fluffyrin42

Great thread! I think the C25K trail challenge sounds great - and congrats on rocking the first run > walk workout! I remember mentally that being a huge hurdle when I first started out.

This. Is. Amazing. Your challenge thread is fantastic! Can't wait to see how you do.

Great goals! Subbing from the newbie thread and I'm excited to see how you do!

Awesome challenge! Subbing from the newbie thread, but I love Goal 4 - good luck with it!

Wowza! Subbing the thread from the newbie ranger board... Best of luck with your goals and I'm excited to see how you do with the meal planning! I've determined that planning out 6 days/week works best for me, because inevitably something comes up and I'll slide everything a day. I'll have to check out your bulk cooking methods, though!

Yay! I passed on accountabilibuddies last time, but I think I could use the back-up. Here goes intros: <clears throat> Hi, my name is Erin and I'm a week 3 drop out. My challenges this time around are all around trying to establish new routines. My last challenge basically fell off the radar after week 3, so this time, my underlying goal is to stick around the entire challenge! I was an adventurer for my first challenge, but I feel like the Rangers will be my home for a while - so I can't wait to get involved! My thread is here: http://nerdfitnessrebellion.com/index.php?/topic/30403-fluffyrins-getting-settled-right/ I try to respond to anyone who pops by, and I'll do my best to stay involved in the other team member's threads... I'm admittedly bad about finding time, but I'll do my best. My biggest challenge is likely going to be Goal #3: foregoing sweets. My husband loves all things dessert - cakes, cookies, ice cream, and I just let myself get dragged right along. I'm going to try hard to stay strong on this one! I think that's it... can't wait to get to know you guys.

Hi Rangers - second challenge for me, but first outside the Adventurers! Last challenge was blown to bits when we ended up moving on Week 2. Now that we're all moved and getting settled, my goals for this challenge are targeted towards getting into a new routine. Goal 1: Get Active Outside (+2 STA, +2 CON) The new house has trails, paths, and ponds all over that are waiting to be explored. My first goal is to get outside and walk/run/bike, whatever gets me out of the house at least 3 times per week. I'd like to take this challenge to motivate myself to get out of the comfort of my living room and go explore! A: >90% B: 80%-89% C: 70%-79% D: 60%-69% F: <60% Goal 2: Get Strong (+4 STR) Last challenge I failed in epic fashion to build a strength habit. I think a big part of it was 3x a week was just too much for me starting out. So this challenge I'm going to take it a step back and aim for twice a week doing strength training. As a stretch goal, I'd like to be doing 5 good-form push ups by the end. Last challenge, I was doing 12 push-ups from my knees... A: >90% B: 80%-89% C: 70%-79% D: 60%-69% F: <60% Goal 3: Get Healthy (+3 CON) I generally eat pretty healthy, but I want to work on better managing the junk food. My goal is to limit my sweets to only twice per week. A: <12 treats B: 13 treats C: 14 treats D: 15 treats F: >15 treats Goal 4: Get Clean (+2 WIS, +2 CHA) I was pretty successful with my clean sink challenge, but I'm going to make this one more generic: 15 minutes of chores per day. No matter what it is, just picking up around the house, scrubbing the bath, or weeding the yard - my goal is consistency. I tend to clean in bursts - one day I'll spend hours catching up on the mess... I'd like to make upkeep more of a normal part of my day. I'd also like to keep our place more presentable so I'm not worried about inviting people over to our messy house! Grading will be based on the percentage of days I reach my 15 minute goal. A: >90% B: 80%-89% C: 70%-79% D: 60%-69% F: <60% Bonus Goal: Since I'm in a new town, I need to find a gym where I can start working more with weights and I really want to get back to swimming. So I'm also going to use this challenge to find a gym to call home.

Challenge Summary: This was one big case of mega excuses and life changing the best of intentions. My complete change in moving plans wrecked what progress I had been making and I just got overwhelmed and pretty much quit. Goal #1: Unleash My Inner Warrior (+5 STR) In high school, I did weight lifting for my gym classes and loved it. For some reason, I've never really done it since. My goal is to strength train 3x per week. I'm going to start with the BBWW and hopefully progress to the Advanced by the end of the challenge. I'll do a max-rep test to start and maybe do some mini-goals to improve those stats. A: 6 weeks B: 5 weeks C: 4 weeks D: 3 weeks F: <3 weeks I only managed all 3x/week in week one. Overall, I did 7 strength training sessions for the entire challenge which is a big fat F. (+0 STR) Goal #2: Run Less Run Faster (+2 STA, +2 DEX) I'm really keen on the premise of the Run Less Run Faster concept (3 workouts/week focused on specific aspects of gaining speed), but have never really structured my running plans around speed. This challenge I will do the first 6 weeks of the RLRF beginner 5k training to get adjusted to the program (and considering I haven't been on a run in months). I plan to base my training around a sub-50:00 10k so I can win a bet I have with my husband. A: 6 weeks B: 5 weeks C: 4 weeks D: 3 weeks F: <3 weeks While I did slightly better on this, I still only met my 3x/week goal on one week. I did get in ~10 runs over the entire challenge, but nowhere near what I had hoped for. Another F. (+0 STA, +0 DEX) Goal #3: Get a Move On (+2 WIS, +2 CON) Hubby and I are moving Memorial Day - this challenge aligns perfectly with staying on top of all of our moving related activities. My goal for this is to accomplish one moving-related activity per day for at least 6 days/week. Whether that's cleaning a space, packing a couple of boxes, or purging in preparation, I don't want to be down to the wire in getting things done. A: >33 days B: 29-32 days C: 25-28 days D: 21-24 days F: <21 days This is probably the only goal I was remotely successful at! We ended up moving most of our stuff on Week 3 of the challenge, so I was forced to do some things pretty much every day. In the last week, we've taken a couple days off - only because we've unpacked all the boxes that have already been delivered, we've finished cleaning out the rental, and now I'm just waiting on furniture to be delivered before we can finish picking up the rest. I've done a really poor job of tracking this in the last few weeks, but knowing how busy we've been, I'm confident that I made more than 33 days of moving tasks. Hooray - one A! However, I don't feel like I met the spirit of my initial challenge - which was to not procrastinate and get things done in advance, I'm only going to take half points. (+1 WIS, +1 CON) Goal #4: Clean Living (+2 CON) Having a dirty house bothers me, but cleaning is never a priority for me. I saw a clean-sink challenge online, so I'm going to start there. My goal is to go to bed with a clean sink every night. This means that dishes are done and the sink is wiped down... putting dishes on the counter instead doesn't count. A: >90% days B: 80-89% days C: 70-79% days D: 60-69% days F: <59% days I actually did pretty well on this one. We haven't been cooking as much the last few weeks with all the moving activities, but I would say I only really missed having the dishes cleaned and in the dishwasher a few days out of this challenge. However, since I haven't been tracking and I'm not as confident on this one, I'm going to give this one a B. (+1.5 CON) Given that I had one goal that I couldn't really help but accomplish given the shift in priorities, I don't really think it's fair to say I was super successful on this challenge overall. The clean sink piece was a huge upgrade over the past - I've definitely noticed that I'm a lot less likely to let the dishes sit in the dishwasher clean and then have a resulting pile-up in the sink. So I'll go ahead and woohoo myself for making progress in one area! I'd like to say that it was life getting in the way, but a lot of it was me making excuses. We had long days of moving, yes, but in the last few weeks, I've been slipping back into some old bad habits of sleeping through my alarms and not getting up when my body is ready. It's left me feeling lethargic, crabby, and just blah. So with the upcoming challenge, I'm going to try to get more back to my old self. As far as leveling, I technically was around for all 6 weeks, but I just don't think I gave it even a sort-of best effort for the last half. So no level up for me. But I'll take my few attribute points and apply some of the lessons I learned for next time!

Challenge Summary: This was one big case of mega excuses and life changing the best of intentions. My complete change in moving plans wrecked what progress I had been making and I just got overwhelmed and pretty much quit. Goal #1: Unleash My Inner Warrior (+5 STR) In high school, I did weight lifting for my gym classes and loved it. For some reason, I've never really done it since. My goal is to strength train 3x per week. I'm going to start with the BBWW and hopefully progress to the Advanced by the end of the challenge. I'll do a max-rep test to start and maybe do some mini-goals to improve those stats. A: 6 weeks B: 5 weeks C: 4 weeks D: 3 weeks F: <3 weeks I only managed all 3x/week in week one. Overall, I did 7 strength training sessions for the entire challenge which is a big fat F. (+0 STR) Goal #2: Run Less Run Faster (+2 STA, +2 DEX) I'm really keen on the premise of the Run Less Run Faster concept (3 workouts/week focused on specific aspects of gaining speed), but have never really structured my running plans around speed. This challenge I will do the first 6 weeks of the RLRF beginner 5k training to get adjusted to the program (and considering I haven't been on a run in months). I plan to base my training around a sub-50:00 10k so I can win a bet I have with my husband. A: 6 weeks B: 5 weeks C: 4 weeks D: 3 weeks F: <3 weeks While I did slightly better on this, I still only met my 3x/week goal on one week. I did get in ~10 runs over the entire challenge, but nowhere near what I had hoped for. Another F. (+0 STA, +0 DEX) Goal #3: Get a Move On (+2 WIS, +2 CON) Hubby and I are moving Memorial Day - this challenge aligns perfectly with staying on top of all of our moving related activities. My goal for this is to accomplish one moving-related activity per day for at least 6 days/week. Whether that's cleaning a space, packing a couple of boxes, or purging in preparation, I don't want to be down to the wire in getting things done. A: >33 days B: 29-32 days C: 25-28 days D: 21-24 days F: <21 days This is probably the only goal I was remotely successful at! We ended up moving most of our stuff on Week 3 of the challenge, so I was forced to do some things pretty much every day. In the last week, we've taken a couple days off - only because we've unpacked all the boxes that have already been delivered, we've finished cleaning out the rental, and now I'm just waiting on furniture to be delivered before we can finish picking up the rest. I've done a really poor job of tracking this in the last few weeks, but knowing how busy we've been, I'm confident that I made more than 33 days of moving tasks. Hooray - one A! However, I don't feel like I met the spirit of my initial challenge - which was to not procrastinate and get things done in advance, I'm only going to take half points. (+1 WIS, +1 CON) Goal #4: Clean Living (+2 CON) Having a dirty house bothers me, but cleaning is never a priority for me. I saw a clean-sink challenge online, so I'm going to start there. My goal is to go to bed with a clean sink every night. This means that dishes are done and the sink is wiped down... putting dishes on the counter instead doesn't count. A: >90% days B: 80-89% days C: 70-79% days D: 60-69% days F: <59% days I actually did pretty well on this one. We haven't been cooking as much the last few weeks with all the moving activities, but I would say I only really missed having the dishes cleaned and in the dishwasher a few days out of this challenge. However, since I haven't been tracking and I'm not as confident on this one, I'm going to give this one a B. (+1.5 CON) Given that I had one goal that I couldn't really help but accomplish given the shift in priorities, I don't really think it's fair to say I was super successful on this challenge overall. The clean sink piece was a huge upgrade over the past - I've definitely noticed that I'm a lot less likely to let the dishes sit in the dishwasher clean and then have a resulting pile-up in the sink. So I'll go ahead and woohoo myself for making progress in one area! I'd like to say that it was life getting in the way, but a lot of it was me making excuses. We had long days of moving, yes, but in the last few weeks, I've been slipping back into some old bad habits of sleeping through my alarms and not getting up when my body is ready. It's left me feeling lethargic, crabby, and just blah. So with the upcoming challenge, I'm going to try to get more back to my old self. As far as leveling, I technically was around for all 6 weeks, but I just don't think I gave it even a sort-of best effort for the last half. So no level up for me. But I'll take my few attribute points and apply some of the lessons I learned for next time!

Status Summary: Week 3: We were moving basically all weekend. We finally got enough stuff moved on Sunday that I could finally cook a meal at the new house. It was so nice to not eat out for a couple of days. Summary for the week: Goal 1: Epic fail. No weight training this week at all. Goal 2: see goal 1. Goal 3: Pass! This one is going to get tricky going forward, because we've moved a lot of stuff out of the old place. Now we'll be focusing on cleaning/fixing up the old place and unpacking what we can before the movers come with our furniture. Goal 4: Pass-ish. For the day that we cooked, sink was clean. And I did manage to keep all the cans and bottles picked up in between, so I'll call it a success. Week 4 so far: Didn't get in my strength workout yesterday, but did manage a super short run today. It was better than nothing, though!

Blerg. This week has been one giant fail. The only goal that is getting any action is moving because, well, we're moving! After our pup got sick, we had several carpet-dirtying moments at our rental and we decided that rather than extend our stay and move gradually like we'd hoped, we just up and moved on Tuesday to avoid potential damages. Needless to say, most of our stuff is still 45 minutes away and we're trying to move a couple of car loads each night after work. I don't know if I'm allowed to count a clean sink every night if we're only using disposable plates and eating out pretty much every night. :-/ Hopefully we'll be able to make a huge dent this weekend and get the majority of our stuff at the new house. Then I can start over on Week 4. (Holy crap. We're almost half way through this thing!)

LOL. I don't know if I would call myself a swimmer. More of a marginally-controlled flailer... but I love doing tris, so I work on what I'm weakest at.

I used the book. The descriptions were good enough for me to understand the goal of each drill. I've heard the videos are helpful for some of the other stroke mechanics, but I was more concerned with the super basics.

Holy monkeys. I am so excited to find this thread. I love having a structured workout when I hit the pool, but I'm generally too lazy to change it up more than once every few weeks. This is great! I can't wait to get my new pool membership and start trying these out. Thanks Steve!

Hey Incantor - I'm in the same boat and I still really struggle... So take this with a grain of salt. When I first started swimming a couple of years ago, I really struggled with getting rotation and finding a body position in the water that didn't result in me kicking for my life to keep from sinking. I wound up using the drills in Terry Laughlin's Total Immersion series to start from scratch and learn specific drills to help me focus on the basics first. I don't know that I would 100% swear by his kick-less philosophy, but the body position queues he uses were super helpful for me. According to my husband, my swimming still looks only marginally better than a drowning person, but I definitely felt more comfortable with my stroke after taking a couple of weeks focused strictly on the beginner drills. Good luck!

Hey Xerla - great job on all of your progress! A 40 second plank is huge and I'm still struggling through 3 sets of the BBWW! I'm glad you are able to acknowledge how you are feeling - I hope you start feeling better soon. Keep up the great work!

Week 3 Day 2: Goal 1: Rest day from strength Goal 2: I ran on Tuesday in the snow - I was proud of myself for getting out there. I've had to mod my running plans... I'm basically just focusing on getting back to running 30 minutes without stopping before I pick back up on the RLRF plan. Tuesday I managed to go 2.25 miles in 20 minutes. Goal 3: Still going strong! Got some more clothes cleaned and ready to pack. This weekend I need to focus on finishing a dress I've been sewing for an upcoming wedding so that I can pack up all my sewing stuff... Goal 4: I can't believe how well I've been doing with this task. It makes cooking dinner so much easier when I don't have to clear a huge pile of dishes every evening! Week 3 Day 3: Goal 1: Yesterday we did another BBWW. I need to figure out some variations on that workout - it's starting to get a little old and I'd much prefer to start doing fewer reps at higher weight. Still slacking on getting a form check. D'oh! Goal 2: Rest day from running. Goal 3: Didn't do a whole lot on this one. Picked up a few miscellaneous items, but need to do better. Goal 4: Done! Hopefully I'm able to meet the rest of my goals today, but my hubs is currently at an emergency vet visit with our pup... Hopefully we won't have to take her to the 24 hour hospital tonight!

I used to have this problem - I'd try three things: 1) If the blisters are consistently on your heels, you might try tying your shoes with an emphasis on reducing heel slipping. This is one of the best methods I've found (I have pretty narrow heels, so this is a common running shoe problem for me): http://katierunsthis.com/2011/10/04/running-shoe-lacing-techniques/ - scroll down to the heel slipping recommendation. 2) Body Glide. I use this before any run > 60 minutes... I just make sure to apply it all over my foot before I put on socks. Works for sports bra chaffing too! 3) If none of that works, there are a lot of blister guard products out there... I used to use mole skin in my hiking boots. I've heard the band-aid brand patches are pretty good too.

Just checking in Temeraire - how have you been doing? I hope things are going well!

Week 3 Day 1 Status: Goal 1: Managed to get in the BBWW tonight. The last 3-4 workouts I've done have finished with a monster headache, so I need to figure out what's going on. According to the internets, I either need to warm up more before I get to the aggressive part of my workout or I need to hydrate better. I generally drink 60-80oz of water a day, so I'm going to start with warm-ups. I'm admittedly really (really) bad about just going into a workout cold. I've also noticed a weird pulling sensation in my left knee when I'm doing squats. It's quite unpleasant. I really need to set up the phone for a form check - I don't want to wind up doing some damage because I'm inflexible... :-/ Goal 2: Run is today - it's supposed to be a speed day, so we'll see how that goes. Goal 3: We're running short on moving activities and have decided to shuffle our moving plans a bit. Now we're thinking we'll move earlier in May in order to get the dogs out of the rental. We'll see how that goes... Goal 4: Managed to recover from the refrigerator clean out pretty well. Now I just need to figure out where the funky smell is coming from in the kitchen...

Week 2 Summary: Goal 1: We only managed to get in two strength workouts this week. :-/ I took a tumble on my bike on Saturday and really wasn't feeling up for it. I'm a little bummed because we'd been doing so well, but my goal is to get us back on track today. Goal 2: I also only got in two runs this week. It's finally getting light early enough that I'm hoping to switch back to morning runs. That should make it easier to guarantee I get my run in without worry about the rest of the day getting in the way. Goal 3: We did make more progress on moving tasks. Took another load of stuff to good will and picked up everything we need for the last few repair tasks around the house. Unfortunately we found out the drain pipes for the kitchen sink/dishwasher are leaking, so I've had to put a brief hold on dishes while we wait for the repairs to finish curing... Which leads me to: Goal 4: I actually did pretty well on this goal. Last night was the first night where there were dishes left in the sink, but that's because we cleaned out the refrigerator and then got hung up with the leaky pipes. Hopefully everything will be sealed up and I can finish the dishes tonight. All things considered, I'm doing better than I'd thought I'd be. I feel better - less winded on the stairs and I can tell I'm improving on my runs as well. I'm hoping this week I can start adding some weight to a few of the exercises to keep things challenging. I'm also up to 15 reps of knee push-ups, so I'm hoping by the end of the challenge I'll be rocking at least a few full push-ups!

I figure two weeks in, it's probably high time I sub on your thread. Biking this weekend - we're on it baby!

Thanks Xerla! For the inverted rows, I can't reach my table from a laying down position, so I usually sit on the floor to grip the table then move my feet out into position. That way I'm hanging from the edge of the table. Steve has a good video showing that position here: http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/12/17/advanced-body-weight-workout-warning-this-will-kick-your-ass/ (video is at the bottom of the article). Maybe that will make your study desk an option!

I'm sorry that you have to deal with those added social pressures... I'm glad you recognize the good progress your making and know that you can always pop on these boards for a boost when you need it! Keep it up!

Oh spinning. I'm still a bit of a newbie in the world of yarn, but every time I see the roving at my LYS I can't help but swoon a little. ;-)