Strength Is a Deadline

You carried the shopping up two flights last week and arrived at the top more out of breath than you expected. Nothing dramatic. You put the bags down, the breathing settled, and you gave it about four seconds of attention before moving on to the next thing. Bad month. Poor sleep. You have not trained since the spring.

It got filed as a bad week rather than a reading. On any given week that is a fair call. It only turns into something else when you set it beside the same staircase five years ago, and you cannot do that, because you were not paying attention then either.