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End of Week 3 Handstands: Somehow forgot about these, but it was also a really busy week and I didn't make enough time for dancing and running, which is when I'm supposed to be working on this. Running: I ran a total of 2.5 miles this week. It was supposed to be more but a combo of a family emergency and a friend's boozy birthday party did not make for good mileage at the end of the week. Dancing: See above. Writing: Just finished my story at 2600 words. Now to edit!

Week 2 Day 5 Handstands: Did some more shoulder and wrist mobility again on Wednesday. Running: Did 2 miles Tuesday and 2.5 miles last night. Tomorrow's supposed to be my long run but I have a show. Still going to try to go on Sunday to finish out the week, though. Dancing: Somehow have had little time for dancing this week--just a lot going on right now while I'm trying to finish some freelance work. I did 10 minutes of fan veil and than a 12-minute combo drill. Probably not going to finish this as I still haven't been able to rehearse for my show tomorrow. Writing: Haven't been able to do anything since Tuesday. Still got my twice daily pushups, though.

Congrats on hitting your first goal!

It is much easier when you pick a schedule to do workouts! I just ran into that same thing myself. How did your first week go?

Week 2, Day 2 Handstands: Shoulder and wrist mobility. Added a new stretch for the video and worked on my hollow body. Dancing: I am still incredibly sore from modern yesterday (controlled falls and then getting back up again plus jumps makes my body ache when I'm used to just core work) so I did a half hour of shoulder and arm stretches and drills, then watched the beginning of my new fan veil DVD while I rolled my back over a lacrosse ball and the foam roller--I swear by both of these after pulling a muscle in my back. Running: Tomorrow. Writing: I'll see if I can get 150 words on my anthology piece. Bonus: My boyfriend and I are challenging each other to do pushups upon waking up and before going to bed. This week we're doing 15, twice a day. Next week, we're bumping it up to 20.

I like your first goal! How did your first week go? Congrats on running a marathon, btw! How long have you been running? I ran for a bit two years ago and hurt both my feet and kind of tapered off too, and just picked it up about three months ago.

Hello! Looks like some interesting goals. Running a 5K with armor? Wow! Will you be doing it for something specific?

End of Week 1! I kept meaning to update this and forget at the last minute. Going to try harder on that one this week. Handstands: Worked on wrist mobility and shoulder mobility, but twice a week isn't enough. I'm going to tack this on to the end of my running stretches and my dance practices. Then I'll get at least 6 times a week. Dancing: Did my hour of drilling. Did not spend time on making up new combos as my friend and I spent an hour and a half tweaking a routine we have to perform next weekend. I did go back to Modern Dance yesterday, though, and boy am I sore today! Running: Sigh. Took a week off. Going to start following the half-marathon training program, though, as I have signed up for the Temecula half-marathon in October! Writing: Began writing my historical story and got about 500 words in, but it feels forced. I did start writing another short, though, and I'm going to play with an older one and see if I can tweak that for the anthology now that I have some better ideas for one. Handstands: C. Dancing: B-; Running: D-; Writing: B+

I used to read everything I could get my hands on and now I'm really picky. I just picked up Game of Thrones and am trying to catch up with the show, but I normally don't like fantasy. Literary is great, though--reminds me of AP English class. And I'm a fan of the odd dystopian novel. I just saw that you are an August birthday! I turn 29 in August and also want to reach 30 in peak condition.

Wow, a 29-minute 5K! I just ran one on Saturday and was happy I got it under 41 minutes. 30 minutes is amazing! And editing is the worst--I have 5 Nano novels on my hard drive and I can't bring myself to start editing them. My belly dance teacher has an agent and took a month to edit her novel after her editor went through it...I think she spend half her time editing it!

Your novel sounds really interesting! Good luck with your goals, and I like your tracking system!

Thanks, guys! I'm going to interview my grandmother, who use to work in the walnut groves around here, and maybe do ashort historical romance--two genres I've never attempted! Day 1: Handstands: I watched the first section of the handstand course, and I'm going to work on my shoulder and hands after posting this. I have terrible mobility in both and those are the best places to start for handstands. Another trick they mentioned was perfecting the hollow body--however, I already did a hollow body exercise during.... Dancing: I pulled a 56 minute drill video from Datura, plus a 5 minute shimmy drill on my own. As usual, Rachel Brice and her Datura teachers kicked my butt. But I also surprised myself with my balance (my boyfriend now wants to put me on a slackline) and the fact that I almost got a 3/4 shimmy on the down. Some of my flexibility was impressive, and some of it made me sad (see above re: hands and shoulders). Running: So I ran my first 5K on Saturday and it went very well, and then I took the stage in the evening and danced for 12 minutes and my feet hated me all day Sunday. But the friend I ran the 5K with sort of volunteered me for a half-marathon in October. So instead of working on increasing my speed, I'm going to work on increasing my mileage by 10% each week. In other words, this week, I'm going to increase my mileage by .31 miles. Starting tomorrow. Writing: I've chosen my plot. Now I need to interview Grandma.

I forgot to update my sig! It's an anthology for local OC CA writers. Pretty exciting to be amongst the elites, actually!

Not sure yet...it's supposed to be about the local area so I'm thinking of going historical. I have, however, changed ideas about 4 times since agreeing to be in the anthology.

Hello, fellow writer! What is your book about?

The Zombies app is great! I used Zombies Run 2 to train for my 5K tomorrow and just found out yesterday they had a 5K app. Ah well. And I've heard of the reading phenomenon happening with pretty much anyone in grad school. And IMO, one book per week is pretty voracious! I usually take two weeks average to finish a book---I have no idea how I could finish one a week unless I really really liked it! What genres do you like?

You have great goals! Everything looks really managegable, and I especially like your gym goal, and the part where you're happy if you just do one or two things while you're there--an excellent way to build a habit! And yeah, we can do anything! Good luck with your first challenge!

So, I haven't done a 6-week challenge (or visited the forums, really), in forever. And then every time I checked the forums I missed the start and end. But since I'm running my first 5K tomorrow and a new challenge starts on the 3rd, I figured that that this woud be a good time to restart! Quick background: I've done BW and a little running, eat probably about 70% Primal, and am a belly dancer. I'm going to be taking a break from my regular dance classes this summer to do some exploration so I want to start playing around and doing more dance drills. Race: Eh, human. Fitness Goals Progress on Handstands (STR2, DEX1, CHA1): Since I always tend to taper off BW workouts no matter what I do, I want to try working on fun stuff, like handstands again. I've got a free "how to do handstands" course that I'm going to go through twice a week, and track my progress. Since this will include a lot of arm and core work, I've got that covered. There's 7 sections, but two are the intro and outro, so I'm going to go through a section a week...right now. Dance (DEX2, STA1): This one is two-fold. I'm going to drill once a week using online videos at Datura, for an hour. Whether it be multiple videos or one hour long one, I'll be drilling for an hour. The second part will be an hour a week spent on putting together 2 32-count sequences for a Bellydance Bootcamp workshop I should have had ready a month ago. I'm aiming for enough material for a 2-hour workshop. Running (STA3, DEX1): I'm going to shoot for at least twice a week, 3 miles. On average, I run a 12.9 minute mile, and I have knocked that down to < 12 minutes, but only if I don't want to do anything else the rest of the day. I want to work on increasing my speed to closer to 12 minutes, without wanting to die afterward. Life Goal Writing (WIS2, CHA1): I have to write and edit a 2500-3500 words short story by July 7th for a local anthology that will be published in August. Basically...that's it.

I just joined the NFWriters group---I have to write and edit a short story for an anthology that will be e-published in August, so that's one of my goals! I also want to get into the habit of writing more regularly again.

Congrats on the weight loss! It's always great when people start noticing, isn't it?

Okay, Week 3/Post WDS Update! Flexibility: Rolled out my hips 2 out of 3 days last week. Also did a lot of walking over the weekend (my hotel was about half an hour on foot from the Summit), which probably wasn't good for flexibility. I did notice that I couldn't get as far as I have been in wide-legged and legs-in-front stretch today. Repetition: Sucktastic on this one. 2 reps of everything, that's about it. Might have hit 3 last week at someone point. Did not work out on Friday morning for reasons that will appear shortly. Though, again, lots of walking. Posture: Back isn't hurting as much, though I did have some problems on Saturday because I had a really heavy purse. Switched to a backpack and experienced a lot of neck soreness over the weekend. Stop Eating Crap!: Well, did better than I thought I would while at WDS. However, I did have some toast last week because I didn't want to go to the grocery store right before leaving for 5 days. Weekend fare was better. Hit up Voodoo doughnuts once and limited myself to 2 (not all at once). Also had a straight-up bacon cheeseburger and fries on Friday, but I had just jumped off a bridge prior to said burger and felt it was warranted. Had a couple of breakfast sandwiches on the go (english muffin, bacon, cheese, egg), but funds and time were both limited. Get Organized: I finished 3 books this weekend while on the plane or during downtime! I also wrote out the prologue to one of my long-waiting Nanowrimo novels and planned some more changes for it. On the flight back I wrote a new blog post that got edited and posted last night, rewrote the 'About' section of my blog, and last night I wrote and submitted 2 more articles. Yeah, still running off the high from WDS. As for my writing, I post fiction at www.writingelephants.com, which is my 100 by 30 challenge (100 stories by the time I turn 30, which is in about 26 months). My dance blog is at http://dancingwithoutlimits.blogspot.com/ .

As someone who sort of took myself off the dating scene for six years, I know how this feels. I went on a couple of dates after a relationship ended but nothing sparked, and a quasi-fear of ending up alone got me to try online dating. Still no sparkage with anyone. Whenever I went on a date it always felt like things had to move quickly--you had to decided right away that you connected with someone and then move things along to the next step. It probably didn't help that I actually hate dating, but unfortunately, I couldn't see any other way of meeting someone. It wasn't until someone who was interested in me spent some time cultivating a friendship first before outright expressing his interest (okay, he hinted at it several times but I'm horrifically oblivious) that I finally got that spark--and believe me, I hit the jackpot when he came along. What also helped alleviate the whole "I'm going to end up alone!" blues was having several friends and family members who found great partners later in life (like, 40s and 50s). YMMV on this, though--I was okay with either putting off children indefinitely/permanently or having them solo if I wanted them.

Mmm, chocolate. I just discovered dark chocolate covered almonds are on sale at the store and I can't wait to get out of work to pick some up! My weakness used to be a bar of orange dark chocolate a week (split up into squares), but I've cut back. Chocolate and peanut butter = awesome, but I've always been a fan of chocolate and banana. Though, last week, I made these and was sad when I left the rest at work.

Week 2! Flexibility: While looking for hamstring/hip mobility exercises on MobilityWOD, I found some thoracic ones and decided to try them. Boy, has my thoracic mobility improved! There's 2 moves in bellydance that I can't get a lot of stretch out of, and by Saturday I could already perform them so much better! I also noticed this morning that my hips and thighs aren't as sore anymore when I use the foam roller. Did skip my Monday workout, though. Having a hard time sticking to the Monday workout, actually. Repetition: So, still got just halfway through the third rep on Wednesday. No reps on Monday, and on Friday, my body was so exhausted I could barely do 2 reps without collapsing. Pretty much a failure on this one. A lot of it, too, is just running out of time. My BF tends to stay over the night before my workout days, and I'm not really moving on getting him out the door in time for me to start my workout. The other option would be to just leave him there while I work out in the other room, but that comes with its own cons. Probably should just discuss with him. Posture: With better thoracic mobility comes better posture! Less back pain, easier to sit up. Plus, I work out my core on Wednesday. Stop Eating Crap!: Did much better last week. Some pasta and desserts last night, but I was at a family dinner and you know how those are. Get Organized: Okay, so I'm going to the World Domination Summit this weekend, so I'm all about the getting things out of the way. Got a short story written and edited, finally got a new bed (yay!), and am almost completely caught up on my freelance articles. I also found a new to-do list method: post-its! I can only put so much on a post-it, so it helps with me getting things done. I'd say I got stuff done 6 out 7 days last week.

Week 1 Recap Flexibility: This already seems approved. PaulG, I've looked up a couple things on MobilityWOD before but haven't used it regularly---think I might have to now! No stretching this morning, though, as I had a bad allergic reaction this weekend and have been kind of running at half speed this whole weekend while I go back and forth between anti-histamines. Repetition: Doing okay on this so far, though somehow both better and worse than I hoped. Depending on my evening, I may go for my regular workout. Posture: Just sat up straight again. New chair helps a little, and I slept in a great bed this weekend that made me realize my mattress is crap. Stop Eating Crap: Pretty good weekend. Avoided eating ears of corn, though I did have corn chips, and some cookies as a 10-year old had made them and was quite proud of them, and also, they were Star Wars cookies. Can't say no to those! Get Organized!: Still having trouble with this. However, I ended up with a free couple of hours on Saturday, and worked on a kitchen project where I was planning on turning my old iMac into a Linux server and putting it in the kitchen. Unfortunately, it has a non-working screen, but at least it's out of the box and I can troubleshoot it. Also worked on freelance stuff and wrote more of a short story I'm working on.