Preparing for adventure ...

[QuirkyDM]

Ahhh. First impressions. Do I revise a message twenty times to come up with something witty? Pour out my life story over 39 chapters of mind numbing detail? Just write down some crap to just get it out there?

 

I think I'll go with door #3, Monty. Otherwise, I'll be typing this thing for the next week. It took me 6 tries to get this much typed out.

 

I grew up a scrawny, brainy elven wizard. After university, I multi classed to monk and it took pretty well. But being a wizard is what kept paying the bills. For the last 7 years, I've been teaching karate at my dojo once a week, but that's about it.

 

Being an elf, you never feel like you're in bad shape. When you have others who are close to you that are fighting weight issues and having trouble staying active, you can look in the mirror and think you're in pretty good shape. It's easy to fool yourself that way. But I've now come to realize there's a huge difference between "not in bad shape" and "good shape."

 

I've always loved adventure. I play video games, read comics and watch movies. I've played RPGs since I was 9 years old. (and still play) It's even why I started taking karate. (because it always looked so cool when everyone else did it) In February, I signed up for a Spartan Sprint because that sounded like a fun adventure. It excited and terrified me at the same time. I read the Spartan free ebook. I got inspired by their stories, their attitude. I trained. Hard. I was already doing a circuit class once a week, but I added a lot more running and bodyweight exercises. I figured I might lose a few pounds of fat and that would be that. Before I knew it, I lost 20 pounds of excess weight I didn't even realize I had. I was already an elf, but elves can be out of shape just like everyone else. It shows differently, but it's still there.

 

So now I think of getting fit as getting ready to be an adventurer. Nerd Fitness is like wrapping up getting fit and being an adventurer all in one shot- it's perfect. Even with what would be considered boring and mundane exercises like weight training, I see as the foundation for getting ready for bigger challenges. I've got a list of fitness accomplishments that I always thought would be great to do someday and then eventually became a list of "probably never going to happen". I look at my list today and say "I need to do that. I'm doing that. I'm preparing for adventure."