🔥 Endurance Purgatory, New Year’s Experiment Update, Dvorak’s New World Symphony, Tolstoy on Poison

#76: a weekly 4-item newsletter created to inspire dads to use the challenges of fatherhood as fuel for building an incredible life & an antifragile mind.

Welcome to the 76th edition of the antifragile 4 🔥.

This week, I finally put in writing what I’ve been feeling for months about my life in endurance sports and use my new favorite phrase—“Cat o’ Nine Tails of Not Enough-ness”—while doing it.

Plus an update on my New Year’s Experiments, a lovely snippet of a symphony for no other reason than it’s cool, and Tolstoy on poison.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

With love,
Chris

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Here’s this week’s antifragile 4 🔥:

1. Endurance Purgatory

2. New Year’s Experiment Update

3. Dvorak’s New World Symphony

4. Tolstoy on Poison

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1.) Endurance Purgatory

5:15 AM, my alarm goes off.

I roll out of bed, pee, brush my teeth, and throw on cold-weather running gear. I tiptoe downstairs (our youngest has the ears of a puma) and eat a pre-run banana. I pull on my phone arm strap, and as I’m about to pull on my gloves, I have a thought…

This sounds miserable. It’s 25 degrees outside. I don’t want to do this.

And so…I don’t.

Welcome to my endurance purgatory.

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I’ve run for my entire adult life. I’ve also done a number of triathlons—documented in this very newsletter—in this current season of life.

I love just about everything about endurance sports. The gear. The challenge. The time alone. The time together. The loony characters. The highs. The lows.

Just about everything except—for reasons that only recently became clear—why I was doing it.

Which, if I’m being honest, was to prove to the world—through yet another endeavor—that I, Chris Regan, was in fact…good enough.

Not just a father / husband / entrepreneur / traveler / writer / cool dude.

But a father / husband / entrepreneur / traveler / writer / cool dude / endurance athlete.

Am I good enough yet? Have I crossed the enough-ness threshold? Do I get my certificate in the mail or…?

Thanks to many-a-conversation with Coach Steve, I’m starting to let go of that unhelpful bullhockey. And beginning to view myself less as a collection of accomplishments—endlessly judged and compared—and more as an inherently worthy human with a hilariously short time to share light and love in the world I inhabit.

Turns out, that version is way more fun.

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We now return to cold-weather-clad Chris standing awkwardly in his kitchen.

He no longer feels the need to whip himself with the Cat o’ Nine Tails of Not-Enough-ness. His self-esteem isn’t tethered quite so tightly to mile pace or race results. He doesn’t feel the need to prove anything to anyone.

But it’s created a strange limbo.

Because if endurance isn’t a feather in his cap anymore—what is it?

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I don’t fully know yet.

What I do know is this: it no longer exists to prove anything. It isn’t a scoreboard or a personality trait. It’s not there to make me enough.

I’ll probably race again. Almost certainly, actually. But if I do, it won’t be from hunger for a result. It’ll be from curiosity. From wonder. From asking: What happens if I train this body thoughtfully? What happens if I push this mind with care? And be in awe of whatever I find.

The outcomes will be what they are.

Endurance is becoming a tool now — a special one. A way to experience the world that only sustained effort can unlock. Long roads. Quiet mornings. The strange intimacy of being alone with your breath for a very long time.

Some days I’ll use that tool.

Some days I won’t.

And for the first time, that feels exactly right.

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2.) Experiment Update

I’m opting for Experiments over Resolutions this year. Here’s how they’re going:

1. No Chips, No Added Sugar & No Egregious Amounts of Cheese for 45 Days: Surprisingly easy. Especially because I can still have a little cheese 😈. My energy is noticeably up, though. My body struggles with blood sugar regulation after eating processed carbs (discovered via Zoe). Removing this boom/bust cycle has felt very good.

2. No Sports News on Mobile Devices: This one was harder at first, as The Athletic was my digital blankie. But as with most things, my taste for it is almost gone. It’s been downright delightful to learn about “important” sports news updates from a friend…a week after they happen. I’ve also intentionally looked up a couple of stories on my laptop, which scratched the itch. Definite mental state improvement.

3. Evening Journal / Verbal Chapter Breaks: This one is the newest, but with promising early returns. Even with inconsistency. I journaled 5 out of 7 days and did the verbal chapters moreso early in the week, but both created mental space and pause that was not there before. And it feels like the week went by slower. No journaling is ever a bad thing.

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3.) Dvorak’s New World Symphony

This has absolutely nothing to do with becoming a better person. It’s just cool.

Listen to the first 30 seconds of Dvorak’s 1893 New World Symphony (4th Movement)—start from the very beginning—and you’ll discover where John Williams got the inspiration for Jaws & Star Wars.

So cool.

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4.) Tolstoy on Poison

The difference between real material poison and intellectual poison is that most material poison is disgusting to the taste, but intellectual poison, which takes the form of cheap newspapers or bad books [or X tweets], can unfortunately sometimes be attractive.

Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom

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Two last things for you this week:

1. If you think about someone you haven’t seen for a while, text them and say hi. Don’t overthink it. Share some light.

2. Be fire and wish for the wind 🔥

With love,
Chris

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