anaelle

Thanks, Zabella! While I've been binging on Wheel of Time recently, I figured I should go back to the classic first love for the first challenge. I think it's fitting... both the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings are really about people with short legs taking very long, high-stakes hikes, after all.

Thanks everyone for all the replies! This has been a wonderful exercise in helping me remove silly excuses from my exercise repetoire - which is exactly what I needed! I got up 'early' today and ran before work today. It wasn't awful, but then I spent the entire first half of my work shift tonight feeling like I'd much rather drop back into bed and sleep for days. (Even now, when I'm usually at peak energy, I'm kind of dragging.) I've always heard that early exercise is supposed to kickstart the metabolism and boost you for the day - is that something that comes with time, once the habit has set in and the body has had the chance to adjust for the additional energy expenditure? Except when I had no choice (i.e., basic training - many many moons ago when my circadian rhythm was much more flexible), I've never given early workouts a long enough try, even when I was in great shape. It's much easier for me to muster the motivation when I'm wide awake and not trying to squeeze in those very precious last minutes of sleep. I think the best option, if I can't keep the mornings up, is to run on base before I leave for the night. There is a track in a more populated area of base that should be accessible and lit 24/7 - and hopefully slightly less prone to the larger wildlife we see around our building. I'll go check on my way home tonight. If that's available, I can still self-manipulate (i mean, motivate) by not allowing myself to go home until I've done my run. A track isn't the optimal solution, but probably a bit safer than down the roads they've festooned with bear caution signs. I haven't actually asked any of my co-workers if they'd like to join me - but seeing as to how the entire point of me joining Nerd Fitness was realizing I couldn't do this alone, that's not an awful idea at all. Unfortunately, the 24 hour gym is just one of those unattended, swipe-key kind of places, in the middle of a strip mall. They've got a couple of treadmills, a couple of ellipticals, and a weight rack, and no outdoor space except the parking lot. This is one of those kind of towns that rolls up the sidewalks at 6pm, so there's just not the sort of demand for night-shift resources that I grew accustomed to living in bigger cities. :/ Exactly! My mother subsisted on a steady diet of crime dramas, America's Most Wanted, and those trashy 'true crime' magazines throughout my childhood, so I was constantly warned about the dangers of, well, everything. Parking garages, car washes, stop-lights, leaving the window open while you sleep... you name it. I always thought I avoided her paranoia and I try to keep the same mindset you have, but sometimes I find it creeps back in. Especially after reading the top Google searches for 'is it safe to run at night.' Yeesh. I almost got mad at myself for writing this OP instead of just going out and stubbornly doing it anyway... I'm glad to hear of other vampires out there! That's an interesting take I hadn't heard before... maybe I can use it to motivate myself out of bed in the mornings. Yikes! Yeah, my neighborhood is MUCH quieter than that... though I remember those days from college, post-football game. I hid in my dorm and sulked until the noise was over. Unfortunately, no, I don't live on base. If I did, I totally wouldn't sweat running at any time of day or night. The SPs are thick as flies and bored around here. There's probably no reason why I couldn't run in base housing, though... there's plenty of parking right near it. Good call on the GPS - I do have a couple of friends I could trust with that, and some of them are even sometimes awake at my hours. I know it's possible on the iPhone, but do you know of any apps for Android that do something similar?

I grew up spending my summers in the mountains near Asheville, NC, with dozens of acres of pastures and woods to explore at my leisure. For sheer nostalgia factor, nothing beats leaving the house at 10 in the morning and just wandering until sunset. I had a rifle and a dog, and blackberries and raspberries to eat, and creekbeds and abandoned old farmhouses to explore... But I'll have to echo the other Yosemite-lovers. A week-long camping trip to the Yosemite Valley last spring was my first foray back into hiking as an adult, and I fell in love in a sweeping, dramatic, eye-watering manner. The best was making it to the top of Vernal Fall, then a little beyond the normal sunning/picnic spot to an isolated little grove at the base of Nevada Fall suggested by the photographer's guide to Yosemite. It made that over-priced tourist book worth it's weight in gold. I mean, California has other nice places, don't get me wrong, but if I could ever find a job in the park, I'd drop out of life so quickly my peers would think I died.

I've read a few other threads here on this topic, and it's only muddied the waters for me a bit so I thought I'd post for specific advice. I'm restarting Couch to 5k for my Six-week Challenge, and as usual, I'm immediately throwing proverbial roadblocks in my own way. I have always had much, much higher success when I exercise after work, as opposed to in the morning. I've tried all the tricks - sleeping in my running clothes, tumbling out of bed before I wake up fully, coffee, no coffee, food, no food... no dice. However, so long as I force myself to work out before I wind down from the day's work, I'm much better at sticking to an exercise plan. It should be an easy equation, but here's the trouble: I work a swing shift. By the time I get home, all the normal people are fast asleep, but it's hours yet until the early morning-bird runners emerge. I've worked these hours for years, and I'm a natural night-owl - this is when my body wants to work out, but the idea of going out, alone, this late at night just screams danger. Now, I live in a very safe, suburban area, with plenty of very well-lit, wide sidewalks. My neighborhood is very quiet - there are never any late-night parties or, as far as I can tell, anyone even awake at my hours. The cops are not non-existent, though they normally cruise the major road a block away more than the neighborhoods. Once the dawn breaks, there are a LOT of runners around here; this is a suburb for a military base, after all, and when I used to work later hours, it was pretty normal to see runners of all ages and sexes out even in the pre-dawn. For all these reasons, multiple co-workers I've bounced the idea off of have called me paranoid, or accused me of just making excuses for not just going out and getting it done. However, they're all male, and might not quite grasp the realities of a 5'4" woman. My female co-workers immediately 'get it,' and tell me I'd be crazy to even think about trying it. Reading some of the blog posts and safety tips in other semi-related threads tends to bolster that opinion (and truthfully, a few have me spooked about running outside in general now.) But I'm constantly surrounded by a pretty macho attitude and it's hard to get perspective, or shake the stubborn attitude that I shouldn't let the fear stop me. I run with a RoadID and my cell-phone, and I have reflective gear and mace I can carry. What I don't have, however, is anyone at home to expect me back at a certain time, nor is there anyone I can text or call to leave an itinerary with. I could run on base, which is heavily patrolled - but there's a pretty significant bear and mountain lion population there, as well. There's a 24 hour gym that I have access to, but I find treadmills to be even more soul-sucking than waking up early, especially now that I finally live in an area with great weather year-round. Moreover, I'm a barely-motivated newb and have to make this as easy on myself as possible. So, TL;DR: My best time to get out and run is in the 0000 - 0400 timeframe. I want to run outside, but don't have a party to keep me from getting pwn3d by the high-level encounters. Do I just have to suck it up and get my butt out of bed early instead?

That is quite an awesome goal. I bought a Fitbit largely so I could start a spreadsheet and track my own miles across Middle-Earth, but I keep forgetting to actually sit down and log them! I'll meet you at the Pony... first round's on me.

Main Quest - Climb Half Dome in Yosemite National Park in the 2014 season. The Half Dome climb is a strenuous, 16 mile round-trip with approximately 4800 feet of elevation change. Thus, my main quest is to put one foot in front of the other many times in a row and get to the top of some of the most beautiful country America has to offer. And then, I will throw the One Ring off of it and save all Middle-Earth. (No, no, every park ranger that just had a heart attack. I promise I will not do any such thing.) However, just like any other chubby, asthmatic hobbit who enjoys second breakfast and plenty of ale, I have a lot of training to do in the meantime to make sure that Gwaihir and the eagles don't have to come save me. - Complete Couch to 5k: This will be my primary cardiovascular and aerobic training. I've gone to week 4 or 5 multiple times in the past, but never actually finished. (Let's face it. I just hate running.) I will follow the plan and run 3 times a week. - 100% Sync: No repeats, 18 sessions. - Two strength workouts a week: using either the Sworkit app or the Beginner's Bodyweight workout here on NerdFitness. I may substitute these for self-guided yoga or long stretching routines as my health dictates. 12 sessions total. - Sworkit (100% sync) - start at 10 minutes per session, advance 3 minutes a week. - Beginner's Bodyweight (100% sync) - start at 1 set. Advance in reps or sets each week. - Hit the trails: The county has graciously given us an entire network of hiking trails - albeit much less strenuous than Yosemite - just a mile away from my house. One loop through the closest trail is 3 mi, and there are a total of 8 mi of trails all within walking distance from the first trailhead. My goal is to start at 3 mi per week - one loop this weekend - and increase each week until I reach 18 mi: an increase of 3 mi per week. While I'd like to pledge to do all those in one day, my night shift schedule often means I won't be able to awake at dawn and dedicate an entire day to hiking every week. Completion Criteria: Since some aspects of the main quest are out of my control (i.e., weather, Half Dome permits, travel logistics) I will consider this quest completed if I complete the three sub-goals successfully. Side Quests - Life Goal: There's no getting around it - I like my beer. I'm by no means an alcoholic, but I'm also keenly aware that I'm drinking many, many calories during the week, largely out of boredom or to 'wind down' (unhealthily) after work. Thus: No alcoholic drinks during the work-week. (And no binges on the weekends to 'make up' for it. 1 drink per hour ONLY + proper hydration.) - Fitness Goal: (LOCKED) Motivation:(http://52brandnew.com/2012/09/30/frequently-asked-question-7-do-you-still-seek-new-experiences-for-yourself/) "What do you fear, lady?" he asked. "A cage," she said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.†― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King ============================================================== +sheet/stats for Aes Sedai Anaelle============================================================== Age: 29 Race: Hobbit Sex: Female Height: 5'4.5" Weight: 145 lb Class: Adventurer -> Ranger Level: 0 Inventory: 1 x Fitbit, 1 x HR Monitor, Hiking Boots, 1 x flask of Scotch Companions: 2 x level 0 common housecat Strengths: Viking Metal Weaknesses: Asthma, Comfort==============================================================

Oh, I do so like how you laid your grading schema right out like that. Very good! Good luck.

Well, this seems to be the place for introductions, so here we go. My name is Anaelle - not my real name, but my nom de internet for more than a decade on an assortment of games and forums. I'm a gamer (though not as much now as I'd like to be), a life-long sci-fi/fantasy fan, and in general an incorrigible nerd. I think my story will sound fairly typical, in some regards. I was stick-thin and nonathletic throughout my youth, constantly exhorted by my relatives to eat more so that I wouldn't waste away to nothing, or at least so I'd fill up the tapeworm. I joined the Air Force straight out of high school, and barely hit the minimum required weight for women - and I got through basic training just on stubbornness and the fact that it doesn't take much muscle to push a feather through PT, because I certainly didn't have much. And then... a decade happened. An extremely sedentary job, years straight of rotating shift work, lots of alcohol, no concept of healthy eating, and an utter lack of self-care led me staring at myself in the mirror, wondering where and when I'd suffocated the tapeworm and put on seventy pounds. I was 27, 5'4", 170 lb and climbing, barely scraping through PT tests, and coughing like a life-time smoker though I'd never had a drag in my life. I was wearing dumpy men's clothing because it fit better, went through four sizes of uniform in as many years, and my shoes went up a size from unnoticed, constant swelling - but none of that even clued me in past my denial. It was, instead, a doctor's visit. I mentioned that my feet were constantly numb and falling asleep, and the doctor simply stared at me and said, matter of factly: "Well, at your weight, I'd expect that." Over the last two years, I've cleaned up. I went to a trainer for a six months, concentrating on body-weight exercise, and consistently track my meals on MyFitnesspal - a process that finally taught me what a portion size is, and that it's okay to leave food on your plate if you're finished. I eventually left the trainer and have kept it up solo, in part thanks to the routines and advice found on here. I'm down to a steady plateau of 145lb, out of the military, and in treatment to manage what turned out to be adult-onset asthma. My biggest success is maintaining my weight, even when I go months without tracking my food - junk just doesn't taste good anymore. However, I'm still not there yet. I'm not strong, and my aerobic/cardiovascular health is still shaky, at best. My workouts are nowhere as consistent as my clean eating, so I haven't gained any new abilities along the way. I could blame this on a million excuses - night-shift schedule, allergies, moving twice, etc. etc... but ultimately, however, I know what I've done wrong. I have been going at this alone for two years - I am the very image of an introvert, and even internet forums seem like going out on a limb about something so personal as this. My friends and coworkers are either uninterested in fitness or in supporting me, or they are rabidly competitive Crossfit fanatics who pursue their goals and converts with religious zeal. There's nothing wrong with that, but it is most definitely not for me. I'm happiest alone, because even the most light-hearted of cheerleading grates on me when I'm trying to find the strength for the next breath, much less find 'the zone.' I have a small home gym and some hiking trails nearby and all is good... but then, here I am. Why? Because I finally found a goal. (And thus justification to delurk.) Once I hit my goal weight (as slightly sloppy and jiggly as it still is), I couldn't wrap my mind around this dress size or that body fat percentage as a new goal. I thought that being free of the cardio-centric AF PT test would mentally free me to take up heavy lifting, but there's always an excuse. Instead, last spring, I went to Yosemite National Park and found it. As I stood on the valley floor, somewhere deep within, the shriveled ghost of John Muir-slash-Radagast the Brown woke up, and pointed at the distant granite top of Half Dome, and said "There." On that trip, my best was a a little bit past the top of Vernal Falls, where I stopped at the base of Nevada Falls and cried (and wheezed) because of the impossibility of going on, up the sheer switchbacks - and that was, quite frankly, 600 steep granite steps further than I ever thought I could go. I have always, always been cynical of those who set goals. It has always seemed like setting yourself up for failure. But this burns at me like the One Ring; my heart soars and tears sting my eyes when I look at pictures of the mountain. However, I think I finally realize: the difference between Frodo and Gollum was nothing inherently special - it was the fellowship. So, if you've made it this far, thank you for reading. Next stop is, I think, the Six Week Challenge boards. -Ana