Quest for Greatness

Once again my friend Christie is motivating me to stay in shape and set goals. She is advertising this challenge as the Quest for Greatness. The good thing about this challenge is that it doesn't just focus on weight loss. We are to set a goal and reach that goal by February of 2009. As an added bonus to reaching our goal, we should have shed a few pounds in the process. In summary: this is a challenge with a twist and we get to get working towards our initial goal of losing weight, tricky I know!!!

Here are the rules created by Christie. And of course she has been working on collecting prizes! How could you turn that down?

Rule #1: there are no rules. Or at least, you make your own. So the rest of the non-rules are as follows:

Rule #2: Pick an athletic event somewhere around the end of February, beginning of March to train for. It would be better if it were an actual organized event, something you have to sign up and pay for because that is how you will be the most accountable. (Most 5ks are about 15 bucks, the half-marathon I'm running is $50). But you can, if you want, pick an athletic goal that you have always wanted to achieve on your own. Like, walking for two hours straight or running a mile or 5, or doing 100 pushups, anything, and set a date for it. But it is a little more helpful to join an organized event because there is no backing out. Like I always say, "I can be the fat girl running the race or the fit girl running the race -- it's up to me."

Rule #3: So, if it's an event that you find, go online and pay for it. No turning back. There you go. Now, you're in. You're official. Do it right now. I'll wait. Seriously. I'm not joking. Go on...And this is where I may be losing you because you're thinking, umm, I'm not really a runner/biker/hiker-type-a-gal. And to that I say just do me this one little eensy favor. Go out to http://www.google.com/ right now. Just click that link real quick. Then google things like your town and the word "5k February 2009" or your town and "March 2009 events" or something like this, and just indulge me and see what comes up. For instance, I just googled "St. Louis 5k March 2009" and got a handful of results right off the bat. And since these events are usually fundraisers for good causes, you're doing some good too. But after you see what's going on in your town, don't think about it. Pretend you're drunk and you're about to get a tattoo. Just do it. Get your credit card and sign up for it. Then, come back here to this very post and comment with your EVENT DATE. And it will go up on the little calendar on my sidebar for all to see!And by the way, I'd also like to mention: YOU CAN PULL OFF ONE OF THESE EVENTS AT ANY FITNESS LEVEL!!!! I have seen women and men, kids, (even dogs!) of all shapes, sizes and ages (I was running alongside an 80-something-year-old man for a while during the 10k and yep! He beat me to the finish...) I saw women doing this in pairs with team-shirts on, I saw breast-cancer survivors, an overweight father and son team, literally, every single person had their own personal quest and/or cause. They walked, they ran, they walk-ran, I am not kidding, every single fitness level was running the 10k. I hope that inspires you to know that you can achieve any goal you set in your mind. You can make your own quest.

Rule #4: Once that is done, we will weigh in on Fridays. We talk about our workouts and our downfalls and victories. But we will focus on getting in our runs and workouts for our event, NOT because we want to lose weight, but because we want to be in shape for whatever our event is. It's like studying for a test. We want to be prepared. You study for a test, you pass the test, you pass the whole class. Here, you work at the event, you conquer the event, you conquer weight loss. TRUST ME ON THIS: THE WEIGHT WILL JUST COME OFF!

Rule #5: See that little calendar on my sidebar? Your event will go in there. So that we will all know and we will all root you on. Anytime someone adds themselves to the Quest for Greatness, I will add their event to the calendar. They will also be added to my sidebar. And I will post about your upcoming race as it gets close so that everyone can root you on! It takes a village, people! No, not the Village People! The village, comma, people.

Rule #6: You post about your event either the day of or the day after, with pictures. Yes, we need pictures!

My original plan was to run the half marathon in May with a few co-workers but as you know that is not longer an option for me. I thought about doing a google search like Christie recommended but instead I am going to just come up with my own goal and then work like mad to reach it! I have decided that since running is not an option at this point, I would like my goal to be: Getting my elliptical workouts up to an hour three days a week.

Currently, I can get on the elliptical three days a week for 30 minutes. So I thought this was a reasonable goal. Let the Quest for Greatness begin!!!