Not Scared of Needles!

On October 8th, I received a challenge from one Kelly "the Beaver Wrangler", proposing a fitness challenge.

The subject line read: Yo!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's the challenge:

1.        26 day fitness challenge.   30 days in November (less November 22-25 for Thanksgiving).  I’m not counting this because I know I will eat and drink too much.

 

2.        Need to average 2 lbs. week  for the month in weight loss.

3.        Waste size reduction in month of one inch.

4.        Increase barbell curl by 8 lbs. (one set of 10 at max. weight).

5.        50 sit-ups (or crunches) in 90 seconds by end of month.

6.        30 push-ups in 60 seconds by end of month.

7.        Ride trainer an average of 12 miles per hour for one hour (4 times per week).

Food restrictions:

1.        No cupcakes (right from your blog).

2.        Limit bread to 6 servings per week (pizza, sandwiches, etc.)

NOTE:  no restrictions on beer or I can’t do this at all, okay?

Intriguing, I thought, but at the time I wasn't able to think as far ahead as November.  

Now, November has arrived: 

Start date is near.   Been riding indoors alot and lifting weights a fair amount.   Not sure I’m going to be real good at the weight loss portion of our challenge but will try to hold true to my effort.  Hope things are going well for you, say hey to the Bill-meister!!!!*

Beaver Wrangler + Bill Meister

*Bill-meister = The Tiger.

Now, being that November is only days away, I am able to entertain November thoughts.  

My first thought was that some of these challenge elements are new to me: barbell curls?  

But, my second thought was, "heck, sounds like fun."  

At some point, I asked Kelly what we were challenging for and he said, "glory."  That and the beer makes me love him so.

So, here is my challenge, gentle reader: 30 days of bar bell curls and push-ups and crunches, and laying off the cupcakes (I should probably just make it all cake...).  

Riding the trainer can be fun with a enough "entertainment" (Steven, look over here: wink, wink).   

And, who doesn't want to do more crunches and push ups?  Though, this morning we did 50-40-30-20-10 rep sets of push ups, shoulder presses, bicep curls, tricep kick backs, squats, sit ups and step ups, and, boy, 50 push ups in a row is a lot!  

So, here's a random collection of thoughts.

1. It's on: readers, who wants to join me?  Anyone?   

2. My plan is to BX Monday, Wednesday and possibly Friday, then spin Tuesday, Thursday mornings, maybe add spin Monday and Wednesday afternoons, or yoga on Wednesday evenings.  Tuesday is the last Renegade Cyclocross practice, but I am still supposed to do the Survivor Cross (mayday, mayday!), so workout should be good.  (Of course, after Slacktober anything would be good.)

3. Need to see what my 10-rep max is for bicep curls actually is so I can see if I can raise it by 8 pounds.  Too bad that as I sit here writing this I am wearing my Rosie the Riveter costume because I could have used some post-November guns.  Should probably see how long it takes me to do 30 push ups and 50 crunches.  

Kelly, I know you read this, can we post our pre-November stats for curls, pushups, crunches, etc.?

4. Like Kelly, I am not sure how the weight loss is going to go, but I have yet to tell you all about my new eating-scheme.  

5.  The Des Moines Register is stupid, and they finally proved it.  

So, that's what I'll be doing in November.  What about y'all?