Search the Community

As we enter the world of Anthem, we discover the story of a young Freelancer named Colwyn Plaigue and how he becomes one of the most deadly Interceptor pilots to fly the skies of Mirrus. In part one, we will see Colwyn undertake his first true test as a Freelancer and get a little taste of the action ahead. Profile: Colwyn Plaigue was not born into a family of Freelancers. In fact, he would go on to become the first Lancer of any sort within his families lineage. His Father was an Arcanist, as well as his mother and younger brother. To Colwyn, the ways of the Arcanist always bore him. He sought out more in life. Not just cheap thrills and the adrenaline spike of flying a javelin, but, Colwyn wanted to make a difference in protecting his home, Fort Tarsis. He could of been a Sentinel, the law enforcement within the confines of the Fort, but that just seemed boring too. No, it was the dangers that wait beyond the walls that called Colwyn's name. The giant beasts that threatened him and the people of Fort Tarsis. The Dominion and their army. The Scars. All of them. Having spent some time piloting the Ranger javelin as a rookie Freelancer requirement, Colwyn is finally able to branch off and fly the other three available exosuits. He has his sights set on only one javelin-the Interceptor. As the smallest and sleekest of all the javelins, the Interceptor is favored by Corvus' long range scouts, infiltrators and assassins. While it may not be the mightiest of the javelins, it more than makes up for it with unmatched agility and evasion. In order to obtain this javelin, Colwyn will need to pass the infamous Corvus test, called The Gauntlet...something that only has a 3% pass rate. There are three parts to the test: a physical exam, a mental fortitude exam, and a written test. In order to gain Corvus' favor and pilot the Interceptor, Colwyn will need to pass all three components. This challenge is about how he does so. **I will be RP'ing Colwyn throughout the entirety of the challenge/story.** Stats: Age: 28 Height: 6'2 Weight: 188# Hair Color: Copper Eye Color: Blue Goal #1: The Gauntlet Physical Exam What exactly is the physical portion of this test? It's a grueling test to push you to your physical limits. 2 min push-ups (min 55) Max pull-ups (min 7) Max planks (min 90 seconds) Max Burpees in 2 min (min 55) Max KB front squat w/ 2x 53# KB's (min 12) Max rack pull at 225# (min 10) 1 mile run time (Sub 10 min) 1 mile ruck with 25# (Sub 15:30 min) I have 5-weeks to train for this and pass. Chances are, I'll split this workout up into 2 different ones, like the cardio ones, on a separate day. Time to get to work! Possible Points: +3 STR, +2 DEX. +1 STA Goal #2: The Gauntlet Mental Fortitude Exam What exactly is the mental fortitude portion of this test? It's split into 4-parts testing ones strength of mind through torturous means. Waterboarding (1x 5-min cold shower a week) Starvation (1x 24-hour fast at least twice this challenge) Isolation (4 total hours doing Devotionals and scripture memorization-1 hour a week) Delirium (Average 7+ hours of sleep for the duration of the challenge) These goals will be playing the long game during the challenge and require me to buckle down on my discipline. Time to get to work! Possible Points: +3 CON, +2 WIS Goal #3: The Gauntlet Written Exam What exactly is the written portion of the this test? This part will test ones creative, interpretive and problem solving capacity. Essay (Spend 1 hour a week to writing) Multiple Choice (Post 4x short excerpts over the course of the challenge-one excerpt each week) I'm gonna figure out this writing thing! I want to be consistently writing so that way when my BIG challenge happens at the end of February, I'll already be in a flow. Time to get to work! Possible Points: +3 CHA, +1 WIS I want to end 2018 on a good note with good habits, discipline, and consistency. I'm turning my obsession with Anthem into something constructive and I'm SO SO SO excited about the upcoming epic challenge once the game releases. I hope you all journey with me and enjoy the ride !! Wolf

on we go Lucky fire dragon shifts shape part 3 Shifting shape part 1 had me slim from 70kg down to 68kg roughly, in shifting shape part 2 I got to 67kg but then back up to the 68 and now I'm aiming to stabilize at 67 and/or go lower aaaaaaaaaand stronger again Strength gains happened slowly as I had to tickle myself out of big inertia, but slowly I'm getting into motion again, whooohooo. Now to keep it going and build up a bit more. As shifting shape also needs a certain innate flexibility and clarity in focus, I've been training my meditation skills and will keep building on those some more as well. Inspiration is another helpful aspect to keep me going, in many ways this is really just a continuation of my previous two challenges. Part of this challenge however will be providing the best mom-support I can for my kids especially my son as he is in his second last school year, with lots of exams coming up over the next weeks and months. One of his major exams will be in sports and he chose basketball and swimming for this. He will also have to run through a circuit training of basic strength and endurance drills like push ups, squats, weighted sit ups etc... While I can't help him with basketball, I can renew my daily 10 motivation and have him join me and I can take both kids to the indoor swimming pool regularly for a while. Youngest is learning to swim the crawl (is that how you call it?) at school so extra practice will be great for her as well. My boy needs to build up to 600m swimming endurance, which I think should not be a problem, but we'll have to see how far that really is in the end and also depending which style he needs to swim it in. Best to tackle it early so why not theme this time just SWIM Sadhana Sadhana practice is what kundalini yogis call their morning practice and ideally it means rising 2 - 2,5 hours before sunrise, freshening up with a cold shower and then practising pranayama (breathing exercises), kriya yoga (physical exercises), chanting and meditation. In a way, hubby and me had started on this with our 5am meditation habit already, so now I'd like to expand on it. I gave this way too much thought again I'm good at complicating things - wondering how to do it that I don't wake any of the kids up too early, like would the shower wake them... how do I find undisturbed time to add the pranayama and kriyas in... should I get up at 4am, will that be enough time... will I manage though? I already struggle with the 4.45 getting up time.... and so on, my mind would try and plan and drive me mull So this morning after our meditation time I woke youngest, popped their buns in the oven and made her tea, tidied up a bit around the kitchen until the buns were finished and then went right back into the living room and started a pranayama exercise. I didn't care about youngest thinking her mom might be totally nuts now and I didn't care when I had to interrupt in between for talking to her. What I realized is this: I won't EVER be completely undisturbed! Yes, I could force myself up at 3am in the morning or whatever, but then the cats would think it's time for breakfast and even if kids and cats and the whole world would not interfere, my mind would still cause a racket from time to time and I'd have to refocus just the same! This realization brought immmense freedom for me: I can basically do my exercises of choice whenever and when I have to interrupt, I'll just get refocused and start again. With time I'm sure, we'll work it out in a way that's smooth enough. It's better to do it imperfect than not doing it at all, so if I do my yoga while the sun is already up, so what?! I'll still do it first thing in the morning and have a great start into my day So here is my plan: Get up at 4.45, wash face with cold water and feed cats, meditate with hubby until 6, get buns etc for kids ready and wake youngest, once she is sorted do my pranayama and kriya yoga, then take my cold shower while my boy gets up for his breakfast, see if he's alright and then get my own breakfast going and voilà I'm set for a great day. Wish me strength - those kriyas are harder than they look and getting up is still a battle Water Despite being a fire dragon, water is really good for me I'm aiming to go swimming with the kids at least 4x over the course of the challenge Drinking at least 2 Liters of water / day Have cold shower in the morning and wash my feet with cold water before going to bed at night (I found it very soothing and helping me sleep deeper) with some lovely skin creams for luxury after (I have so many nice creams and lotions and hardly ever use them, time to shine instead) Inspiration An idle mind often comes up with such nonsense! I'll keep filling it instead with inspiring stories and teachings by reading and reflecting on helpful things. Also have to finish writing the script for my healing workshop and that will challenge me to tap into my inner inspirations, so that will count towards this goal as well. 10 minutes of reading per day keeping my 4TW streak going (444 words per day, currently my streak is 61 days) will be enough. That is a small goal to reach, so I'm hoping to top it on many days and to really reach it every single day even amidst unexpected action and chaos, which are part of life and bound to happen. Mom support As meditation is already part of the sadhana practice I'll dedicate the M to my mom duties instead, well duty is not the best word as it's much more voluntary then that. I want to be the best support I can be for my kids. Not sure how to structure this goal yet, as I'll have to see when making them study and maybe helping them study is due and when break times, games, or outdoors times would be better... might just look at it a day at a time and do my best without a structured measure to go by. And yes, salads will be a continuous thing and so will yoga classes be - do shout at me if I start slacking on them again! That's it, let's do the thang

I know it's a (very) late starting, but 16 days are better than nothing. I'm getting into stoicism, so I'm going to direct my objectives to the main goal of being a modern stoic, so... Main quest Behave and think like a 'perfect' stoic Specific goals Cold showers every fucking day IF: since I'm a woman, I think that a 14/10 window will work better than a 16/8 one) Walk/run (to Mordor) every day (30' running or 60' walking) Life quest Learn Latin (one Lingua latina per se ilustrata's lesson per day) A method to track? 1/16, 2/16, et caetera. Random data 05/10 currentHeight 164 cm Weight 78.3 kg 77.1 kgBF % 33.3 % 33.7 %

To those who are following the storyline from my last challenge: Beware. Of. Major. Spoilers. Seriously, this whole challenge intro is a major spoiler for the storyline I have yet to conclude in the other challenge. You have been warned. TL;DR: Challenge goals Do everything from last time. sleep at 12amwake by 9am and get readydo "Convict Conditioning" bodyweight strength training Only this time, actually do it.Reward for doing it: uh… happy dance? Punishment for slacking: something awful, to be decided on. Probably push-ups. 25 burpees per session missed. I blame llw and Kishi. Take cold(er) showers. 'Cause damn, I'm being beaten by a 16-year old girl who isn't even actively trying to beat me. I will not go without a fight!Reward: happy dance…? Punishment: probably push-ups. 25 burpees per day missed. Record your progress in your journal. While much of my journey is documented here, more or less, I've severely neglected my own journal in the meantime.Reward: happy dance…? Punishment: probably more push-ups. 25 burpees per day missed. Why so much punishment? Why not embrace the positive side of life? Because this makes the stakes oh so much higher.

Hello all and welcome to the latest challenge thread for me. For those who are new here, or those who aren't and just like reading my backstory, hi, I'm Shukar. I'm a Scout. I didn't used to be a Scout, I used to just be a big dude who didn't think fitness was for him because he was "never any good at sports". I was heavy, unhealthy, and just generally not in a good place. I decided to straighten up and fix my life and lost a bunch of weight and started running. Turned out that running was something I really liked so I've stuck with it. While running is a lot of fun, for me at least, it's really not a complete solution to my health and fitness goals so I've also implemented some bodyweight resistance training and more recently some Kettlebell training as well. I've been here at Nerd Fitness for longer than I can easily recall and I've been a mod for the past few months. I love this place and can't think of anywhere I'd rather spend my time and make new friends. So that's the introduction stuff. What about the goals, man? Main Goal: Clean up my act and continue on my path toward a better me. I had a bad end to last challenge, from my perspective at least, and I've been trying to figure out how to remedy that and reinforce some habits that should keep it from happening again. I've got a nice outline so far but I think I'm gonna continue what I started in my post yesterday in my previous thread of talking out my goals for this challenge in the open and filling them in here as we go, so for now I'm gonna only post up yesterdays goal and todays goal and fill the others in as the build up week continues, and retcon this portion of the post once all that's done so it makes sense to people picking it up from the beginning later. Missions: Running: The first goal, as it almost always is, is my running goal. This time out the goal is to run at least three times a week, one day of sprints, one day of Tempo (2 miles at first building to about 4 I think; at half marathon target pace), and one day of long run (undecided as to whether it will be time or mileage based at this juncture). If there is a fourth day, and there may well be, it'll be longer than the Tempo but easier than the other days. Strength: The second goal for this challenge is gonna be my strength goal. Daily practice on one legged squats (and ROM for standard squats), pushups, Handstands (focusing on getting off the wall and the bailout), and pull-ups; long live the streak. At least once, ideally twice, a week do some Kettlebell swings. Once a week try to get in some Turkish Getups and potentially some other supplemental work. Mobility/Maintenance: Because the body should operate like a well oiled machine. Once a week spend some dedicated time, and otherwise just try and improve on, my mobility as a whole and injury proofing my system. Take Omega3s and Vitamin D every day and track what I need to to see if at least the Vitamin D is making any impact on my sleep, or anything else I can observe. Get more, and better, sleep. At least 7 hours on run days, and at least 8 hours on non-run days. These are targets so no need to stress if I fall a little short on occasion but it shouldn't become regular. Side Quest: Clean up your Act: Because clean is simple and easy to deal with. Shower every day, doesn't have to be long but stick to Cold Shower Therapy as a guideline. Clean the apartment at the start, keep it clean by regular maintenance of any problem areas and solving the problems to make that easier going forward. Shave twice a week. A Plan for Everything: Every week figure out which nights you'll be home, and what you should do for dinner that night. Shop accordingly. Pick out actual recipes and items. Stick to the plan whenever possible, and make sure that's often. One Offs/Mini Challenges: Climb Every Mountain: Because every time I go rock climbing I have a really great time. The goal here is to go rock climbing at least once. I've done it before, I have always really enjoyed it, therefore I should do it again. Plus my upper body pulling could use some work. Master of Disguise: Work with the wife on costumes for January. By week 2 we need to have a plan of what they will look like, by week 4 fabric and pattern planning, by the end at least one should be close to wearable. So there you have it, my current goals. Now to go out and accomplish them.

So, after having thought about it, I've figured out what makes us special little snowflakes as opposed to the other guilds. It's not martial arts, actually; there are fighters in the other guilds too, and they never come to visit us, so even though martial arts is a part of what makes us who we are, it's not the core part. The core part? It's that we're tough. Others might be stronger than us; others might run farther than us; others might swim further or stretch deeper. But at the end of the day, we're the only ones who look for a life that actively punches us in the face. With that in mind, here is our first challenge! Toughness can be defined in many diverse ways. I think a good, workable definition is, "the ability to grow and be comfortable in circumstances that were previously uncomfortable." It has dimensions that are both physical and mental, and whosoever undertakes these challenges will be exploring both. The first challenge is to endure severe cold. That's right, boys and girls: we are doing cold showers. BUT. All the same. Part of the definition is the implicit understanding that toughness is relative. This is a chance to grow. There's no sense in undertaking this if it's going to crush you. So here's how it's going to work: if you are doing this challenge, I want you to post here how long you intend to endure. It can be as short as one second; it can be as long as it takes for you lather and rinse off. You pick it, but then the onus to stick to it is on you. As for me? I've taken to soaping up and shampooing hot, and rinsing the shampoo out cold. I'm going to change that up - after I'm done soaping up, it's cold the rest of the way. And now I have to stick to it. Yaaaaaay...