Ladies, Gentlemen, {fantasy race specific term of address}, and Others, My name is Lab_Rat, or rather I can be addressed as such online. I am in the military and actually do work in a laboratory. Anyhow, I am a 5' 10" male and weigh around 185 lbs. By all accounts I am in decent shape for a service member in my field and good shape for a nerd in general. And I am in need of a new dragon. I spent the last 18 months training like a madman for a very specific set of events, call them tests. If I performed well, I would have leveled up my career and gone from my pretty okay job to my dream job. The training I would have received would have been like taking a level in bad ass. Anyway, two weeks after putting my application in, a medical review board disqualified me as a candidate due to an abnormality in my binocular vision. The offending condition is not something I have any control over. A year of intense vision therapy was unable to correct the problem enough to qualify for a waiver. As the thread title states, the dragon died on its own while I was on my way to slay it. At work, there is a body composition standard as well as physical fitness standards. So, I have always trained for a test. Fitness was thus, a means to an end. The problem is, I am close to out running the standards. Out of a possible 100 points I scored 95 last time. We only need a 75 to keep our job and the incentives to perform better, in my particular subfield, are not very high. Needless to say, I am disappointed. Now instead of my very clear goal I need to find something else to strive for. I hope that the challenges on this site will help me set up new targets, so that I can continue to push myself. The Nerd Fitness main site has been a part of the "how" of that equation for a while. I hope the community will help fill in the gaps in the "why" part as well. But enough whining, on to the goals and plans. Since I am used to training for a standard, I will continue to use similar benchmarks to test my progress and capabilities. My goals will initially focus on strength, speed and endurance, and extra curricular academic pursuits. You can expect my goals and benchmarks to be similar to military or law enforcement PT tests. Expect to see a lot of goals that look to do more than a certain rep count of a body weight exercise in a time limit with a specified load. Also expect timed runs and loaded rucks for specified distances. On the academic side, I am working my way through Khan Academy's math material, brushing up my Spanish with Doulingo, and working on my masters in Industrial Engineering. The masters courses work probably won't be counted for "XP" because it is for a degree, and therefore its own motivation. The semesters also don't line up well with the challenge weeks, and I am paying for them. But, the other two will be required for "character progression." Once I do outrun my service's standard test, I will either find/generate harder similar tests or switch to crossfit style benchmarks. I like the idea of using percentage change in 5 round maxes, and timed Hero WODs as benchmarks. I will also be incorparating mini adventures and practical tests to hone skills. I am thinking things like endurance events, obstacle races, and GORUCK would fit well. I will be doing another mudder here soon. I do not know how those will fit into the whole RPG element. Before the box on base stopped holding official classes, I had been doing crossfit, running, and rucking. For the crossfit portion, I followed the box's programing. My program for running and rucking was created by the military as a prep for the selection I was training for. When the box shut down I switched completely to the career field prep program and did their strength training as well as the endurance and speed work. It was a pretty good program, if not a little boring. I will steal ideas and concepts from that program moving ahead, but will not follow it. Each rep would be a kick in the nuts knowing what it was designed to prepare you to do and that I can't. For now my training will be crossfitish with running and rucking. To support my training I need more mobility work, and yoga. I love mountain biking, even though I suck at it so that will be my "fun WOD". Given there is enough time and money, my wife and I are going to join the local climbing gym. My diet is paleoesque/primal, or rather it was before I got all butt hurt about being turned down. My wife and I ate primarily paleo with cheese and dark chocolate until very recently. She is a wonderful cook and takes very good care of me. I could and probably will write a small book about how great that woman is. Recently we have fallen off the wagon, and our bodies hate us for it. I used runkeeper to log my runs, rucks, and some bike trips. I use ScienceBehindSweat.com to log my crossfit workouts. I do not log my food, nor will I. I will use this site and a spreadsheet to track my progression to my goals for the challenges. Khan and Duolingo are gamified already. Long term, I want to study another martial art. I currently have a black belt in Karate. I also will be training in rifle marksmanship, orienteering, wilderness survival, and lock picking. When I get through the math stuff from Kahn Academy, I will move onto Code Academy to learn python. I already know C, C++, Java, and BASIC. To replace my dead dragon, GORUCK Selection would make a great long term goal. At any rate, this thread is approaching essay length. I think I have covered just about everything. Thanks for your time in reading this, and I look forward to being a member of the community. Respectfully, Lab_Rat
Ladies, Gentlemen, {fantasy race specific term of address}, and Others, My name is Lab_Rat, or rather I can be addressed as such online. I am in the military and actually do work in a laboratory. Anyhow, I am a 5' 10" male and weigh around 185 lbs. By all accounts I am in decent shape for a service member in my field and good shape for a nerd in general. And I am in need of a new dragon. I spent the last 18 months training like a madman for a very specific set of events, call them tests. If I performed well, I would have leveled up my career and gone from my pretty okay job to my dream job. The training I would have received would have been like taking a level in bad ass. Anyway, two weeks after putting my application in, a medical review board disqualified me as a candidate due to an abnormality in my binocular vision. The offending condition is not something I have any control over. A year of intense vision therapy was unable to correct the problem enough to qualify for a waiver. As the thread title states, the dragon died on its own while I was on my way to slay it. At work, there is a body composition standard as well as physical fitness standards. So, I have always trained for a test. Fitness was thus, a means to an end. The problem is, I am close to out running the standards. Out of a possible 100 points I scored 95 last time. We only need a 75 to keep our job and the incentives to perform better, in my particular subfield, are not very high. Needless to say, I am disappointed. Now instead of my very clear goal I need to find something else to strive for. I hope that the challenges on this site will help me set up new targets, so that I can continue to push myself. The Nerd Fitness main site has been a part of the "how" of that equation for a while. I hope the community will help fill in the gaps in the "why" part as well. But enough whining, on to the goals and plans. Since I am used to training for a standard, I will continue to use similar benchmarks to test my progress and capabilities. My goals will initially focus on strength, speed and endurance, and extra curricular academic pursuits. You can expect my goals and benchmarks to be similar to military or law enforcement PT tests. Expect to see a lot of goals that look to do more than a certain rep count of a body weight exercise in a time limit with a specified load. Also expect timed runs and loaded rucks for specified distances. On the academic side, I am working my way through Khan Academy's math material, brushing up my Spanish with Doulingo, and working on my masters in Industrial Engineering. The masters courses work probably won't be counted for "XP" because it is for a degree, and therefore its own motivation. The semesters also don't line up well with the challenge weeks, and I am paying for them. But, the other two will be required for "character progression." Once I do outrun my service's standard test, I will either find/generate harder similar tests or switch to crossfit style benchmarks. I like the idea of using percentage change in 5 round maxes, and timed Hero WODs as benchmarks. I will also be incorparating mini adventures and practical tests to hone skills. I am thinking things like endurance events, obstacle races, and GORUCK would fit well. I will be doing another mudder here soon. I do not know how those will fit into the whole RPG element. Before the box on base stopped holding official classes, I had been doing crossfit, running, and rucking. For the crossfit portion, I followed the box's programing. My program for running and rucking was created by the military as a prep for the selection I was training for. When the box shut down I switched completely to the career field prep program and did their strength training as well as the endurance and speed work. It was a pretty good program, if not a little boring. I will steal ideas and concepts from that program moving ahead, but will not follow it. Each rep would be a kick in the nuts knowing what it was designed to prepare you to do and that I can't. For now my training will be crossfitish with running and rucking. To support my training I need more mobility work, and yoga. I love mountain biking, even though I suck at it so that will be my "fun WOD". Given there is enough time and money, my wife and I are going to join the local climbing gym. My diet is paleoesque/primal, or rather it was before I got all butt hurt about being turned down. My wife and I ate primarily paleo with cheese and dark chocolate until very recently. She is a wonderful cook and takes very good care of me. I could and probably will write a small book about how great that woman is. Recently we have fallen off the wagon, and our bodies hate us for it. I used runkeeper to log my runs, rucks, and some bike trips. I use ScienceBehindSweat.com to log my crossfit workouts. I do not log my food, nor will I. I will use this site and a spreadsheet to track my progression to my goals for the challenges. Khan and Duolingo are gamified already. Long term, I want to study another martial art. I currently have a black belt in Karate. I also will be training in rifle marksmanship, orienteering, wilderness survival, and lock picking. When I get through the math stuff from Kahn Academy, I will move onto Code Academy to learn python. I already know C, C++, Java, and BASIC. To replace my dead dragon, GORUCK Selection would make a great long term goal. At any rate, this thread is approaching essay length. I think I have covered just about everything. Thanks for your time in reading this, and I look forward to being a member of the community. Respectfully, Lab_Rat