When personal records, victory, and qualifying for additional competitions all lie somewhere between uncertain and inconceivable, what goals are left? USAPL Raw Nationals is just around the corner. It's bigger than ever, but I'm feeling more flat and unready than nervous or excited, and I'm having a hard time focusing on my training. Given the gulf between what I could plausibly achieve and Joah's far loftier potential, that may be somewhat natural, but honestly, I've given many times more thought to her performance than I have to my own.

Every meet is different. The weights never change, but the path to the platform – and the lifter who arrives there – is never the same. I'm coming off the best meet of my career and returning to the scene of my worst meet, so that simple fact is both a curse and a blessing.

I have no idea what to expect from myself this time around. Since returning from Costa Rica my training has been far more of a mess than usual. My coach and I knew when I decided to participate at NAPF that my time to peak — seven weeks — wouldn’t fit neatly in the 10 weeks between that meet and Nationals. (Simply traveling with Joah would have disrupted my training in the same way, which was part of the reason I chose to compete at NAPF in the first place.) There are a few different ways to address that kind of timing mismatch, but we agreed on a strategy that was new for me: Rather than training each competition lift once per week and repeating the same training weekly, I'd double the frequency, training each competition lift twice a week and repeating the same two workouts within the same week. In other words, I went from ABCD sessions to ABAB sessions across the same seven days.

In theory, that doubled frequency would roughly halve my time to peak; two three-week development blocks and two two-week pivot blocks filled those 10 weeks perfectly. It sounded great at the time, but about midway through the first development block, my lifts were trending down and the toll of training was obvious enough that Joah worried openly about the way I slumped over on the couch at night.

Without her voicing concern, I might have tried to force my way through, damn the torpedoes and my lower back. Instead I contacted my coach, who quickly put me into a week-long pivot, followed by a conventional single-frequency training block.

For the first week after that pivot, I was still feeling battered, and my lifts were bad. My deadlift in particular was garbage, but squats also suffered, and bench was merely OK. In the second and third weeks I started to feel more normal – not fresh, but not crippled – and yet my lifts didn't improve. Maybe I'll start to see better results in the coming weeks, but I'm running out of time.

Last year I wasn't fully peaked either. My coach hadn't had time to learn my time to peak, so it was impossible to align my training with the competition schedule. Instead we executed a pretty standard taper: Five days, out I performed openers for all three lifts, and three days out I went through my warm-up lifts. It was my worst meet, but that strategy wasn't to blame. If not for my dreadful mental state, I might have performed just fine.

All of that is to say that I may be able to overcome the awkward timing of my training, but that it's impossible to be sure. And that uncertainty in turn makes having or setting goals awkward at best – and without goals it's hard for me to get excited about competing. For the most part, every lifter at every meet hopes to surpass previous performances, but when my squat and deadlift aren't yet back to pre-NAPF levels in the gym, I don't know how realistic that is.

The first year I competed at Nationals, I planned to go only because Joah was going, and when she had to drop out with knee problems and I had what felt like a disappointing meet (placing 11th of 12 lifters), I regretted making the effort. Last year I came in fifth out of 10 lifters in my division, breaking a tie in competition total by weighing less. This year, there are only five men in my division, and my qualifying total is comfortably fourth-best-slash-second-worst. Slipping upward in the results only because I fewer people showed up wouldn't be much of a reward – especially if my performance is mediocre – but given the large differences in qualifying totals (66lbs between me and the next-highest, 254lbs between me and the next-lowest) I probably won't have much control over how I place anyway. Unless something strange happens with my opponents, huge PRs and massive failures would both put me in fourth place.

I'd like to have the option to compete at NAPF next summer, but there's no guarantee that I'll be invited onto the U.S. team again, no matter how well I perform in Chicago. NAPFs will be on Grand Cayman in July, while IPF Masters Worlds will be in South Africa in April; the extra time and expense of going there may encourage higher-placing athletes to stick closer to home. For the first time the open competition will be held at a different time and place, which may make the masters event less attractive. And unlike this year, next year's NAPF is early enough not to crowd training for next year's Nationals. As with placing at Nationals, this seems pretty much out of my control.

NAPFs were fun in part because my expectations were low. Just being there was the victory; PRs were a bonus. Nationals, though, I've attended twice – once for my third-ever meet – and haven't really enjoyed it, probably because I've burdened it with dumb expectations and excessive significance. This year, I want to behave more like the mature, level-headed athlete I hope to be, but that's not much of a goal. For one, “don't be a spazz” is a low bar. For another, I already surpassed it twice, at NAPFs and my qualifying meet last June.

Although my goals are unclear, I would never consider dropping out of the meet. For one, it's a sunk cost – not only the meet registration but the airfare and the coaching fee and the hotel room. For another, withdrawing just because I might not PR or get the right color of medal would be disrespectful to the more than 1,300 athletes who worked so hard just to qualify, the vast majority of whom will go home empty-handed.

The only reason to compete, at Nationals or anywhere else, is to test myself. Powerlifting masquerades as a contest between individuals, but the true conflict is human – muscles, bones, ligaments, and willpower – versus gravity. At the moment, it feels like gravity is winning. I'm over the hump and this rollercoaster is accelerating toward Chicago. My only option is to try and enjoy the ride.