’s a clever way of saying “shit happens.”
About 10 weeks out from race day I got a call out of the blue from a colleague; a potential career trajectory changing opportunity had just fallen on my lap. In short, instead of running a half-marathon in September, I’d be spending a week in Hawaii.
Business plans change just like training plans. So, budget constraints shifted the above engagement and I’d be working remote, though I was determined to get my beach vacation. My pivot was to still train for the half-marathon, skip the race, and work remotely from coastal Georgia.
Ultimately, administrative bottlenecks caused fundraising to get cancelled and the entire project was killed. A few days before I got that news, I pushed my longest consecutive run to date — 8.14 miles in 81 minutes, the relative humidity was over 90%. I looked at my limping 10 year old malinois and knew it was his last long run.
All of that was an emotional roller coaster that left me wondering, as I often do, “what is the point of any of this?”
What constitutes failure depends on what we’re measuring success by and ourselves against; what we’re trying to achieve. If the goal was to finish middle-of-the-pack on an arbitrary race day, then yes, I failed. Not only did I not finish (DNF), I didn’t even start.
However, if the goal was to improve my aerobic base, re-define what it means to endure, and improve my running skill, the data doesn’t lie.
I’m not going to tell you 8 miles in a swamp was fun. I will tell you it changes the perspective of what “hard” feels like. A few weeks prior, in similar conditions, I notched a 10K in 58:00. Neither are particularly “fast”, but they’re a different experience than a “casual 5K” in favorable conditions.
If you asked me in January, 3.1 miles (5K) would have seemed like a haul, not “just another Monday.” 6.25 miles (10K) would have been a noteworthy achievement, not “the start of when I have to dig deep.”
Some 20 years ago Gregg Glassman, controversially for the time, described a 5K as “capacity, not endurance.” Certainly, I can “endure” a lot of punishment in a 20-30 minute window. That story changes radically (regardless of the implement, skill, or sport) if the query becomes “go until you can’t.”
That brings us back to the fundamental question, “why are we doing any of this?”
Do I want to run / roll / surf today?
Do I want to run / roll / surf as many days as I can until I die?
One grappler, who I was working with on their conditioning, I intentionally threw into the deep end. We warmed up light aerobics and mobility, lifted a little to pre-fatigue the musculature, then I smoked his lungs — he puked three times. Then I made him roll (jiu jitsu) until I decided we were ready to stop.
In the whiteboard briefing before the session I warned him:
We have to remember why we’re here. We have to end with something we love, because it’s too fucking hard to do it for any other reason.
Where does that leave me now, or at least for the rest of the year? Well, I won’t be in Hawaii in September and I won’t be running a half-marathon either.
Maybe you’ll catch me wrestling my two malinois on a beach somewhere else. There will probably be more jiu jitsu than anything else — ADCC World Championships are a couple weeks away so the stoke will be high among training partners.
CrossFit style gymnastics — double unders, muscle ups, handstand / walks, etc. — are fun, help grappling, and don’t leave me wrecked because I’m not good enough at them to accumulate meaningful volume.
Heavy lifts still look and feel cool — I always liked Olympic weightlifting even if I wasn’t particularly good at it either. Once / week or a couple times per month goes a long way once the foundation is built.
Coming full circle, it would be a shame to waste the aerobic capacity I’ve recently renewed, so I’ll likely still do a couple “shorter” runs each week.
The moral of the story, then, seems to be not to seek failure and never quit, but whatever you chose to do (ref.):
Show Up.
Pay Attention.
Tell the Truth.
Don’t be Attached to Outcomes.
"Quitting" is a sensitive subject. For me if I commit to a goal I need to follow through. Now if something comes up to affect my ability to do so... A health or family issue/obligation then I may need to put it on pause or ..,.. give it up, depending on what happens. Sometimes you lose interest in a thing and it takes away from other things you love to do for too long. At this point in life, if I'm not enjoying something for the sake of it..... And it's really not necessary.... Then I need to reconsider my priorities. That said.... I'm 71 and still dealing with the limitations of what brings. My goal now is to workout/train at least 4 days a week for an hour a session. Sometimes the gym, sometimes walking the life course and stopping at a couple of the PT stations for pushups or crunches. Or maybe some serious time with the Body Opponent Bag to get some techniques in. You are right.... I gotta love it. I'm on the other side of the hill now so time and how I spend it is very important to me. Thanks for the article!