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I did it!!!!!! I finished the 5k this morning! I did my training program which was: 5 minutes walking 1.5 minutes running 1.5 minutes walking 3 minutes running 3 minutes running Repeat from 1st run 5 minutes walking (cool down) After that it was a lot of walking followed by random walking/running until I reached the 5k mark.

Taking Down Demons Everyone's got their demons. Mine happens to be a 1950s housewife in pink and pearls who always says "yes, dear" and raises 15 perfect children (all natural, home births). I call her "The Princess" and I've already gone one round with her, rather successfully. Time for round two. As an incurable tomboy raised in a culture of high expectations for classically feminine, stay-at-home-mom, domestic women, I've always felt wrong. Out of place. Even broken at times. I've stood in front of the mirror and hated myself for my boyish posture, my penchant for short haircuts, my loud voice, my absent maternal instinct, and my complete inability to keep house. No more! Since being with my completely amazing husband who thinks I am, in his words, "worth a lot of shits," I have begun to find my worth. This challenge is about holding onto that and being ever more confident in who I am. Emma Stone is my spirit animal for this challenge because, well, she's awesome. Still Dem Abs Yeah, I still want a six-pack by summer. So I'm going to continue to work on it, but I'm raising the bar. This time, I have to work abs for a full 20 minutes, 5 times a week. I can split that 20 minutes into smaller segments as I have time, but by the time I sleep I have to have gotten 20 minutes in. I'm also going to squat along with this. Now that I can, I want to all the time. At the end of the last challenge my legs were finally the same size for the first time since I was probably 10 years old. This is brilliant progress for me and I don't want to stop working leg strength just because I'm not in the gym anymore. A: 20+ min of abs/squats 5x per week B: Miss 1-2 C: Miss 3-4 D: MIss 5-6 Fail: Miss 7+ Yoga Bear Arthritic joints like variety, so I'm going to lay off the weights for this challenge and do some stretching and strengthening yoga-style. I've done yoga the last couple days since the last challenge ended and I can already tell that this will be more difficult than my last challenge. Which is good, because my last challenge proved too tame. There are definitely going to be balance issues thanks to vertigo, but I think that's good. I've had a real flare-up of dizzy spells lately and I need to re-train my brain and my inner ear to communicate. I think the focus and relaxation required to hold poses in yoga will help my eyes and my ear re-adjust to reality again. It actually feels pretty similar to the therapy I went through last year. In regards to my overall goals, I think a calm, strong center will help me to balance all the stressful feels I have about myself. It will give me a space, 30 minutes per day, to forget about all the noise and just really focus on myself. I'm not into all the spiritual side of yoga, but I have been to chiropractors enough to know that when tension in muscles and joints is released, it can make mental and emotional stress much easier to handle rationally. Yoga just gives me instructions and ideas for how to string those stretches together. I'm hoping that by the end of the challenge I'll be able to chuck the videos and just string together flows of my own so I don't have to listen to yogis go on about weird spiritual stuff. A: 30+ min of yoga 5x per week B: Miss 1-2 C: Miss 3-4 D: Miss 5-6 Fail: Miss 7+ Swing, Swing I may be eschewing most weights for this challenge, but I'm going to keep at those kettlebells! Since I started using them so recently, my joints haven't had time to get bored and weird about the movement, plus, I love them. Swinging kettlebells makes me feel so powerful, which fits in with my overall goal nicely. I'm going to keep a minimum of 10 minutes of kettlebell swinging on my daily routine. This brings my total daily exercise time up to 1 hour. Which is all I have time for, as I walk the dog for an hour a day also. 2 hours is plenty of time to devote to exercise in my life. A: 10+ min of KB 5x per week B: Miss 1-2 C: Miss 3-4 D: Miss 5-6 Fail: Miss 7+ Life Goal: Clean Up Dat Book A couple weeks ago I got my manuscript back from an editor. I wrote the book in November, did the first pass of edits in December, my editor marked it up in January, and here we are halfway through February and I'm doing the next round of cleanup. Ideally, I would finish by the end of the month, but the arrival of my marked-up manuscript concurred tragically with my discovery of and subsequent torrid romance with CivilizationV. Tragic. I need to get on that book. I need to edit at least 10 pages per day to get it done in a timely manner. There's no deadline outside my own mind, but my mind is a harsh taskmaster. The biggest hurdle to this work, after Civ, is that my confidence in the work is very inconsistent. Objectively, I could say it's the best full-length novel I've ever completed. But I worry. And I talk myself out of loving it. And I convince myself that no one else will love it. And that needs to stop. A: 10pg of edits 5x per week B: Miss 1-2 C: Miss 3-4 D: Miss 5-6 Fail: Miss 7+ (Unlike the other goals, this one allows catch-up. Ex: if I only edit 7 pages one day, I can do an extra 3 later to make up.) In Conclusion: This challenge is all about confidence, mental strength, emotional stability, and six-pack abs.

With one challenge under my belt, I think it's time to start a battle log and follow a few others. Background on Max: Diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis at the age of 4, went into remission at 12, symptoms recurred at 15 and suffered in sheer confusion until finally diagnosed with Lyme Disease just this past March. I've spent most of my life sick and/or in pain, without much drive to work out or strengthen my body. With a fatalistic, "oh I'll just flare again and lose all my progress" perspective, I've spent a lot of time on the couch, and no time at all in the gym. With my diagnoses in hand and the examples of heroic fellow Lyme sufferers to follow, I've decided to take control for the first time since high school. There may not be a place on a soccer team for me anymore, but there is a possible future of greater strength, stability, and fewer incidents of falling and being unable to get up off the floor. In July when my doctor told me there was nothing more he could do for me, I knew I had to start doing for myself. Within a few weeks I had begun seriously exercising for the first time in years, starting with movements taught me by a physical therapist. I joined Nerd Fitness around that time and did my first challenge. It hurt. Tears were shed, blood was spilled, sports bras were purchased. And I finished. I completed my challenge with a great score and I have baby muscles to show for it. I can even walk up the stairs without using the raiiing for the first time in years. Moving forward: I think I will use this space to woot about success and be honest about failure. I'll post my daily workout, and probably some pictures of my dog. If I see progress, I'll post pictures of it. If any of you have experience with Lyme or other inflammation-related diseases, I would very much welcome ideas or advice. Especially on how to stretch with limited range of motion in joints. Here's to a fantastic journey. Peace.