Reached a huge long-term fitness goal

Hooray for me, I can now do several strict pull-ups — nine of them, wide grip, pronated.

Several years ago I tried doing some pull-ups on a just-right tree branch, and was horrified that I could only do one. And a wobbly one. 😬 I had gotten… middle-aged. Too heavy, too weak. I knew it would be a huge project to fix that, probably years, and I was right.

Re-tests even after the first couple years of effort were discouraging, and then there were serious setbacks Working towards this goal has been so difficult that it’s been ages since I last dared to even check. I’ve been assuming that I wasn’t ready, and might never be, based on my slow progress with lat pull-downs. But I never gave up on the effort, or even backed off. I have been inching my way towards victory the whole time. I figured if I couldn’t actually achieve the goal, trying was all the more important.

And today I finally did eight neat pull-ups, plus a ninth wibbly-wobbly one. But I got all the way up there, nine times. Achievement unlocked.