Gelderich

So All, sorry for joining late....So I am on the Pink Team... Yay, Bast is aready named me Pinky..... So I had a snafu this morning. Since they had be conducting my command PT this morning I decided to set up stations and only could remember the Box Jumps from the challenge. I added those in to knock out some of the MINI.... only 25 more to finish. hahaha. Unless I can count the 10 others who did box jumps instead of step ups as mine? lol Starsapart said no helping so didn't think I could. LOL.

It's on Now Hey all this will be my first 6 week Challenge with the Assassins, I am really looking forward to working with all of you and all the mini's coming up. So, Let's get it on now!!! So a little background on what I am looking at, my life quest in the recruit forum was to attend the Command Fitness Leader (CFL) training class and the first step was to make an Excellent or Outstanding on my PFA. Well I did make Excellent so now I do qualify and have even started working as the assistant CFL, however we do not know when the next class will be...what that means is that I have o maintain or improve my fitness level as well as maintain or decrease my weight. Why, because the first day of class will be yet another PFA, if I fail then I get kicked out of the class. Yay me, essentially I have set myself up to be the Navy Fitness Poster child for my command and if I cannot keep those standards then it will be a black mark on my career, no pressure. So while this wll be on my mind and still a quest of mine I am going to put this goal on hold till I know when the class is, however I am going to continue to try and keep my weight under control for this holiday season as well as improve my fitness levels. I will be also piggybacking some of my quest off of my wife, Bast, since we are doing a few activities together, though I will not be using the same names for the events that she is. Epic Quest: Maintain fitness level for PFA there are two a year one in March and one in October. Main Quest: So yea this picture says it all don't it. Quest 1: The Work Cardio: Lean muscles is the goal here, my plan is to do 3 miles twice a week here. Fitness: Free weights and mat workout 3 times per week Quest 2: Sharing the load Impact Training Walks with Wifey Quest 3: The Weight Get down to 190 and keep it there.....So I did fall 3 lbs shy of my goal of 190 last challenge but that is not to bad considering where I started at. This challenge I plan on dropping those last 3 lbs and keep it there thru the Holidays...no small feat for those of us who love our ham and turkey.... Life Quest 1: Home for the Holidays: So this will be a bit different, the Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations are always a big deal and a lot of work so my goal is to stay on top of the holiday decor. Life Quest 2: Cleaning up the project room: I want to be able to work on my leather projects again, it's been too long Guild Battles: No Clue just get it done.... I will update this later this week with my plans for grading myself

Final Score!!!!!! As promised here is my final results for the Navy PRT..... Weight: 193 Curlups: 100 Push Ups: 75 1.5 mile Run: 11:20 So all in all I have to call this a personnal success. I blew the Curlups out of the water so nothing major to report there. For the Push Ups, I did 40 without stopping then started on increments of 10 that is how I got to 65.....after that it was in increments of 5, for the 75 one my left knee started to buckle bad as well as my left arm....my scorer asked if I had another 5 in me with 15 seconds on the clock....yea i gave in. The run was just awesome, I had my playlist set up with 4 songs about 3 to 4 minutes in length and my personal stop watch ready. At the half way mark my time was at 5:51. The plan was to sprint the last quarter of the mile and a half, that did not go so well. My anckles kept giving out on me and I had to fall back into my running while pushing my pace. If I had just been able to sprint a little longer I would have made my goal time. 5 seconds short......still a really awesome effort, the closet I have been to that time the whole six weeks was on the treadmill. I personally have to call this challenge an overall success!!!!!

Update on final tally of 6 week challenge. For everyone following my challenge, there has been a delay in posting my final score. They moved the PRT to the 28th so that will be this Wednesday. Since I had planned for that to be my final scoring I will wait till after that to post my results and final percentages. keep an eye out.

Week 5: OK All, Here it is with one week to go I am doing ok. Slowing down a bit but still making progress. Weight; 193 Curl ups; 81....didn't do so hot this time but still made my minimum. Push ups; 65....three shy on last weeks but kept it above my minimum here also Run; 13:18.... This suck I actually slowed down, Well these scores are not good, I actually did worse from last week, the only thing I actually improved on was my weight still decreasing but that was only by 1 lb. I felt really crappy that morning so maybe that had something to do with it also. But I am going to hand in there Next week is it.

Hey doing good, Thanks for checking in.

Yea, I can understand loosing the drive. I actually was there last week. Luckly I have a very supportive wife, I was actually reminding myself of my "reward" that is coming after next week if I can make my goal's.... 100 yen sushi go around with fresh sushi, no rubbery shrimp there. I was promised I could eat my fill. I am really looking forward to that. I really needed that today, it felt like my ankles were going to fall off after a 3 mile run this morning. It's the little things that can keep you going sometimes

Luv U Bunches!!!!!!!

Did this one, posted it onto my main challenge page here.

So going back thru looking at my Week 3 mini challenge that I was supposed to do ended up looking thru the Nerd Fitness blog done by Steve, at first I was bummed out cause I wasn't sure what I was looking for but ended up finding some good stuff both for this and for future challenges I plan on putting myself thru. Well since running is one of my worst areas of fitness and one that I need to improve on a lot I was looking for some info and motivation on how to increase my endurance. Also some information on Abs sculpting and/or just trimming down my midsection. Found some good resources here for both!! Look Like Jami Bamber; I am definitely going to be using this for future reference material. course this one was just for fun....a little knowledge in it also....6 Species You'll Encounter in the Gym.....we have all seen them or been guilty of devolving into them.... I think I will be slowly working some of the concepts discussed in this article into my fitness routine starting with one day a week and just run....not worry about the clock. The other is starting a routine at the gym once a week with dumbbells and free weights, right now my gym routine consists of three exercises with a machine and the rest are all push up and core strengthening exercises to prepare myself for this fitness test. But this was mostly a I wonder kind of an exercise for me, but I will be integrating some of this stuff into my next challenge.

Little late but done I joined the assassins initiate group..

So wanted to go ahead and post/update here.....reading thru the latest notes I realized I haven't Leveled up at all since starting the 6 week challenge I have been focused too much on doing the workout and adulting aspects of my life. Well I should introduce myself. I am Gelderich and I do aspire to be and Assassin, A little about myself as you can see from my profile pic I do like Archery, also sword-fighting....cause you always need a backup plan once you run out of arrows. So I do aspire to be something of a combination of The Green Arrow (from the Comic's Not the TV Series, he is too broody and Batman like in the TV Series). He is a much lighter personality in the comic and...well there is no other name given for the man but Sam.... he is the main assassin character in a story by Eve Forward called Villains by Necessity. If you haven't read it I recommend you do. Those two are the first two people that come to mind when I think of who I want to be when you say an assassin.

Week 4 So as promised here is my week 4 Update; Weight: 194 Curlups: 95 Push Ups: 68; woot!! that is a 6 point increase from last week I am super excited!! Run: 12:22; I had to give myself 0 points for this week here. Not bad all in all, I am super excited about the increase to my push ups however kinda bummed about my Run score....not going to let it get me down though. My plan is to try and focus on setting my pace and maintain it on my 2 mile run to increase my endurance. I can do it on the treadmill but the 1.5 miles is done on the asphalt not on a treadmill. So that is where I need to focus this week...pounding the pavement and setting my own pace not letting a machine do it for me. Home Stretch BABY!!!!!!!!

Week 3: I have to say this was my week to suck at my challenge. I found at the start of week for when I redid my baseline that my progress also hurt a lot. So here is where I am at. I didn't do my fitness test this week But I at least still did my base workouts. Weight: 196; I weighed myself on Monday but did not weigh myself after that. Run: I found myself in a lot of pain this week, I think I had been pushing myself on the treadmill too much the week prior. my achilles and calf let me know they were hating life because every-time I ran there was sharp pain thru my lower leg. So I ran my 2 miles three times that week and averages 6 miles/day three times this week. Core: I did my minimum workout regiment, however, because I was back at work there was also the PT twice a week so I had to do some adjustments on my personal workout regime. I did average my 3,500 calories burned twice this week. While this week was not a total failure, I did maintain my basic work out, but since being back to work I will need to revisit my workout days. I also changed my rest days since my legs were in such pain after week 2 where I was doing a hard push on decreasing my run time, it actually set my time back because the recovery time I lost a lot of the work I put into it.

Week 2: I was still on vacation so this week was a strong week for me with stats as f; ollows: Weight: 199' lost 2 lbs Curl Ups: 89; slit back a little but still kept it above my minimum Push Ups: 59 increased by 2 Run: 11:55; Decreased by 25 seconds. not too bad still not my goal but this last run was done on the treadmill so my run is usually better because it is easier to gage how fast you need to go and to maintain that pace. Since I have been pushing my core workout in an effort to decrease my tummy flab and drop my weight I figured my sit-ups would suffer a little but I tired out and slowed down a lot during the last 30 seconds of my 2 min test. I will need to work on my endurance at my middle to make sure I can push thru the whole 2 minutes. My Push ups are not increasing like I wanted them to. I find myself burning out at around 30, after that I find myself using most of my energy trying to keep my form as well as doing the push ups. Might need to do more planks to help with that, what do you all think.

Ok, So I started this challenge on vacation so I was free to work my own schedule. Week 3 saw me starting back to work and it has been go go go since then. On the plus side I have still been able to do my challenge, however I have not been doing any updates because it was an issue of work out and work or work and post. My social internet time has been almost 0 since work started. But this is a holiday weekend and I am off till Monday and so now I am going to update my week 2 and 3, will update week 4 on Monday afternoon. Lets do this!!!

ROFL, I love that you are so into Doctor Who. Yea it took me a bit to get into Matt Smith, I didn't want to let Tennant go either, especially when I heard that he loved Tom Baker and modeled a bit of his doctor after him, I think that is why we all loved him. Them again Matt Smith modeled a bit of his doctor after Peter Davidson, but I enjoyed Matt Smith more than Peter, never really got into him. I have to admit I never got past the second episode of season 8....with how season 7 ended I just couldn't do it. But as far as the old doctors my favorites will always be in this order Jon Pertwee becasue he was the gadget doctor, William Hartnell because he was the first, and tops is of course Tom Baker over all.

Hahaha, yea I feel you there, I have a lazy streak about 70 inches long, my height by the way, and that is where my procrastination comes from. I also have a few leather projects that I haven't finished yet. I have been using the excuse that it gives my wife a headache when I bang on rivets and such so that is why I haven't finished any of them. Now the excuse is that I don't have a decent work bench to do anything from, our project room has become the default storage area, hence one of my wife's quests for this six week challenge......

Hey, Saw your problem with drinking water and wanted to offer some alternatives, I've run into the issue of drinking plain water getting kinda old after a while. I got around it by essentially infusing my water with different flavors. I have an insulated bottle that holds 18 oz. and will keep it near me to drink from all day. But the real trick is that my wife and I will mix up what we call (green water) where we puree, skins and all, half a cucumber, half a lemon, quarter size cube of ginger, and 8 mint leaves; pour into a gallon jug with water keep in the fridge and that makes a concentrate. Dilute to your taste preference, it's healthier than most flavored water you would buy at the store and makes it easier than drinking plain water. Another option if you like fruity drinks is to freeze some freshly sliced strawberries or kiwi and drop them into your water bottle, it will keep the water cold and give it a fruity flavor. If I am in a hurry I will just squeeze a few squirts of lemon juice into my water but I kinda like the tart and sour things to it works for me. Good Luck on your Second Week!!

Wow, I really loved reading your motivation, I also like where you got your user name from that is awesome. From what you said it's your second week that is where the danger area is. I feel you there my first 6 week challenge I didn't make it past week 1 then didn't look at NF again till last month. Luckily my wife was going strong in it and she has been on my case to restart. Good luck this second week, get out there and do your Mu Tu.

Hi all, So my accountabilabuddy is my wife and she is helping me keep my goals manageable as well as S.M.A.R.T. I have been updating my main goal post for mine on my challenge (link in signature block) But I think I will go ahead and comment on it here. My Main Goal has sub-goals within it since I am trying to acheive a high score on a Physical Fitness Test that essentially test different attributes. Running Curl Ups Sit Ups Body Weight For my Quests they are a breakdown of the areas on the test to make sure I am giving proper focus to each. Since the PRT (navy) is the same week as the final week for this 6 week challenge it all lines up. I am using a weekly point grading system to keep my on track and measure my progress. My quest's only require an hour to an hour and a half work out time and the rest is being mindful of what I am putting into my body. Main Goal: had to revisit my grading criteria because I made one of the achievements within the first week so I revised it to make sure I maintain that status. Quest 1: I revised my grading for bonus points since I decided that traveling 8 miles on my pedometer was impractical and unrealistic, especially since I have an desk job. So I revised it to just 6 miles. Quest 2: I also looked at my bonus points and since my best score on my pedometer for 1 week was only 3260 calories burned I droped that from 4000 to 3500. Quest 3: This area is focusing on my diet and while I am meeting my weekly goals I also decided that certain areas were difficult to maintain and when I did break those rules I kinda decided to just go for broke. So I changed my grading criteria from; No Soda/Desert/Alcohol to No Soda/Desert/ Limited Alcohol (No More Than 1 serving per Day) that way I don't penalize myself if I have a glass of wine or a beer with dinner and I am not tempted to overindulge. Thank's for reading, I will see you all in the challenge.

Weekly Update!!! Hey, so after one week things are really looking good in some areas. I am going to have to do some more work on my upper body and legs but my core is looking great. So here is the rundown of my score at the end of week one. Push Ups: 57 improvement of 16 reps Curl Ups: 102!!! improvement of 25 reps Run: 13:09 improvement of 25 seconds Body Weight: 201 loss of 2 lbs So definitely going good, not quite there on my run, I needed to improve by at least 30 seconds per week to make my goal. might need to work on some endurance building in my legs right now I have noticed my biggest problem is maintaining a pace thru the first leg of the run. I will catch myself slowing down. I don't like to use treadmills because repeated use always starts to cause sharp pains in my ankles but they are useful to help set and maintain a steady pace. Maybe once or twice a week I will use them for the 2 mile run to work on a pace setting endurance run. The other concern is my body weight, this time I just made it. I know that when you combine dieting with exercise muscle actually weight more than fat and with my trying to increase the strength in my upper body is going to build muscle. I am trying to keep a steady pace of loosing the weight around my middle while increasing the strength of my upper body. For a while I was maintaining a weight of 200, my wife and I went to a festival at a shrine here in Japan and watched some traditional horseback archery and while we didn't splurge too much on food and were on our feet walking around all day I did have three or four beers and a few sodas, then Sunday we were out and about all day shooting archery at Camp Zama's sportsman's club and ended up eating fast food for lunch. So that ended up putting a solid extra pound back on me. All together I would have to call this first week a success, Yay Me!!!!!!!

Ouch, ok so here is my update to the Mock PRT I did on myself. I have to say I didn't do as well as I thought I would..... Results: Push ups: 41 Curl ups: 77 Run: 13:34 Weight: 203lbs I will be making an adjustment on my Main Quest Goals to reflect my grading system. ****Hang with me, if it was easy it wouldn't be much of a quest now would it******