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2020. What a year, eh? Although most of the world is still being ravished by this terrible pandemic, my little corner of the world seems to be keeping it at bay for now. The apocalypse came, it saw, it got bored and went elsewhere. I am now in a post apocalyptic society and it is NOT like the movies promised. In fact, it looks a lot like the pre-apocalyptic world did. For me the "New Normal" looks almost exactly like the "Old Normal"; kids are back in school, workers at back at work, tourists are touristing, and life is back to pretty much the way it was. Oh, except no international travel. Oh, and much less imported goods. On the other hand better communication tools, so fair trade? So now that things are back to normal, it is time for me to get back onto my game. No more quarantine excuses or deferring stuff until things get better. My plans for this challenge are ambitious, and I am excited to get to them 1. Get Hench - Park workouts 3x/week. The parks are open I'm ready to get back into the swing of things in the most literal way possible. Time to get back to working on giants, kips, mills circles and other swingy gymnastics things, as well as my regular calisthenics stuff. Leg work will happen too so it's a good thing I have plenty of time for these. I will probably spent most mornings at the park until until winter. I may also go to the gym a couple of times this challenge, but I suspect it will be no more than 3 times max. If I do go, it will mostly be working on explosive leg exercises and maybe some backflip stuff. Hopefully. 2. Pregnant* and barefoot in the kitchen - [Edited] We went through and organized our freezer over the weekend and discovered that we have about 10 different kinds sausage in there, along with other preserved meats, meatballs, etc. My challenge this time around is to try and use up as much of that as possible by trying a bunch of varieties of meals. Throwing them on bread with condiments is good but not something I want to eat every single day. Also, some of the kinds of sausage we have don't lend to that as they vary in size from half a pinky finger to a Christmas Yule Log. Recommendations are very welcome! Making my own sausage is just going to have to wait. *Actual pregnancy is unlikely to happen 3. Become a Wraith - Stretching, Mobility and Prehab. Wraith (our cat) does a lot of stretching, pretty much every time she wakes up from all of her naps. I am going to try to be more like her but doing stretches and mobility drills every day. Mobility drills will focus on shoulder ROM and hip anterior tilt correction, stretching will be mostly compression and eki squats (aka 3rd world squats). I have no aspirations at becoming more limber but if that happens I will take as a bonus. My primary goal here is just to make sure I am keeping my key joints moving the way they should. Oh, and taking inspiration from @juliebarkley, I am going to work on doing some spinning stuff to see if it reduces dizziness. No goals associated with this, just experimentation. 4. Learn the skills - do something personal development/learning related at least once per day. That could be playing the uke, doing duolongo, sketching, or even creative writing. Ideal is one hour per day but honestly if I only do 1 minute I will be giving myself full credit. Building the habit is the primary goal here. 5. Read a dang book. I haven't read anything for months, now, even though I have a bunch of books waiting for me in my Kindle. I really think I would be well served to read something non-fiction, but I am not sure what. Recommendations from the peanut gallery? Also, it has been a while since I cracked open my scriptures, I want to set a goal here of reading at least something every day, even if it is just one verse. 6. Play. This is going to be mostly D&D because I am involved in 7 campaigns and am in discussions to possibly join one more. I am DMing 4 of those. Keeping myself prepared for the DM ones and taking time to enjoy the others is something I am looking forward to. I may also play some xbox (and maybe wii) and that is fine. I just need to make sure I am keeping some time for me to relax and just have some fun. Stuff that doesn't involve mindlessly playing solitaire and sudoku on my phone all day. Whew, that's a lot! Well, time to get cracking!

EDIT: CHALLENGEME!!! I want to get going on Pullups, and i want others to join in cause a little competition works wonders for me! Real easy, pick a thing you want to get better in and do it in a GtG style of way throughout the challenge. Let me know (here on my thread or on your own) how many sets a day you did and we will get a little competition going. Okay some tips: Do half of what you are capable of at a time. I can do 2 consecutive pullups, so i'm gonna start with a set of one at a time. Try to get in as much "sets" as possible throughout the day. Leave at least 15 minutes between sets. If you start doing something that has a weight, start with half weight (KB Dumbbell Barbell etc.) So who is willing to help call me out on this! Okay, Go super KISS (keep it simple, stupid!) i want to do the following. Clean up eating Keep running Start lifting Keep in touch with as many rebels as possible! I want to build my challenge around that. I'm not quite sure how though. Maybe i just need a rewind. One of my downfalls is wanting to go big or go home... So now i purposely want to work around that. Work with teeny tiny steps. I know! Ugh this is so hard! First things first, just like last challenge i want to keep accountable cause it helps me most to keep to my challenge. But with the teeny tiny steps (not setting up for failure) i will do a check in at least 3 times a week (instead of every day). 3/w check in The 2nd goal will be the "cleaning-up-the-eating" part. One of the easiest things to start out with is cutting out the sweets. Which comes down to desserts, and sweets in the evening. It's not that big of a problem for me, but i think it's something i can easily start off with this to get things going. (instead of all the restrictions) 3/w check in no-sweets Third goal will be a combined thing. I want to keep running cause i've a pretty good base stamina now. Also keeping in mind May 2021 when i have to run the Ratrace Dirty Weekend (20 mile / 200 obstacles) obstacle run. But i also want to get back into the habit of lifting. Now preferably i want to keep it doing both 3 times a week. But i just know doing that would be setting up for failure. And even though i hate it, i'm gonna start with every other day a workout. And alternate the running with lifting. (instead of doing full running AND lifting program) 3/w check in no-sweets run / lift The challenge is 5 weeks and starts monday. 0-week will be the week to try this out. Preferably on sunday i want to do a recap and tighten or loosen things for the upcoming week. Now we are gonna have a little problem with Week 1 cause i will be on holiday as a tourguide. Working out will probably not be possible. So i want to try to keep me to the other 2 goals. No sweets (which basically means no snacks at the gas station, no desserts after dinner) and check in a few times here. After that on week 2 i want to kick off the challenge right. Easy check in format: Week 0 / Day 3 Checkin 2/3 NoSweets 0/7 run 1 / lift 0