who doesn't like a good challenge?

You can take the personal trainer out of the gym or training studio but that doesn’t ever stop them from being a trainer. That’s my story. By choice, I don’t personal train for a living anymore. Do I regret that decision? Not at all. That doesn’t mean I’m doing what I love for a living now, but it is what it is and if I can personal train on the side, as I please and keep my skills sharp, then I’m a happy camper. I love helping others reach their goals and enjoy sharing my training secrets and discoveries.  

As a personal trainer, you learn to keep things fresh and exciting. My creativity was at an all time high when I was in that field full time and every now and then, something will spark the flames. Before I go into explaining the December Challenge, I thought a little history was in order. For those not in the know, I have a bit of a mean streak competitive personality. This competitive beast inside likes to come out and play every once in a while, which usually involves making up crazy fun monthly challenges amongst myself and the 3 usual suspects, Karen, Summer, and Beth. Past challenges have been to swim 5 days in a row and the distance had to be no less than 1 mile.  Another one I came up with was to ride the bike, on the trainer standing for 30 minutes straight. I hadn’t made any recent challenges because of all the races we had on tap recently. I figured the training volume we had on our plates was challenging enough, so I let them girls off easy.

Fast forward to last Thursday, or was it Wednesday? I was tagged by Jennifer on Facebook asking something about a monthly challenge she remembered seeing. She was kind enough to gently throw her training partner JC under the bus because “he needed a challenge” but she happily added that she would also take part in whatever challenge I proposed. She's a good sport!

Now that you know how my mind works, I quickly started jotting down different ideas for a challenge. It occurred to me that December was only 2 days away and what better month to start a challenge, right? After all it’s the most stressful wonderful time of the year, with lots of parties, lots of sweets, high calorie beverages, and in general,  too much of everything we probably don’t need anymore of anyway. My other thought was, wouldn’t it make more sense to start getting into a healthy habit this month versus when the rest of the world starts on January 1^st? 

And this my friends is how the 1 mile a day challenge all came about. I was actually taken aback to see such a welcoming response to the challenge when I first posted in on Facebook. What I thought might be just a handful of us doing it, turned into a much larger number and I think that is so awesome and I'm proud of every single one of you for participating, even people I've never met! As insignificant as running or walking a mile might seem to some, it really does take some discipline to do every day for the entire month. The challenge isn't the mileage for some of us but rather the consistency part. A good example of this is me sleeping in this morning. I was allowed to because it's a "rest" day on my training schedule. What this means is,  I have to make sure I get that mile in when I get home, sigh. No big deal you say? Can I let you in on a little secret? I hate running after work. I'm not the late day runner type at all. BUT, a challenge is a challenge and I NEVER BACK DOWN, so be sure I will be running later, even if only 1 mile. (side note day 3 complete - 1 mile done!) 

I'd like to leave you with this awesome workout video: 

If a walrus can workout, anyone can! By the way, check out the flawless form that this behemoth has while doing crunches.  Impressive to say the least, so take a lesson. Now stop, drop and give me 20!

Much love and peace out!