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I think I might battle-log it up this round. I’d like to go rock climbing more, or do some other intentional physical activity besides softball, maybe once a week or so; but, who knows. My mental health is on a downswing, so everything is hard right now. But I still want to try and be here, even if it’s sporadic. I kinda love you guys.

I'm learning an uncomfortable truth: though my mood is loads better, all the other symptoms of depression still remain. Low energy, difficulty focusing, little interest in things. My improved mood is a godsend, cos I would not survive if I still felt as bad as last fall. But now, among other things, I need to cultivate some self-discipline, cos I've never really learned to do that... And now is the time when I really need it, while I'm trying to succeed in school instead of just scraping by AND trying to put some distance between myself and that terrifying darkness. So, no matter how many times I fall, I'll keep on trying. Cos I have to. For the sake of my health and well-being. FOR THE SAKE OF MY HEALTH - batch cook on weekends - work on homework a little every day once it's assigned - exercise 2 times per week - do some chores for 5 minutes every evening m-f - maybe some kind of journaling goal? TBD Reward for meeting exercise goal: Spiderman Compression shirt, or possibly a new backpack.

“Let’s start from the beginning, one last time...” Have you guys seen Into the Spider-Verse? Cos if you haven’t, how dare you. It’s the best animated movie I’ve seen in a hot minute. And so, it’s the theme of this challenge! I was on a bit of a Spider-Man kick before, but then I saw the movie and, well. Here we are. I’ll do my best to post movie references and inspirational quotes without accidentally spoiling anything. And I’ll post other Spider-Man stuff too, not just from ItSV. Spider-Man (plus a dose of Assassin’s Creed) has hardcore reignited my desire to be strong and nimble and do parkour and stuff. So, to try and work toward this strong, nimble future-self, I will do 3 workouts per week. That’s only twelve times! I can do twelve times. Since I wanna focus on strength, control, and flexibility, I’m thinking body weight circuits or a tough yoga practice (like NF Fire A or something) or balance practice; but I’m not gonna tie myself to any specific activity lest I get bored of it. I found a few Neila Rey workouts that are along the lines of what I want (including some Spider-Man themed ones!) that I’ll post below. I’ll have to modify a few of the movements to make sure they’re quiet, since I have downstairs neighbors, but I think they look pretty good. ADDITIONALLY: my uni’s rec center has a climbing wall. And I live, like, a less than five minute walk away. So during this challenge, I have to go try the climbing wall at least once. What could be more perfect for Spider-Man training than a climbing wall?? If I can manage 10/12 workouts, then I will buy myself this Nifty Spider-Shirt as a reward! “I never thought I’d be able to do any of this stuff. But I can. Anyone can wear the mask. You can wear the mask. If you didn’t know that before, I hope you do now.” Love, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man <3

2017. The hike to here has been a long one, but I have arrived. As I follow the path, I seek to find a class with which to align myself. For now, like others have before me, I seek respite in the knowledge and the community of the druids. With your guidance and support, I believe that I can reach the goals set for this cycle. I typically develop a theme for my challenges, but fail to complete them due to their complexity. This time, I will keep things simple so that my focus can shift from the story to the goals themselves. For this challenge, I will focus on building strength in three areas: Mind, Body, and Will Strength of Mind One Mala a Day: Each day, I will complete a mala of Om Mani Padme Hum, or 108 prayers. I am adding this as part of my daily meditation as I build a daily practice. Tai Chi: I am new to Tai Chi. By the end of the month, I hope to add 10 minutes a day of Tai Chi to my morning routine. Understanding the meaning and purpose of the postures is important to me, so the time can be spent practicing or studying. I am learning this to advance my goal of becoming proficient in Tai Chi. Strength of Body Rock Climbing: I will climb at least once per week. I am pursing this goal to advance my quarterly goal of climbing 5.6+ with ease. Walk: I will walk to the Prancing Pony (135 miles). This is a way point on the road to Rivendell (quarterly goal) and the first leg on my journey to Mordor. Water: I will drink at least 32oz of water a day. I am pursuing this goal to advance my goal of making water my primary beverage by the end of the year. Sleep: I will sleep at least 8 hours per night. I am pursuing this goal to advance my goal of establishing a healthy sleep routine. Strength of Will Complete this Challenge: I will complete this challenge. This will be one of four challenges I promise to complete this year. Take the Bus: I will take the bus to school instead of driving. This will support my annual goal of driving less even though it is convenient. Take Notes: I will annotate required readings. This will support my 5 year goal of publishing research in the field of Occupational Therapy. Environmental Adaptation: I will make three changes to my environment to decrease the amount of willpower required to complete my goals. Good luck in your endeavors and thank so much for your support. Happy New Year!

Hi. I am llw. I am a monk. I used to hit things but now I climb things. This is my challenge. These are my goals: Climb 3x per week. Or do a supplementary work out, but primarily climb. Eat vegetables. 4 cups per day. Yoga 1 hour per week. I purchased a yoga program for climbers. There are 9 routines, I will be completing and repeating the set focused on shoulders and core for this challenge. Read 30 minutes everyday. Either a book I am working through or a published scientific study for a paper I hope to publish, or for prospecting graduate school. Please note: All readers who post comments stating or referring to how I rarely or never complete challenges will owe me a doughnut when I kick this month's ass. By commenting as such, you agree to these terms.

Hi friends, It's basically been two years since I've been on the forums... kind of fell off the wagon (not with fitness quite as much as with posting, but there's been some of both) what with college graduation, moving to a new city, starting an Adult Job (sort of), commuting, and trying to find a new routine... But anyway, after being in New York for just over a year now, I finally feel like I'm getting back into the swing of things. Unfortunately, I had to choose between my rock climbing gym that I loved and the boxing/mma gym I joined a few months ago because of cost (I chose boxing), but since the boxing gym is much closer to my apartment, I've been able to go 2-3 times a week consistently, which has meant that I've more consistently been in a better mood since I get incredibly cranky when I don't exercise. I also finally feel like I'm starting to get to know some of my fellow gym-mates (idk what else to call them really) and trainers, which makes me more motivated to go. Some trouble I have been having is with cooking. Mainly that I don't make a ton of time for it, especially since I'm most often cooking for just me. Breakfasts are pretty easy, but for some lunches I've just been doing Soylent, and for dinners I often lean probably too heavily on Trader Joe's frozen Indian dinners. I'm hoping to get some meal prep containers in the near future to convince myself to cook healthy meals for the week in advance, so we'll see if that helps. It'll also save me some money if I manage to do it consistently, which would be great. Other than that, I've been playing lots of Overwatch, Stardew Valley, and Crypt of the Necrodancer! Hoping to post in this thread fairly regularly - see you all around!

Okay, nerds. This wandering Monk is swingin with the Adventurers this round - I've fallen in love with climbing and it'll probably be all I talk about in here (next to food). In addition to my challenge, I'm also going to try to lift and attend yoga, but Imma also try to keep things simple... So... Goals: 1. Rock climb and boulder at least 3x/week. Currently the hardest wall I can send is a 5.7, and I still can't cover any of the bouldering routes at my gym 2. Estimate and track daily calories, aim for 2400/day. I'll be taking screenshots of MFP at the end of everyday. Also going to be trying to follow this meal plan I made for myself as best as I can, and keep grocery spending at max. 100$/week (for both my mom and I). Ideally, my goal is to gain some muscle but even if I just maintain my weight, I'm happy. 3. Mobility work on all "rest" days (yoga counts) 4. Study one hour each day! Either for Personal Training certification and/or for GRE.

While backpacking this weekend I had an epiphany: My backpack probably weighs 20lbs.... and that's probably about how much weight I need to lose. Damn, 20lbs is heavy! I'm sick of carrying this around. My problem (and please don't take this the wrong way, everybody has a different body and a different idea of what is healthy for them)... but my frame can hold an additional 20 lbs pretty easily. I gain weight evenly all over my body, and most people wouldn't call me fat. Some people wouldn't even call me over weight. But at 5'4" and 165 lbs I know that I'm not as lean as I would like to be for my athletic goals. I want to be able to run faster, hike further, and rock climb better. I want to be a fit little outdoor animal with endless energy who can scale mountains. I wouldn't mind looking better naked too, but that's not really my main motivator. All of these will be easier if I have less mass to move around. So I'm starting a challenge, I'm calling it 100 days at 100%. I'm not going to focus on a number on the scale or a pound goal, instead I'm going to work my butt off for 100 days, working to build better habits and lose fat. Then I'll go into a maintenance phase and see where that puts me. I'm also going to work in four week segments with every 4th weekend being a "break" where I can stop tracking my food for a few days, relax my eating a little, and just give myself a mental breather. So ultimately it will be a little more than 100 days, and will end on November 4th when I hop on a plane for Peru. Challenge Goals: 1a) Don't Get Injured! - Prehab How: Foam rolling, stretching calves, running warm ups. Note: I've been doing some of these for a few weeks already, but I need to be more consistent. After having to take off nearly six weeks due to a running injury this spring I'm putting more emphasis on injury prevention moving forward. 1b) Don't Get Injured! Strength training 2x weekly. How: Follow bodyweight workout from NFA and mix in some kettlebell training. 2) Increase weekly running mileage while maintaining aerobic zone. How: Week 1 - 13 miles, Week 2 - 14 miles, Week 3 - 14.5 Week 4 - 16 Heart rate Sub 150 bpm. Note: Roughly 10% increase each week. Also, I can skip some milage if I go on a long hike (hike mileage must be double what run mileage would have been) since right now I'm really working on training my aerobic zone so I can ultimately run faster at the same heart rate. 3) Eat at a caloric deficit. How: 1800 calories on rest days, 2100 calories on training days. Fit in more walks to increase total caloric burn in a mellow way. 4) Personal Goal: Get a new job! How: Finish updating website by end of week 1, then ask any/everybody for leads, and send out all the resumes! It's hard to say if I'll be able to accomplish this in one challenge, but I feel I've hit a progression ceiling at my current job and it's time to move on.

Arrr.. . I felt like sticking with pirates, but I'm branching out and recruiting a bunch of famous pirates to help me with my quests. This will be a 5WC, since I prefer just continuing along with things, so the points are intended to encompass that. Main Quest: Parkour all of the things!!! Climb all of the things!!! Balance in mind-bending ways! Play with weapons! Sail to new horizons! Loot, pillage, plunder. Pirate #1: Edward Kenway (parkour)- Naturally, I'm turning to Assassin's Creed and the Pirate Edward Kenway to help me with my parkour. My goals with this are twofold: One of the bits of feedback I received at my rank testing was that I was trying to go too fast, and as a result, I was adding stutter steps right before most of my vaults. Also, now that I have full open gym, I want to expand my horizons a bit by trying new things or new configurations for skills, rather than just recycling things that I've already done in classes. So, I get 5 points whenever I do parkour class or open gym and work on slow, smooth flow runs without adding stutter steps. I get another 5 points for doing class or open gym and trying some new skills or new moves. I also can get 5 points for taking my parkour outdoors and trying techniques in new ways (vaulting over benches or picnic tables in ways I've never before tried). The goal is to reach 100 points by the end of the challenge. Pirate #2: Guybrush Threepwood (strength) *well, he says he's a mighty pirate. Who am I to argue? Really, none of the pirates are overly strength-y, and I wanted to include some monkey island goodness. I want to get stronger for both parkour and climbing. And so far, my approach has been very haphazard. Ideally, I will insert some combination of these exercises at the end of parkour sessions, climbing sessions, or yoga, so I can increase my strength: Pull ups, Flag progressions, Dragon Flag negatives, toes-to-bar, one leg squats, HSPUs, plyo push ups, cat hang pull ups, and dips. Obviously, sometimes my muscles will be so trashed from climbing or parkour that I won't be able to do anything. In that case, I can get credit as long as I at least try to do the exercises and verify that there's nothing left in the tank. +5 points for every day I go climbing, do parkour, or do yoga and then after that do a strength mini workout. +5 points for each Darebee workout (providing it's primarily strength based). +5 points for every full strength workout. Edit: + 7 points for every day in which I completely fry out all of my muscles, whether it's just from a full strength workout or whether it's from parkour/climbing/yoga classes + a supplemental strength workout. Goal is to reach 100 points. Pirate #3 - The Dread Pirate Roberts (Discipline/ Diet goal) The Dread Pirate Roberts is a disciplined swordsman in full control of himself and his body. So, I'm turning to him to help me rein in my diet. Vacation was great, but it left me with the tendency to eat entirely too much, drink entirely too much, and consume way too much sugar. Easter and the abundance of candy in the house isn't helping with that, either. So, the plan is to eat relatively healthy meals every day, with only one modest dessert (100 calories or less) per day. But I also get 3 variances/week, where I can eat out, have an alcoholic drink, have a less healthy meal, or have a bigger dessert/sweet. I get 20 points/week for full compliance, but -5 points for each additional variance. And situations where I hang out with friends, have an unhealthy meal, extra sweets, and hit the booze can easily count as multiple variances. Goal is 100 points. Pirate #4: Captain Jack Sparrow (Adventure/Life goal) I need more adventure in my life, and I'm recruiting Captain Jack Sparrow to help me sail to new horizons. Last challenge, I intended to create my own adventure guide, with all of the local hikes, day trips, weekend trips, etc. within a 4 hour driving radius that I'd love to do. Normally, a large part of my goal would be to actually get out and do at least one of these adventures, but I am pretty bogged down in the next month with birthdays and other big events. But I'll do the best that I can. I get 2 points for every entry into my adventure spreadsheet (each entry can be a hike that I want to do, a nearby city + attractions that I've researched, a climbing spot that I want to try, or an event that I'd like to attend, along with the distance, estimated time needed, and other data). Since learning languages is helpful for exploration, I'm also getting 1 point for every 50 XP in Duolingo. And since reading is an adventure of sorts, I get 10 points for every book completed. If I do manage an actual adventure, I get 10 points for every new place explored. The goal is to reach 100 points. Bonus goals: Bonus #1: Ship maintenance - Keep my ship tidy by doing the flylady mission for each day (or a 15 minute substitution if the mission isn't relevant for my house). Bonus #2: Ranger Mini.

Hi Rebels, I would like your thoughts on something. I have been following a fairly regular regime for the past year. It looks like this: Monday and Wednesday - 6-7am Strength training - 8-9:30pm Krav Maga class Friday - 6-7am Strength and heavy bag training Now I've added archery lessons on Saturday 9-11:30am. It's not much of a workout but I do use my muscles so I count it as training. My conflict is, I would like to start rock climbing. I've done the math and with some tweaks on my work schedule I could do it Tuesdays and Thursdays for a couple of hours in the afternoon. My workplace provides very flexible hours. I can see the time is there but I'm afraid my body can't take it and I don't want to give up the other things I do. I already experience burnout every few weeks and either I get sick or some part of my body starts hurting, which results in a week or more without working out. A couple of people in my life have suggested I'm over-training, but this doesn't sound like that much to me. I think it should be able to take it. I have an office job I love, but an office job after all, and I would like to mitigate the impact of sitting for eight hours as much as possible. I think it's relevant to mention that I do get enough sleep, 7-8 hours, although I don't always feel rested. What would be your advice? How many activities or workouts do you do during the week? What do you do when you are legitimately too tired to work out?

Part I of the challenge (last challenge) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTTTy0bQ6VI Like Lara Croft, parkour, climbing, combat, and outdoors exploration are all totally my jam. I even have a passing interest in ancient civilizations, and will be scrambling around some Mayan Ruins in March. Main Quest: Parkour all of the things!!! Climb all of the things!!! Balance in mind-bending ways! Play with weapons! Look like someone who could compete on ANW. 2016 goals This challenge, I'm going to really focus on the parkour and what I need to do to rank up in my school system as well as working toward full instructor certification. For the short term, I need to get more pop off of my hands on my Kong vault, figure out how to do a reverse vault without putting too much torque on my knees in the landing, learn a Kash vault, improve with rail walking and balance skills until it's second nature, make my rolls and rolling bails a fully dialed in reflex reaction, and schedule the damn test. I'm letting a few skills as well as some neurotic perfectionism hold me back, and it's time to stop. Goal 1: Collect all of the parkour skills! (fitness: parkour) -Practice rail walking skills (backward walking, pivoting, going from standing to QM and back, etc.) 5 times/week. -Practice rolling 5 times/week (my rolls are fine, but I still have to think a little bit. If I react reflexively, I do a martial arts roll rather than a parkour one). -At least 10 kongs whenever I have open gym time and my body can handle it. -Bug instructors for help with the reverse and kash vaults whenever I have an opportunity. Goal 2: Keep my body in prime condition for everything. (fitness: prehab) This means stretching, foam rolling, and mobility work. I need to at least do a quickie prehab session 5 times/week, the session including shoulder stretches, calf stretches, quad stretches, and foam rolling the ITB. Goal 3: Better food preparation - (diet: cooking) Each week, do at least one crock pot or batch cooked meal. Or, alternately, try one new non-trivial recipe. I'm not overly worried about my diet this challenge, but I've found that focusing on cooking tends to result in better eating habits. The sub-goal for this is to avoid eating like an asshole. My birthday (and Lara's. We share a birthday!) falls in the middle of the challenge, and I have to remember that while it's okay to indulge that day, I shouldn't have an entire week (or more) of overindulging. Goal 4: Don't attract the bears to my camp. (life: domestic rangering) Lara has to keep a clean camp in the wilderness, so she doesn't attract predators. I need to channel this while dealing with my own home. I've had success in the past with following Flylady or doing cleaning PVPs, but I've really managed to fall off the wagon. This challenge, I'm requiring routine daily cleaning + a Flylady mission or a challenge from Unfuck your habitat each day. Bonus #1: (life: art) Make those $#@ graphics for my app. This should be easy for me, as I'm at least an okay artist. But I just need to get off of my ass and do it. Bonus #2: Participate in the Ranger mini. Bonus #3: Roll with the punches. I normally expect to get 4 big workouts per week (from 2 parkour sessions, 2 climbing sessions, and one power yoga class), as well as a lot of extra filler skill work. But, it's winter, we could have blizzards, kids or I could get sick, or anything else might happen. Anytime my plans change, just go with it and do what I can. And this leads right into the grading... Bonus #4: I'll be in Mexico in less than 2 months, so it's time to brush up on some Spanish. There are no specific point goals for this, but I need to crack open the DuoLingo and see how much I remember from high school. I'm not going to be rigid or apply letter grades, since I hate penalizing myself for illness, acts of nature, or whatever. Instead, I'm going to evaluate whether each goal has been Totally Rangered (accomplished everything I reasonably would wish and gave it my best), Rangered (mostly accomplished everything), Somewhat Rangered (I feel like I slacked a bit), or Failed (I totally half assed it or forgot about it).

EDIT: Here is my challenge plan. tinkerer continues base building Goal 1: Don't waste my week: Do something active every day I'm traveling for work and Post goals for the challenge I'm writing this slightly after the fact but my goal was to actually use the running shoes I always bring traveling and to keep up my routine despite being in a hotel for most of a week. Goal 2: Aerobic Training Run or hike at a Zone 1 Pace for the following time each week: Week 1: 2:20 or 3:15 - depending on sniffles* Week 2: 3:15 Week 3: 4:10 Week 2: 2:05 Climb a steep hill for 45 or more minutes every week. (first week optional*) This is the core of my training routine - lots of semi-easy running. The runs should be at 75% or less of my max HR and the hill climb should be at 80% or more of my max HR. The hill climb can be subbed out for a run as long as the HR range is correct. *These are optional the first week because I've come down sick after traveling. If I feel better on the weekend then I need to do these but if not I need to rest and recover. Goal 3: Strength Training Do core and max strength routine twice per week (once 1st week) This consists of once through a set of ten different core exercises and then 2-4 sets of: Pullups, Pistol Squats, Dips, and Shrimp Squats. Squats can be subbed out for hill sprints. ORIGINAL POST HERE: I'm traveling for work this week and don't have time to figure out all of the details, so here's what I have for now. I will update this with more details eventually. Do something active (run or strength training) each day while traveling. Get goals posted by the end of the week. Generally I'll be continuing the same plan as last challenge but some of the goals might be modified for fun purposes. Week 1 Day 1: 40 minute run in San Antonio. Fun! The river walk is cool.

Jericho's Pilgrimage - Assassins are Adventurers Hello everyone and welcome to my challenge. It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these but I feel more refreshed than I have in a long time and I feel really excited to dominate February. First just a quick head’s up, I’m a bard (according to the occupations?) and by that I mean I’m a writer and that’s the form my challenge posts take. I tell a story that relates to my challenge and is hopefully fun to engage in as well. So if you’re into heavy role-playing like this by all means, read my story. If, however, you don’t really care for stories and the such then I will be writing my challenge information is straight-talk like this. So just to keep things straight, Blue text will be for my story, for the role playing. Red will be for the real world. Enjoy one or the other or both as you see fit. So before jumping into it, I just wanted to give you a little bit of an overview of both the story and my challenge. The central idea is about trying to become a great assassin but by learning from all of the classes as well. This first challenge will be learning from the Adventurers since they didn’t exist last time I was on here and I feel they are my second class after Assassin. Anyway the gist of the challenge: Fitness Goals On days (M,W,F): Rock climbing Off days (T,R,Sa): Eat one fruit or vegetable Improved hygiene (brushing hair, waking up earlier etc.) Level Up Goal Write for at least 15 minutes everyday So anyway, that was the introduction to my challenge as well as the tl;dr to it. Now on to Jericho’s Pilgrimage, Chapter 1.Thank you for supporting me. Good luck with the challenge everyone. Ad victoriam.

Main goal: Climb all of the things! Parkour all of the things! Thumb my nose at gravity! Make and post videos of all of the things! My schedule is already really full, so I'm not biting off too much this challenge, fitness-wise. I already spend a lot of time doing parkour, rock climbing, and yoga. When I can manage to squeeze it in, I also like hand balancing, playing with weapons, hiking, rucking, and playground workouts. I'm also trying hard to remember that rest days are important, too. Even if I don't have so many direct fitness goals, I tend to log and talk incessantly about the parkour and climbing and other shenanigans. Because PARKOUR!!! and CLIMBING!!! Goal 1: Stick to strict rations (food goal) Between all of the holidays, the Halloween candy, football booze, and my body trying to convince me to fatten up for winter, it's really tough to avoid eating like an asshole. But, for once, I don't want to just brush off this season as a "dirty bulk". So, it's time to stick with (what is for me) strict rations. 1a. Fix that breakfast. I typically eat an apple, greek yogurt, and some sort of breakfast bar. Not only is the breakfast bar unhealthy, but I'm also usually hungry well before lunch time. So, the goal is to have 5 days/week where I avoid any sort of breakfast bar or cereal, and instead replace that by cooking eggs or some oatmeal. 1b. Continue loving the crock pot. The goal is at least 6 batch cooked meals over the course of the challenge. Having healthy food in abundance tends to encourage healthy eating. 1c. Don't overdo the booze. I'm not being as strict as last challenge, but I'm still only allowing myself 12 drinks over the 6 weeks. Also, whenever I'm in a social drinking situation and don't really want to drink, but go along with the crowd, I lose a point. I can re-gain that point by either foregoing one drink for the challenge or by making a point of passing up some social drinking. Goal 2: Jump like I'm in Martian gravity. (fitness goal) At this point in my parkour training, I really feel that my jumping ability is holding me back. I was a decent (but not great) jumper before the knee blowout, and I unfortunately still haven't managed to even regain my old abilities. One of the better ways to jump higher is to add some weight to that squat. So, twice/week, I will do some sort of squat session. It might be goblet squats. It might be assisted pistols. It might be weighted bulgarian split squats. I also need to take better care of my knee(s) if I want to continue with training hard. But, I learned last challenge that if I don't make a goal of doing my prehab work and foam rolling, I just end up not doing it. So.... Goal is twice/week squat session and 5x/ week prehab. Goal 3: Science! (Life goal) Now that the kids are in school, I have much more time to return to my scientific roots. One of my future goals is to make a bunch of science and math educational apps. I have a lot of ideas. What I lack is some of the coding knowledge. So, the goal is to completely finish my Xcode 7 and Swift course. Goal 4: Become a data nerd -> Hack my headspace. (Life goal) Most days, the kids are in school, the husband is at work, and I'm spending too much time like this And to be fair, I am very productive. I just don't always deal very well with too much alone-ness and too much unstructured time. I'm prone to anxiety. I also have bouts of being overly pissed off and some bouts of seasonal affective disorder. Anyone who has followed me for any length of time knows that I'm the antithesis of being a data nerd. Usually I just wing everything and more or less remember what's what. But for once, I want to keep better notes, so I can see a pattern. The goal for this is to track what effects any of these have when I'm having mood issues and want to re-gain control of my headspace: calming tea, playing the piano, yoga, guided meditation, taking a nature walk, and any other methods I can come up with. I'm not going to expect results this challenge. I just want to get in the habit of recognizing the signs of a bad mood, trying something, and tracking how well it works. And here is the spreadsheet. Bonus: #1 - Get back in the habit of playing the piano. At least 60 minutes/week. Hopefully, this can double with goal 4 in helping with the headspace. Bonus #2 - Be resourceful! I'm going to shamelessly steal Raptron's Catch-em-all hand balancing fest. Because I can. Bonus #3 - Actually participate in the guild mini this time. I'll probably have some strong edits for this later. The new challenge thread was already exploding, and I wanted to get in on the action right away!

The mountains constantly call to me. The quotes people post from John Muir make me long to wander the untouched ridges and meadows of the high-country. And yet, I also love the company of friends and the comfort of a good meal and the dogs laying around the house. After a few months of adventures, my mind drifts toward the projects I have left unfinished and the holidays to come. This has been a summer of dreams, I've climbed in the alpine wilderness, kayaked in canyons few have seen, and slept under the stars miles from the nearest road. But the chill in the air reminds me of the winter to come. My travels are not yet finished. I have plans to see an old friend and fish the rivers of Bozeman. Twice during this challenge, work will call me from home. It is time, though, to get to work. This challenge must provide for progress and allow for a substantial effort to be placed elsewhere. This challenge is a...challenge...to design. Time is the commodity I most lack. Each goal needs to be designed for efficiency to allow for other goals to also be achieved. I will be experimenting with my schedule, which is more flexible than I allow it to be, during this time. I've been arriving at work at 6:45 every day. There is no expectation to do this (although twice a week I have a 7:00 meeting). Three days per week I could arrive at 8:00 and nothing would be affected in a negative way. I need to permit myself this flexibility. To keep this fun, I will try to post pictures of my projects as well as my adventures throughout the challenge. Goals It may seem like there is a lot here but this is really just a checklist of how I would like to spend the next six weeks. Dedication to Projects Spend 4 weekend days and 4 weeknights working on house projects. The main focus of this work is on a bathroom remodel which has dragged on for far too long. Morning Routine Three times per week, I'll do one of the combinations below. The idea is to do something short enough to not drastically affect my sleep and yet strenuous enough to at least maintain my current level of strength. Pullups and L-Sit Dips and Hangboard Squats and Pull ups Rows and Pushups Cardio Run twice a week One of these two is either with my wife or the dog It's OK to sub biking to work for one of these but as that takes a lot more time, it is not preferred. Climbing Go rock climbing once per week. This is a great mental release and helps to keep the rest of the week a little more pleasant. Mental Finish reading Training for the New Alpinism Stats Take before and after measurements and pics for Progress/Analysis. I don't expect this challenge to change much but I want to get in the habit of doing this. Chest Arms Thighs Weight

Got a question for you guys. Can you think of anything else I can add to these different sections? Just a heads up, I am a rock climber, so I don't really want to bulk up, but at the same time, I want to do a Spartan race next year, so I need to be in shape for that. Here is the schedule I am planning on doing this challenge. Any input is welcome. Monday: Chest/Arms/Back -100 pushups -50 pullups Tuesday: -Stretch and Climb Wednesday: Core -200 bicycle points -50 situps -50 swim kicks Thursday: -Stretch and Climb Friday: Legs -150 Lunge Walks -50 Jumping squats Saturday: Rest Sunday: -Stretch and Climb I have done workouts before, but nothing this intense. Since none of these require a machine or bench (except pullups), I am free to do them throughout the day. I will go to the gym in the morning for an hour and see what I can get done then, and finish up the rest throughout the day. Thanks for the help

I'm chronically overbooked with my fitness stuff, and this challenge is going to be more about scaling back a little bit and addressing the non-glamorous, not-so-fun foundational work that I'm always neglecting. I'll still be doing 2-3 parkour classes/week, 2 or so climbing sessions/week, and filling in around that with yoga, hand balancing, swimming, hiking, playground workouts, and a little extra strength training, because that's what I always do. And I'll still log all of that, post videos, etc. in this thread, because that's also how things run around here. This challenge is also coinciding with a 10+ day vacation, as well as the start of the school year for the kids, so it's especially important for me to keep things kind of simple and unchallenge-like. Goal 1: Foundational work. Between the parkour, climbing, being 1.5 years out of major knee surgery, and being kind of middle-age-ish, I need to take better care of my body if I want it to continue functioning at optimal levels. 1a) Do a mobilityWOD video, one of GMB's unbreakable series videos, or any other similar mobility work at least 4 times/week. If I find any particularly good or useful videos, I'll be sure to post the link. 1b) Prehab - stick with 5-10 minutes of prehab work at least 5 times/week. This includes rolling my IT Band, shoulder stretches, quad stretches, soleus stretching, and some of my other leg PT stuff. 1c) Be a good leader - My husband also does the parkour and climbing, but he can never self motivate to do the stretching and mobility work. So, at least once/week, I have to nag him into joining me for a quick stretching session. Goal 2: Clear the mind. The goal is to meditate, do meditation focused yoga, or do some directed breathing for at least 5 minutes every day. I'm hoping that this improves my mental well-being quite a bit. Goal 3: Mudhole? Slimy? My home this is. Yeah, the house is chronically cluttered and messy, largely because the children are underfoot all of the time. I've had success in the past with following Flylady, so I'm going to start it again. Goal is to do all of the Flylady weekly tasks + the weekly cleaning, with substitutions if there's something in Flylady that isn't particularly relevant or useful for my house. Edit: Goal is to get maximum points in the cleaning/adulting PVP for my non-vacation days. Goal 4: Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side of the Force are they. I made a lot of progress in the last challenge with just enjoying what I'm doing without letting jealousy over people who are better than I am or general frustration get in the way of my enjoyment. I really do believe that constantly comparing myself to others, letting myself become insecure, or letting myself become so frustrated that I'm flat out angry are poisonous attitudes to have. After all, I'll always find people who are much better than I am, and I'll always have off days here and there. The goal is to just have fun with everything. Goal 5 - Let the wookie win. While I love the Assassin minis, I think they've become a little too epic for me to handle with everything else that I have going on. Last challenge, I got a little carried away, to a point where the minis were adversely affecting my parkour, climbing, and actual challenge goals. While I hate sitting out and feeling excluded from what I feel is a major part of the guild, I really either need to make the choice to do exactly that, or to establish very clear boundaries for myself as to what I'm willing to do for the mini, and then learn to stick with that. If I go that route, I need to learn not to be swayed by the feelings of letting down my team, and I need to learn to just say NO if the mini isn't going to be conducive to meeting my actual goals. The vacation grading will be: Goal 1 - Just stretch a little every day. Goal 2 - Still meditate. If that's not possible, then take a moment to catch my breath and re-center myself each day. Goal 3 - Not really relevant on vacation Goal 4 - Let's face it, people in large crowds are pretty obnoxious and rude, which in turn tends to make me angry. Since I'm going to be at the "happiest place on earth", I need to take a lesson from Elsa and just Let it Go. Goal 5 - Not really relevant.

I took an entire challenge off to interact with the real world. Things were good. Sorry I wasn't around to say encouraging things to everyone else. Things that happened: I coached a high school frisbee team. I had JV girls, and I definitely erred on the side of making it fun, not having them do a lot of conditioning, and not drilling the fundamentals as much as I should have. I expect most of them back next year though, so I'll just make them run then. [insert evil laughter here] But in all seriousness, this is something I really loved and really want to continue to do. Our rec softball team was way more successful that we expected. Went undefeated until the league finals, which is pretty darn good for a bunch of engineers who mostly specialized in other sports (or no sports). I presented my work at a conference. Got a job offer I can't take, since they need the position filled sooner than I can start. It's good to know that I'm hirable, though! Partied with everyone who's graduating, which included hiking, game nights, movies, biking, and nights out. It was a lot of fun. Also a lot of time. The sleep schedule thing has pretty much stuck, though I can't sleep in without ending up in a funk for the entire day. Note to self, don't do that. Challenge Goals: Placeholder, bam. Quest: I just want to do cool athletic things (while also having my life in order like a mature adult.) Everything is happening in September/October. There's a women's only climbing competition I want to enter and a 5k at my school that I want to actually race rather than just kinda run. Also, I just watched the leaked pilot for Supergirl and I really want to lead climb some impressive roofs in costume on Halloween, because that would be amazing. For a couple of reasons I may elaborate on later, I would really love some photo-worthy athletics. This challenge will include: Running. So... distance running has never been my jam. I can do 3 hour practices or multi-day tournaments or 15 mile backpacking days, but going for a 3 mile run is always terrible. I want to say that I just have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know how to pace myself or how it's supposed to feel, but I also don't want to downplay the very specific fitness that distance running requires and the work put into building that. There will be a lot of complaining. Running: Running type things 3x per week. Pickup games and hiking count for a maximum of two, so once a week at a mimimum, I have to run for real and figure this thing out. Score is based on number of actual runs out of 6 and number of running-type things out of 18, for a total out of 24 points. Makeups are not allowed. Rock climbing. In contrast, the current love of my athletic life. I'm having trouble sticking dynamic moves (even with a good hold) and I'm very hesitant to commit to those moves near the top of the wall, which in turn results in not sticking them. This is top of my list to work on when I gym-go solo for bouldering. There will probably also be outdoor trips or at the very least, large parties of people toproping at the gym. Hooray! Climbing: 1. Sign up for and take the gym's lead climbing class with Kris. Her suggestion. 2. Once per week, work on either lead or dynos/committing to moves near the top of the wall. Any other climbing is bonus. Score is two points for the lead class, and one point for each dedicated practice session out of a total of 8. Reading, writing, and 'rithmetic. Get. Work. Done. I have a PhD to finish. (also, "Routine" starts with an R.) I just proposed a paper deadline for the end of July. I win a million points and a gold star if I'm done with the first draft by the end of the challenge on the 19th. (This would be something like 1/4 or 1/3 of my dissertation, published in an academic journal ahead of time.) Score is pass/fail. Woo. Rules and details and grading and all that are forthcoming. I left the challenge-specific things at a manageable minimum of one per week. It's summer. I won't be a lump. Other fun things will be happening.

As always, I'll be logging all of my parkour classes, rock climbing sessions, hand balancing, yoga, swimming, and all of the stuff I normally do. But, the main focus of this challenge is actually controlling my headspace, not being too much of a perfectionist, and just taking joy in all of the fun stuff that I'm doing. 1. Be mighty like Thor and the Hulk - If I ever want to be able to do large sets of pull ups or even reach a muscle up one day, I need to give my pull ups a little more care and attention. For the most part, I've been just getting my pull exercise through climbing, parkour class, and messing around at the playground. Goal: Pull ups after every climbing session using the rock holds. A total of 3 pull up sessions/week, with a full session filling out any remaining ones after the post-climbing pulls. 2. Be agile like Black Widow: To be agile, I need to be more flexible. Goal is to do splits progression stretches (low lunge, half monkey sequence) + pancake 3x /week. 3. Take aim like Hawkeye Goal: archer stretches and shoulder dislocates 3x/week to keep my shoulders nice and healthy. 4. Be industrious like Iron Man I waste too much time on my phone. This will only get worse when the kids are out of school and underfoot all day. I don't want myself or the kids to be lazy lumps. So, the goal is to spend more time reading, drawing, playing the piano, practicing German, cooking, cleaning, or other productive tasks rather than being lazy. If possible, I need to turn these into family activities. 5. Be virtuous like Captain America. The Cap wants me to watch my language. Goal is to do 20 burpees as punishment (or if my leg isn't up to it, do V-ups) every time I use a "naughty word" in front of my kids. Since I hate burpees, this will hopefully encourage me to clean up the language a bit. 6. Defeat Quicksilver To defeat Quicksilver, I need to be fast. To be fast, I need my knee and leg to function properly once again (had ACL reconstruction 16 months ago. Still dealing with IT Band syndrome by throwing myself into too much parkour too soon). Goal is to do my leg prehab routine (hip opener stretches, calf stretches, quad stretch, IT band rolling) every day and my PT strengthening stuff (lateral band walks, one leg squats, clams) 3x/week. 7. Defeat the Scarlet Witch I've really been struggling with controlling my headspace lately, and at times, my anxiety has been out of control. To keep myself better balanced emotionally, I'm going to aim for these two rules: a. No office visits with Dr. Google. If I'm that concerned about something, I need to see an actual doctor rather than make myself paranoid after symptom searching on the internet. b. If I'm in a bad place mentally, I need to do one of my headspace balancing activities, like: yoga, walking outdoors, mindless household chores, or comfort reading, rather than sitting around, brooding, and making it all worse. 8. Defeat Ultron - In Ultron's view, if humanity can't be perfect, it should be destroyed. I often fall into the same trap of expecting too much perfection from myself and becoming too negative as a result. Rather than being down on myself because I couldn't execute whatever move in parkour class or couldn't send whatever route when climbing, I want to just stop comparing myself to others, stop letting myself get overly frustrated, and instead just take joy in what I'm doing. It doesn't need to be perfect. Instead, I just need to be having fun. Whew. 8 goals sounds like a lot, but basically I just need to do 5 minutes of PT every day, have a session 3x/week where I do splits stretches, shoulder stretches, and PT strength, do more pull ups, stop swearing, and adjust my thought process a bit. So really it's not so much. I don't have a set schedule, but generally it'll be: -parkour class and/or parent& child aerial silks - 2x/week (will probably be 2 hours of parkour one day and silks another day) -climbing + swimming 2-3x/week. In the summer, we like climbing for an hour, followed by swimming for an hour. -home yoga when I feel like it. I'm also going to be on a 1 week vacation right in the middle of the challenge. I haven't yet decided how I'm going to handle that with my goals.

Hi, I'm Nymeria, and I generally suffer from do-too-much-itis. I've been rock climbing for a few years, I do a lot of yoga hand balancing and animal flow stuff, I still fool around a lot with martial arts and martial arts weapons (I'm kind of an ex practitioner. It's complicated), and I recently started taking parkour classes twice/week. This has also led to a struggle not to keep my body healthy, functioning, and keep my life in balance. For this challenge, I'm going to turn to one of my favorite anime characters and a fellow hot-headed, nerdy, often physically busted, do-too-much-er, Edward Elric, for some inspiration. This time, my physical schedule is pretty set, with climbing/bouldering twice/week, parkour classes twice/week, and hot vinyasa yoga once/week. (Realistically, I'll make it to 4/5 of these on average, just because between kids, life obligations, and such, that's how it seems to work). I also expect to do some playground workouts, hiking trips, and other things like that. For this challenge, all of the physical goals will be accessories to help me get stronger and prevent me from falling apart. Goal 1. Proper maintenance (fitness) My shoulders are constantly tight from the climbing and yoga. My surgically repaired knee is also starting to become irritated by the jumpings and landings in parkour (ACL reconstruction in Jan 2014 - I didn't rehab things with the expectation of this much high impact work). If I don't want my leg and arms to get busted, the way Ed's auto mail often is, I need to focus on some prehab and ROM work. So... a.) Get cozy with the foam roller and stretches: 5x/week - roll out ITB, calves, and quads. Roll out shoulder blade area. Do shoulder dislocates. Do the following yoga stretches: Extended puppy (shoulders), cross legged forward fold (ITB), hands clasping behind the back pose, reclined cow face pose (ITB-gluteus). b.) Build better foundations for jumping: whenever my muscles permit, do weighted squats, deep squats, more jumps, and calf raises. Revisit some of the physical therapy knee exercises that I haven't touched in the last 6 months. Goal 2 - Decrease the numbers (diet) Edward Elric: "Water, 35 litres. Carbon, 20kg. Ammonia, 4 litres. Lime, 1.5kg. Phosperus, 800g. Salt, 250 g. Niter, 100g. Sulphur, 80g. Fluorine, 7.5g. Iron, 5g. Silicon 3g. And fifteen other elements. Those are the elements to make an average adult human body." This goal is simple.. I want to decrease my numbers, meaning lose a little weight. Realistically, I only could lose 5-ish lbs, but those 5 lbs can mean a lot when you're hanging on to rock holds by your fingertips or trying to jump even higher. I loathe actively cutting and tracking my diet, so I'm going to keep things small and simple. Goal is Only 3 drinks bearing any liquid calories at all per week. Otherwise, all other drinking is to just be water. I train a lot and I have a lot of muscle, so I really do need to eat. The juice/alcohol/soda stuff is purely empty calories and is the easiest to trim from the diet. Goal 3 - Become less lopsided (fitness) Like Edward, I feel pretty lopsided. In part it's due to the messed up knee. Some of it is simple right-handedness. Some of it is muscle imbalances. Still, the result is that in parkour, I have preferred sides for every vault or wall technique. In yoga, I have a lot of hand balances that I can only perform well on one side (like 8 angle, flying lizard, side crow extensions). I also have a lot of standing balances that have a strong side and a weak side. Yes, I know that's normal. Still, in parkour, the side I use is somewhat dictated by the nature of the obstacle, and I really need to be proficient at both sides. For the yoga stuff, I just enjoy the warm fuzzy glow of doing things well, so I tend to do my strong side first and more often than my weak one. For this challenge, I am changing my mindset and making sure I give my weak side more attention than my strong one. Goal is to have 90% of my exercise sessions address my weak side at least equally as much as my strong side. Goal 4 - Hit the books (life) I used to read all of the time. But then I became addicted to my phone and waste my time rather than doing productive things like reading or learning. It's time for this to change. a.) Read at least 15 minutes/day. Aim for also reading at night before going to bed. b.) Continue with my DuoLingo German studies. I'm currently at 2300 XP, so the goal is to reach 3800 by the end of the challenge. 5. Daily Reflection (life) Last challenge, I had a goal of coming up with something positive or something for which I am grateful every day. While that was rewarding, I'm broadening things, such that this challenge, I just need to spend a few minutes meditating and reflecting on the day. I may or may not post the reflections depending on how relevant I think they are. I will edit later with more specific grading criteria. Let's do this!

Well hello there, Are you ready for another 6 weeks of fun? Good, me too. So there is some scheduling fun going on for me this challenge, the last 2 weeks of this challenge I will be on travel for work and out of 6 weekends I will only be home for half of them, with one of those 3 weekends hosting house guests. So weekends might be quiet around here. I'm ready to pounce on this challenge, and adjust as needed with the hectic schedule Last challenge I went for the make, do, learn approach. I really liked it so I will be using that template again Quest 1: Make a Mile Counting Lock box I have been looking for an electronics project to do, and I was thinking I need to get out and walk/run more how could I put those together? Well here is my answer! I plan on designing and building a raspberry pi or arduino powered lock box that syncs up with my mile log, so every 5 miles or something it will open and something awesome will be inside (maybe a plant that needs to be watered, or some other kind of reward). What will be inside is still up in the air, the building part is what I am focusing on this challenge Quest 2: Do, Run / Walk 3x a week I gotta get up and moving more, when I get home if we don't go climbing, I don't do much. Now with the help of you all I will have motivation! Longer term goal - I want to make it to Rivendell by October, progress will be displayed in my signature Quest 3: Learn, Guitar So we have Rocksmith, I should just play it. Lets say 3x a week for 30 minutes. Because who doesn't want to learn guitar (probably a few people)? The only exception is when I am gone for work the last 2 weeks of the challenge. In that time I will read a book, possibly about guitars. Life Quest: Be Social, Don't Lurk I am keeping this quest in from last challenge, I had some great support last challenge hopefully I can provide that to others this time So this challenge I am aiming to post 5 times a week to any threads that are not my own. That is why we are here right? To support and encourage each other, and post gifs Feel free to stop in and say hi . You will possibly hear about climbing activities and board games and maybe plants, plants are growing now

These are my fingers after rock climbing today. Blood blisters from slipping off of a tiny, sharp hold. Typing isn't really fun at the moment. I'll be out of town for the weekend (hopefully) so I want to get this posted this week. I'm at a bit of a tricky spot where my fitness goals are really to put my training to work. I want to continue working out but I'm really more excited for some activities instead of more workouts. I've been really enjoying tracking things over that last few months and look forward to more of that. The attribute points aren't really doing much for me so I am going to table that idea for a while. Goal Number One - Putting the winter training to work. I really want to get out this spring and go rock climbing, hiking, kayaking, camping and/or mountaineering. This will be points based: Rock climbing will be based on completed pitches Top Rope Climb - 1 point Lead Sport Climb - 2 points Follow Trad Climb - 2 points Lead Trad Climb - 3 points Hiking is 1 point per mile Kayaking is 2 points per hour Camping is 5 points per night, 10 points for backpacking nights Mountaineering is 5 points for every 1000 feet climbed (either/or with hiking but not both) This will be graded on total points amassed. I'm not sure if this is ambitious or easy at this point. Points can always be adjusted to make it harder but I don't plan to adjust them down. Grading: 120 points - A, 80 points - B, 60 points - C, 40 points - D, <40 points - F Goal Number 2 - Do PT Every Day I tore my hamstring in January (which is why there is no running goal). It was mending but has slowed down. I'm just getting started with PT. I really want to get better so this is a priority. More so than any other strength training (which I have to remind myself). Grading: 90% - A, 85% - B, 80% - C, <80% - F Goal Number 3 - Zero Alcohol Pretty much what it says, no alcohol at all. If anyone wants to know more about this I'm happy to elaborate but here are the top three reasons I'm making this choice: decreased risk of causing trouble in life, decreased empty calories, grand experiment. Sips are OK to determine if someone is in fact drinking the best beer they have ever tasted. More than a sample sip is a fail. Grading: <1 drink - Pass, 1+ drinks - F Goal Number 4 - Core Workouts I want to keep this goal from last time. For both fitness and appearance reasons, I'd like to develop my core muscles. I'll do this workout twice per week for a total of 12 workouts with one "miss" allowed. I'll take progress pics to see how effective this is. As an added twist to last time, each week I must increase the difficulty of one or more of the base workout components. Initial Core Workout 1 min plank 1 min right side plank 1 min plank 1 min left side plank 1 min plank 3x15 second L-Sit on Rings 3x10 Crow Pushups Knee to Same Elbow 3x10 Crow Pushups Knee to Opposite Elbow 3x15 Pushups Grading: 11 Workouts - A, 9 Workouts - B, 7 Workouts - C, <7 - F Goal Number 5 - House Projects There are a lot of projects which need to be completed. My goal is to check four of these off of the list. New projects can be added to the list as long as they are necessary and of equal size. Install dishwasher Caulk/spackle window trim Paint gym Kitchen floor Kitchen/bathroom shelves framing Bathroom demo Kitchen/fridge wiring Gym/storage wiring Grading: 4+ projects - A, 3 projects - B, <3 projects - F

Lol so many cool people have already joined the teams!! Woot!! Ok so my name is Brianne. I have signed up for Nerd fitness 2 or 3 times, but always found excuses to get out. NO MORE!!! My Main Quest is to lose 15 pounds. I have a wedding coming up (May 9th)!! I kept pretending like I was going to be fine, but I have decided I want to look WAY good in that dress, and I want to be able to go on more adventures with my future husband To do this, my goals are to 1-work out 4 days a wekk for at least 1 hr. 2- Eat at least 2 real meals a day (no more Cadbury eggs for lunch. Even scrambled, they do not count as real food.) and 3- By the end of these 6 weeks I don't want to be drinking ANY soda. I love rock climbing. It's the only form of exercise I don't cringe at, although that may be because I'm too out of shape to do other things. Lol. I want to join the Assassins after the Recruit challenge, so I'm going to be spending a lot of time at the climbing gym, and doing yoga to limber up. I'm kind of a wuss when it comes to trying new things, but I want to ramp that up. Any ideas of fun (and cheap...) forms of exercise, I'd love to hear them!! I'm super stoked for this challenge Let's kick some butt!!

For this challenge, I'm going to focus on fully living in the present, rather than dwelling on the past ("before my knee blowout, I could do whatever thing but now I can't") or punting things toward the future ("It would be really nice if I could do...") without taking the steps right now to have any realistic hope of achieving that. As always, I will be doing and logging my usual rock climbing/bouldering, playground parkour, yoga, hand balancing, weapons, hooping, etc. 1. (Fitness)Respect the progressions: There are several yoga moves I'd love to do, but I'm not quite flexible enough. There are also several parkour moves I'd love to be able to do, but I'm not strong or flexible enough. So, rather than just giving up and doing nothing at all to get there (which has kind of been what I've done over the last many challenges), I'll instead dial things backward and work through some easier progressions until I have a solid enough foundation for the full move. The moves I'd love to focus on are: (yoga) Firefly pose- currently need to improve flexibility to get my shoulders under my legs. I can either balance a few seconds with my legs really bent, or I pick up and fall right back onto my rear. So, I'm going to focus on the deep squat with my shoulders under my legs to improve the mobility. I'll also just try to get better about holding with my legs bent. There's no point yet in trying to pick up all of the way and getting frustrated with my repeated failures. (yoga) - wheel to standing or wheel kick over - My backbend/wheel is okay, but in order to stand from it or kick my legs up and over, I need my hands and feet to be closer together. So, I'm going to focus on pushing my torso closer over my shoulders and walking my feet in toward my hands. (parkour) Kong vault - I can't confidently even do a ground kong without having my knees flare out such that they're outside of my arms. I'm also horribly paranoid about clipping my legs, especially since my knee still isn't quite 100%. I'm going to work on good form ground kongs, the kong jump-ups, and just jumping over low-ish obstacles. (parkour) rail balance - While it's still cold, I have parallettes I can step upon. When it's warmer, there are plenty of playgrounds with rails. Rather than getting fancy and trying to move around a lot or do QM, I really just need to practice standing around or walking very slowly. I may come up with a few more things to add to the list. I'm not going to grade based on practicing a certain number of times/week. Instead, it's going to be whether I feel like I'm putting in the honest effort to follow the progressions, rather than giving up or hiding from the skills in question, and whether at the end of the challenge I'm seeing some progress. 2. (Fitness) Tons of Handstands: I've always wanted to have a solid handstand, but I've been stuck at 3-5 seconds freestanding for a long time and have never really put in the effort to improve with that. After some personal training with this, I learned that my shoulders aren't engaged properly when I do handstands. I've instead been doing lazy, loose handstands. Now that I've started practicing really pressing upward, engaging my shoulders, and keeping my core very tight, I feel like I have so much more control. I want to ride this success and finally make some progress with the handstands. Goal is to do 100 handstands/week, but to count, all of the handstands need to have solid form. 3. (Life) Positivity and Gratitude: I truly believe that being positive and grateful is a habit and mindset. Each day of the challenge, I must come up with and post something for which I'm grateful, something that made me happy, or something generally positive. Goal: 42 daily postings. 4. (Life) Learn a new language -For years, my husband and I have been saying that it would be nice if I could speak German, so we could have our own adult "secret language" that the kids can't understand. And for years, I've done nothing on that front. I recently downloaded Duolingo. My goal is to add 250 XP to my total each week. I'm at 659 right now, so assuming I'm around 700 at the start of the challenge, that means I should aim for 2200 XP by the end. Extras: There's no way to grade these, but they're just things I'd love to work on and be reminded of frequently through my challenge. (Fitness) Form comes first: I have a few yoga moves in which my form (shoulder alignment) is off. I also am guilty of taking some shortcuts, or squeezing out a few extra reps even after my form is starting to fall apart. I've spent the last year assuming that everything would eventually work its way out, but realistically, I'm just perfecting bad form. This goal is more about shelving the ego and dealing with not managing as many reps or as much hold time, or having to step back in some of my progressions. (Life) Control the clutter: No one in my house (including myself) puts things back where they belong after using something. So, we're always fighting clutter. Rather than just setting things down out of place and assuming I can put it away later, I'd rather stop generating the clutter in the first place. (Life) Get over it: I'm one of those people who gets upset or over-analyzes things long past the point where I should just accept that things are over and done. So, I want to reach a point where if I'm foolishly getting worked up about something, I can take steps to calm down (whether it's doing some cardio kickboxing, weapons, yoga, meditation, taking a walk, playing piano), and then learning to just let it go.

Overall Objective: Short version: Survive engineering PhD with health and sanity intact. Previous Challenge Recap: Last challenge, I decided that I wanted to be less of a zombie, which involved sleeping at night and working during the day on a somewhat regular and human schedule. I would say this was pretty successful. (Tangentially, if I was furniture, I'd be a coat tree or a wheel-y office chair.) This is basically the same challenge as last time, but I'm actually going to keep score this time. Hooray. Attribute points are still too much effort though, so I'll just have a challenge GPA? Also, hi assassins! Main Quest: Sleep 1. Sleep from 11pm to 7am. Sleep is great. Do I even need to explain this one? Except: Game week. I'm in charge of strategy for an online game I play. It's a prior commitment, there are 19 other people involved, and I'm retiring at the end of my current term. I'll probably just poof off of NF for a week and then jump right back in afterwards. Grading: A, 90% of days 11 to 7. B, 90% of days 11 to 7 or 12 to 8. C, less than 90%. 2. Work between 8 am and 6 pm. Regular work times contribute greatly to "sane human being" status. (Homework for my one class outside of that time is allowed.) Except: I'm coaching a high school team starting at the end of March, which takes up my 2:30 - 5:30 block of time on weekdays. After this starts, pick a standardized time for an extra 2 hours of work. This may be outside of the 8 - 6 window but it must be consistent. Grading: A, 90% of the days. B, 80% of the days. C, 70% of the days. 3. You snooze you lose, trial version: For the first week, (I don't want to be stuck with this if I decide I hate it), no snoozing the alarm on weekdays. Grading: A, All days. B, 4 days. C: 3 days. Side Quest: Rock Climbing 4. Climb a 5.10 (sport climbing difficulty rating). I started taking climbing semi-seriously in December. Prior, I was just fooling around in the off season of my old sport. I went to the gym a few months ago with an old friend and she said I should be climbing 5.10 soon, and my response was "lol, yeah right, that'd be actually good at climbing." But I am actually so close to this, omg. Grading: A, Sent a 5.10! Aw yess. B, Single fall or break. C, Multiple falls or breaks. Notes to self: May edit, screen curfew? rewards? GIFs?!?