Every morning Nate Carroll, a 43-year-old dad from Wisconsin, gets up at 4:30am and hits the deck to pump out 100 push-ups. He then takes a four-minute breather and repeats.
That’s because this divorced father-of-three has set himself an insane challenge for 2019: to bang out one million push-ups.
To reach this formidable target Nate must do at least 2740 push-ups. Every. Single. Day.
During his shift as a social worker who provides mental health services for state prison inmates, Nate squeezes in extra sets of push-ups wherever possible. He needs to do 115 every waking hour.
When he returns from work he then completes his daily allocation. Every set of push-ups is painstakingly logged in his journal – Nate’s current tally for the year: 323,624.
“My hope behind the push-ups is to give my children an opportunity to witness what it looks like to set big goals and the huge commitment to do it,” Nate told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I’m not curing cancer or anything, but it’s a big deal.”
“I’m 43, so I don’t have the body of a 25-year-old. I’m not ripped or anything like that, but I feel stronger.”
The reason for the challenge is to publicise another goal that he’s chasing alongside his three kids — Charlie, 12, Louie, 10, and Millie, 8. Together they aim to thank at least one police officer in each of the 3142 counties in the United States. They’re calling it the Thank Law Enforcement Challenge.
“The insulation and protection they provide all of us to allow us to live our lives is very important,” Nate said.
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Pictures by Mike De Sisti at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel