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Hi! I'm Amber and I hail from the Warriors. I'm doing a fairly quiet challenge because holy cats there are a few items on my to do list between now and the end of the month/year. Meditate 5 minutes/day. I've mostly kept up my habit from last round, and I'm increasing from 2 minutes to 5 minutes. Baby steps, people. Journal on non-work days (i.e. days away from my desk, because Lord knows I tend to work more on my 'off' days than any other day) . I journal and meditate when I hit my desk every morning. But there’s a lot of days this month that I won't be at work and I tend to forget to journal without that cue. My plan is to do at breakfast whilst at home. Post more than just once/week. Maybe if it’s a goal, it’ll actually happen. I had good intentions to interact more with my fellow nerds last round and wound up scoring a goose egg. Womp womp. Balance. This is a bit nebulous, but basically I want to spend a little more time working on balance. This will be in the form of one legged/split legged yoga poses for the most part, even just spending some time hanging out in Warrior variations to have a little less wobble in my weeble. Goal Current level Finish 3 books-- Musashi (75% complete), The Art of Lifting, The Science of Lifting. The latter 2 I bought on sale and haven't even peeked to see if there are any pictures. That's all for now!

Truth be told, challenges don't motivate me. Being told what to do, even by myself, makes me want to dig by heels in and not do it. Then, not having done the challenge, I don't want to post. So this is the un-challenge. I'll post what I did with an overly-large dose of off-topic stuff. I'm a firm believer that past performance predicts future performance and in reversion to the mean. Here's what I've been working on for the past year or so. Old Man Back I've had chronic back pain for several years, sometimes quit severe. The last year I've consistently done morning yoga and, while I still wake up in pain, it dissolves quickly and it no longer impedes my life. I'll likely continue with daily yoga, but I've been thinking of doing Flexible Steel (KB-based mobility program) instead. Slothbelly I have IBS and a couple other concurrent gut issues. After years of stubbornly trying to figure it out myself, I went to the doctor. Eating simply (meat, veg, fruit, rice, low fat, no coffee, no wheat, no dairy) keeps the gut demons at bay. However, it's not as satisfying as a package of pizza rolls. I've been overeating in an attempt to satisfy myself. I've put on 10# 4.5kg since school started. I'll likely continue trying to figure out how to eat like some sort of uncivilized nerf herder. Old Guys Who Get Fat in Winter Racing Team I love racing. It's my favorite. Cross Country mountain biking is my jam. I'd love to do cyclocross again, but I can't figure out how to fit it in. I'd like to do some OCRs, but there isn't much before or after mountain bike season. I could be talked into a trail run if the event had a cool T-shirt. I don't have any races scheduled in the near future. Next year I've penciled in a 25 mile, two 40 mile, and two 70 mile mountain bike races and, of course, the spring and fall Hammer Races. I'll likely ride my bike some, hopefully outside, but there'll probably be some trainer time too. Pulling the tire is great for building aerobic base and putting muscular endurance into the hill climbing muscles. I might do that too. General Physical Preparedness This makes me a sturdier racer and makes just about every aspect of my life better. It has taken a back seat to taking care of my back. In the past I've used kettlebells, shovelglove, or sandbags to take care of this. The biggest stumbling block is bad time management habits in the early mornings. I'm hoping to get back to it. If none of this comes to pass I'll post up whatever I actually do. This is a lot longer than I thought it would be. Maybe I should have saved a step and resurrected my battle log.

Here I go, trying yet again to organize my life despite my affinity for chaos. So many goals, so many challenges ahead, and yet so much accomplished in 2016 that I'm confident and optimisitic. 2016 was a year of improvements for me: I lost around 50 lbs, give or take 10 or so depending on my bloat level. I got a new job that I don't hate with a passion (used to regularly tempt myself with the idea of hopping into traffic on the way to work, not to kill myself but because an injury would mean at least a day off). I began dressing like an adult- no more hoody and jeans for this guy, as I type this, I'm wearing corderoys, a collared shirt, shawl necked cardigan, and a dress shirt with a Star Wars tie (gotta rep the nerd in me). 2017 is going to continue the trend or kill me as I try. I've got multiple long term goals and a few short termers laid out. Long-ish Term Goal: Run a half Marathon by September- Diet/ Fitness Goal # 1- Do Couch 2 5k/Zombies Run 3 times a week without exception- If I can maintain that pace, I should finish the C25K by March and be able to meet my goal of September. This should assist me in... Long-ish Term Goal: Hit 185ish lbs by April- (Vacation time) Diet/ Fitness Goal #2- Maintain keto 6 days a week- I've had really good luck doing the CKD... kinda. My wife doesn't do it with me so its a difficult lifestyle situation. However, I was able to lose quite a bit of weight with a 5 day a week program. If I can maintain 6 days a week, I should reach my long term goal, exepecially with... Diet/ Fitness Goal # 3- Resistance training 3 times a week- I'm getting a sleeve tattoo done this Saturday so, while I naturally have okay definition, I really need to start trying to build some muscle (I don't want to be showing off my new tat on a spaghetti noodle), expecially with the running and keto diet. Life Goal: Quit Smoking This is already underway. As we speak, I'm jittery and longing to take a nice long drag on that sweet cancer-causing, lung-destroying, burning roll tobacco. It's especially difficult because I don't dislike smoking, I actually enjoy the act itself, I'm just very aware of all the negatives. So I'm 2 days in now, it wasn't really a resolution but I promised my wife I would quit with the new year so now I'm stuck. Also, this should go a long way to helping me with me with my fitness goals. Will Jayfive succeed in his quests? Will his love for lying about smoking cigarettes while eating carby foods and playing video games on the couch overcome his deep desire for self improvement? Will he be able to maintain his discipline? Will he get caught by the zombies? WIll his tattoo look good? Find out on our next episode- same nerd time, same nerd channel.

[Under Construction]

So umm.....hi. Let me explain....no, is too much. Let me sum up: I'm just coming out of the worst year of my life, complete with mental breakdown and taking a medical leave of absence from work, almost getting divorced, and all that good stuff. I've taken a LONG break from NF, for lots of reasons, but I miss my nerds TERRIBLY and I've decided it's time to come back. Plus, I'm trying something different this time. I've spent most of my adult life feeling like a failure, a fuckup, a worthless piece of sludge. I suffer from depression and ADHD, and so things that are simple for others are nearly impossible for me. While I don't necessarily compare myself to other people, I have in my mind this Ideal Person, and the kind of things this person does. I have wasted so much time comparing myself to this Person, falling short, and beating myself up for it. I've decided that it ends, NOW. I've decided to be the best Mir I can be, and that means embracing all the awesome things that make me Mir, while acknowledging my weaknesses but not hating myself for them. I'm not sure exactly how things work around here these days, and also I only decided yesterday to make a challenge, so here are my thoughts thus far: Main Quest: Love Thyself How am I going to accomplish this? I, errr....don't really know. What I've come up with so far is to ask myself two questions: Does this make my life easier? / What will make my life easier? Does this make me happier? / What will make me happier? The non easy/happy things are going out the window. I'm going to look at my life differently. I'm going to look at my SELF differently. I am simply not wired to be the Super Organizer that for some reason I've felt I should be. Instead, I'm wired to be fun, crazy, wild, creative, zany, loud, outgoing, etc etc etc. It's time to embrace me. It's time to be authentically Mir. Other things I'd like to accomplish, but I haven't decided the order/priority in which they fall (and certainly some of them are more than 4 week goals): start doing PT againgo back to gymmake good food choices/cook yummy food at hometake care of myself while at work (this includes things like actually taking a lunch, bringing food to eat instead of drinking coffee and eating candy all day, getting up from my desk once in a while, etc)get Etsy shop off the groundstart doing home improvement stuff again (painting, ugh)

It's another unambitious one I'm afraid, for reasons I'll get to later. In this challenge I will be... 1 Running Along Girders 1 long run and 2 short runs per week, looking again at technique and increasing speed 2 Leaping Over Barrels At least 1 heavy squat/jump session per week 3 Climbing Ladders Keep working on "plups" - one test and general bodyweight/resistance work towards the elusive goal 4. Impressing Pixelated Babes at the Top of Towers ...and how else would I do that but by wowing them with my knowledge of the language of Camões, Saramago and Pessoa? So then - another two chapters of L+D then. It worked well for me last time And I'll be doing some other stuff too, but I will just keep the goals simple with these. Now, why have I chosen an arcade game from the golder age of Dragon 32 as my theme? Well, because you can pause a video game and I will be pausing on May 8th because I have an operation scheduled which will mean (Oh, I don;t want to think about this) that I can;t run for 6 weeks or row for 8, so I will have to pause my quest then and pick it up where I left off in the next challenge. I'll make myself a mini-challenge I can do while I'm out of action. Here's Donkey Kong for those of you too young to remember. Now get off my lawn!