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So after meeting a few nerds IRL and not having a daily battle log, then finishing my six week challenge that I loved getting feedback on I've decided to create a battle log. I'm opening up with a long term goal: the Providence, RI marathon on May 1st (Link). It'll be my first marathon. I ran into a little trouble with my half marathon (Wicked half Marathon in Salem, MA) in October, but I said that if I ran it under one and a half hours I'd do a full marathon in the spring. I managed 1:25 even though I was walking/limping for about a mile. This tells me two things. One, holy crap I'm way faster over distance than I thought. Two, I've done something(s) horribly, stupidly wrong. My leg cramped up and my knee didn't feel right for weeks after. It would feel fine walking, but would hurt after I ran for about a mile of running or hitting a hill. I started running too soon after the half marathon (about a week) and lifting too soon (less than a week). I obviously out-paced myself (I was late getting there and couldn't help trying to "make up" time even though I was running my own timer). And I kind of, sort of, didn't warm up that well. Or possibly at all. Depending entirely on your definition. So, to try and avoid injury and to try and maintain a good pace I am if anything over-planning. Being an accountant my natural response to virtually all stimuli is to make a spreadsheet. So I did (link). One tab with my mileage (I track Km from working on 10 and 5k goals), and one tab with my lifting regiment. I've altered 2 things from my half marathon plan: I've stretched the mileage buildup more slowly (18 weeks) and I'm tapering a little more. I start training on the 28th so if anyone has suggestions, notes, criticism, encouragement, knitting patterns, tips, tricks, or knows a good bar in Providence near the race. If anyone's coming: I'm not registering until after Xmas, so we can team up. Also, I don't own a car so I'll pay for gas for a ride. There are those I suspect of coming.

--REBOOTED CHALLENGE-- UPDATE PAGE 5 --ORIGINAL CHALLENGE (LEAN AND STRONG 2.1)-- Alright, my warm-up challenge for the year is done and now I'm ready to get serious. I did reasonably okay with the previous challenge, and I made a little progress toward one of my objectives for 2018; but a mid-challenge skid kept me from losing much in the way of body fat and waist size. For the sake of reminder, my 2018 objectives are the following: Wear size 30W jeans; Weigh less than 200 lbs; and Be able to do 18 consecutive strict pull-ups in a single set. I'm having to rebuild all of the muscles in my pull-ups chain since abandoning them late in 2015 for rote barbells over the last couple years. It's pretty sad how weak they've gotten. So to continue making myself Lean and Strong to get those pull-ups I'm going to crush this challenge with my usual four goals. 1. Wake. Good days start on time, so I'm going to persist in pushing myself to get up at the appropriate hour. A pass requires me to get out of bed after no more than one snooze press and get moving before 6:45 am. If I oversleep (or snooze too much) but still make it to work on time then that's worth a 1/2 point. 2. Eat. I'm going to continue tracking my daily food intake and macro splits via MFP, but I'm abandoning the 5:2 schedule of fasting that I attempted (and bailed) in the last challenge. Instead I'll just manage my daily intake in a sustainable way that keeps me fueled up without any hints of a starve-binge pattern (to which I've been susceptible in the past). Target for this challenge is 2100 kcal per day, which should help me burn at a rate of around 1.5 lb. per week. I'm going to keep an eye on macros just to make sure I'm getting plenty of good fats and not overdoing it with sugars. Good carbs will be planned for recovery meals after workouts, which leads me to... 3. Move. I'll continue to work on the Recommended Routine from /r/bodyweightfitness on Reddit, including the barbell variation for Squat work that will allow me to lift lower body fairly heavy twice per week. The rest of the work is bodyweight strength with increasingly difficult progressions. I've got a solid foundation with the program to build on now, so that will be my Tue & Fri gym days. On Mon & Thu I'll walk for 1/2 an hour, either outdoors or on the treadmill at home; and Wed will be a mid-week rest day. Weekends are off, at least insofar as a suburban dad is allowed to rest on a typical weekend. 4. Sleep. In bed on work nights by 10:30 pm with lights out and ready for proper sleep. Full point requires all devices to be turned off--no ebook, tablet, phone, laptop, PC, or TV is permitted to break the darkness after 10:30. I'm going to continue trying to read The Once and Future King by T.H. White--I barely got two chapters last time. I'm also going to keep doing 1/2 hour of practice at Rocket League since I'm seeing the benefit in my playing, but I'm only going to allow myself to turn on the PS4 if I've already satisfied my Move goal for the day. The usual spreadsheets are fabricated and ready to go for tracking my progress. Standard weekly check-ins will consist of scale weight, belt notch reports, and progress photos. The fancy shorts may make an appearance if I feel my performance has been up to snuff. I'm not taking a Week Zero this time around. I allowed a big variance day for Super Bowl, and now I'm right back in the groove. Time to make the doughnuts. I'll leave the chimichangas for Wolfpool.

Some Assembly Required Challenge Number 6: still plenty of work left to do on the Year o' Fitness. Through the first five I've taken great strides toward transforming my old squishy body into something strong, resilient, and capable. Along with physical fitness I've also been developing daily life habits to improve my mental and spiritual well-being. I haven't been perfectly successful at all of my goals, but the continued effort is really taking root and helping me become the Ranger I want to be. Now it's time to put it all together. Fitness Quest Goal 1: Thor's Mindset I'm making it a priority to stay in touch with my God by reading His book and spending time in prayer for the first 15 minutes of each day. This challenge I'll read through the gospel of John. 42 possible points. Goal 2: Hulk's Strength Lift heavy things—get stronger. Run—get faster. In this challenge I'm continuing with my barbell program, but I'm incorporating HIIT sprints to my week so I can build speed and endurance for continued improvement on the soccer field. Rest days are planned again, too, so the only off-days are Sundays, when I'll actually be playing soccer. 36 possible points, with up to 6 extra credit available for exercise on off-days. Goal 3: Ironman's Intellect Make a plan, execute the plan. Mostly this involves planning and tracking my food. I'm calculating my intake for a programmed deficit of 1/2 pound per week. As usual I'll lean pretty firmly toward Primal eating, and I'll organize my macros around my activity levels (i.e., higher carbs on lifting days). I'm not interested in losing weight (other than off-week bloat), but I'm still in cut mode to keep burning the last bits of body fat. 42 possible points. Goal 4: Captain America's Virtue Bedtime discipline continues to be needed. The plan spreadsheet will track bedtime, which is to say I'm under the covers with all lights and devices off at the scheduled clock time. 42 possible points. Measurements I'll track everything as I have before with one exception: I'm not getting on the scale again until the end of the challenge. For the sake of my spreadsheets I'll use weekly estimates during the challenge and then replace them with interpolations at the end. Here's the start table, and as you can see my scale weight took a serious leap in the off-week. Life Quest – Lead, Love, Protect As I get more comfortable and habitual with my physical fitness I want to start leveling-up other areas of my life. This time around I'm going to place emphasis on my Dad skills. To improve my fatherly attributes, I'm programming the following three sub-quests: SQ1: Lead – we're a pretty traditional family, so Dad is the head of the household. In this role I vastly prefer to operate more as a team captain than as a king. Still, I'm responsible for providing this team with direction and purpose, and I'm on the hook for making sure we function together as a family. The Minions are old enough now that I think we can start doing a weekly family meeting to discuss issues in the household and work together to sustain and improve our family dynamic. Goal is to meet on Fridays at 7 pm for no more than 45 minutes, which also includes a family board or card game. 6 possible points. SQ2: Love – It's been said that the best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. MrsFeelgood and I have no family within 1,000 miles of where we live, and all of our local friends are also large homeschooling families with young kids. It's been difficult for us to find babysitters; in the last ten years we've probably gone on a date-night less than 20 times. In this challenge I'm going to try and find a more reliable sitter so we can have at least two date nights. 1 point for finding a sitter and 2 points for actually getting out of the house on two occasions. SQ3: Protect – there's less here to work on since protecting my family physically and financially has always been foremost in my life. Sometimes I've been a little too cavalier with their emotions, though, and I think that's a prime area to focus my attention for this sub-quest. To help me understand them better, I'm making it a goal to read a parenting book during the challenge and see if there are practical recommendations for improving my interaction with the kids when they're being difficult. 1 point available for this one. _________________________ I was deliberately undisciplined in the off-week, and I've grown quite squishy for it. It will feel good to get back in the swing of my fitness routine. And away we go...

A BIT OF BACK STORY My name is Wolverine (a.k.a. Dillpedo a.k.a. Dillon). I am an Assassin. I took a hiatus from NF due to health issues (uncontrollable migraines). I am back now (two thumbs up for medication that works). CHALLENGE INTRO Two big goings on as of late: (1) I'm in the final stages of back injury recovery (bulging disc) and my doc just gave me the green light to start working out again, and (2) the wife and I just bought a house (escrow closes on Friday). Long story short = stress eating, not working out, and large amounts of not giving a damn have been had by all (but especially me). MAIN QUEST An awesomely vague "get beach ready" for a trip to Mexico in February. Since we're now in debt up to our eyeballs... it may be the last vacation we have for awhile and I'd like to NOT look like a beached whale while we're there. What does "beach ready" look like? I'm thinking Jason Statham, but I'll settle for me minus some jiggly bits. GOALS Awesomely not vague, but S.M.A.R.T. goals are as follows: Track Some Stuff Daily tracking of macros, calories, and bodyweight. Weekly progress photos. Eat a Bit Less Stuff Average 2,000 calories per day for the first week. Adjust as needed in following weeks to maintain slow, consistent weight loss. Do Some Stuff I've got two itty bitty calisthenics routines I do every 30 minutes at work (keeps the back from seizing up). I'm gonna continue with those routines five times per week (every workday) until we're settled into the new house. At that point I'll start up "real" workouts again.SIDE QUEST Knock something off the house to-do list every day. Doesn't have to be big, just has to be something. MOTIVATION Confidence. There's a certain feeling I get when I'm "in the groove" and I feel like I've lost that recently. Too much life controlling me and not enough me controlling life.

This is an inter-challenge mini. It is intended to amuse you and help pass the long, lonely, challengeless week, so it's 100% optional and you don't lose or win points for doing it or not. It will last from 8/9/14 to 15/9/14. That's right, Americans, we're going to keep going to the ninth of fifteentember. Dodgeball is different from previous challenges because I haven't come up with a challenge activity - you have to challenge each other. The Game in a Nutshell Sign up Here, ideally trying to keep a balance of players on each teamEach person on each team gets to "throw balls at" (issue challenges to) members of the other team. Each person throws 3 balls - a fitness one, a lifestyle one and a wildcard one. Each person will (hopefully) have three thrown back at them.Fitness and lifestyle goals are loosely based in that person's goals from the last 6 weeks. Wildcard can be anything at all (but should be achievable or where's the fun?) The balls can be all at the same person or 3 different peeps, and for added element of surprise, they can be thrown at any point in the week.To "dodge" the ball, the person has to do the thing they were challenged to do within 1 day of it being thrown. Number of balls thrown at you minus number of balls dodged = your scoreHighest scoring team wins. I'll put some examples below so you can see how it works. The Game out of its Nutshell How to sign up Go here. Write your name at the bottom of a team list like this... The format and headings should appear by magic... How to Throw a Ball You only have three balls to throw so use them wisely, Pick a victim and decide what challenge you're going to issue. Write the challenge next to their name. For example, on Monday, I decide to lob my lifestyle ball at Captain Pseudonymus. One of his goals in the last challenge was to brush twice a day so I have decided to challenge him to take the next step. He has 24 hours to do what I suggest or it's a point to my team. On Thursday I decide to wang a second ball at ImagiMary. I decide to use the Wildcard ball this time, so I challenge her to do something that is nothing to do with their goals but is just a bit of fun. How to Dodge a Ball On Friday, someone fiend throws a ball at me. Damn, I hadn't expected to have to do some work myself, but now I've been challenged and if I'm to dodge the ball I have to do the thing within 24 hours. Luckily, I am a god among men and I never, ever fail to achieve any goal, so the following day I can mark the goal as completed on time and the opposing team is cheated of their points. Huzzah! Scoring The formulae in the sheet will work out which team has the highest hit rate.

To achieve Level 8, I will be continuing working towards a more balanced self. I have some loose ends to tie up before I holiday in Amsterdam with my SO and BFF and a crowd of other dolly people. My Amsterdam trip will happen during the last 2 weeks of this challenge. My main quest is to fit comfortably into size 14 trousers by losing body fat. To move towards this achievement, I have set the following quests for this challenge: 1. Handstands! STR+1 DEX+2 As a much younger hooman, summer lunchtimes were spent out on the fields doing cartwheels and handstands. Now I have all but overcome my shoulder injury, the time has come to revisit those carefree days. Using Chris Salvato's method as a guide, I will spend 5 minutes per day on handstand practice (continued from previous challenge). A = 28+ days of handstand practice B = 25-27 days C = 22-24 days F = 21 days or fewer of handstand practice. 2. New Moves! STR+1 DEX+2 WIS+2 After being introduced to kettlebells last round by the Rangers mini-challenge, I found I enjoy learning new things and incorporating them into my circuits. So using sources such as Girls Gone Strong and Lift Weights Faster, I plan to learn new exercises I can put into practice. A = 15 new moves or more B = 12-14 new moves C = 9-11 new moves F = 8 new moves or fewer 3. Spreadsheets! WIS+3 CON+1 My employers have provided me with an advanced course in Excel, all paid for, but I need to find a few hours a week to learn it, practice it and take an exam. I want to take the exam before August. A = Learned, practiced and exam date agreed B = Still practicing but nearly there C = Still learning; will sit exam but not sure if I will pass F = Nowhere near ready, have to defer the exam 4. Floor! CON+2 CHA+1 Now my wardrobe is tidy, I want to make use of the mirrored doors and the space in front of the doors. I need to make a space on my floor for my exercise mat to fit. In order to see that bit of floor, I need to put things away and keep them away. A = Plenty of space for my mat B = Mat fits but clutter is creeping back C = Mat just fits but I trashed everywhere else F = No space for a mat to fit