Happy New Year all you Mere Mortals

It is time to find your mojo and start the new year with our new Mortal Man challenge!

1 January is your lucky day! And not just because you get to take on an awesome fun challenge to start the new year. Your MMT Staff are feeling in a festive and generous mood, so we're running a "SPECIAL" for New Years Day - and New Years Day only! If you get a good work out session in on 1 January, then you may add an ADDITIONAL workout to your day's total. In other words, if you can get out for a good brisk 20 minute run/walk or whatever exercise session you prefer, instead of counting as "1 session" you get to count it as 2 total sessions!!! This is your bonus incentive to get off to a good start.

If you get out for more than one session on New Years Day, then you still add only one session to your total. For example, we plan on cycling, running, and playing tennis. Instead of taking credit for 3 sessions, we'll take credit for 4!

Good luck to all of you!

The MMT Staff

"Du" the Resolution!

Mortal Man Tri 2 - Du the Resolution!

The Mortal Man Tri 2 (MMT2) Challenge starts on 1 January 2012. This is a dual challenge (hence the “du”) and you must accomplish both to convey upon yourself the highly coveted title of “Mortal Man” (kind of like “Ironman”):

1. Log a minimum of 17 hours of training/exercise in the month of January. Why 17? That is the time limit of an iron distance triathlon (and it is a prime number!). Sounds like a long time but since we are mere mortals after all, we'll spread the pain over the course of the entire month.

2. Log at least 31 workouts (also a prime number - yay!). One per day, if you prefer, or you can take rest days and double-up on other days. Totally do-able, but we’re betting that as mere mortals, daily (or near daily) exercise could prove to be as challenging as logging 17 total hours of exercise in a month. Combine the two challenges and you get a daily workout of roughly 33 minutes per day. Too easy, right?

What’s behind the insanity? If you'll let us get a little "coachy" on you, duration (or volume) and frequency are two of the most important fundamentals of an exercise program (a third is exercise "intensity" - but we’re leaving that part to you). Accumulated time matters in exercise. You can only build endurance, muscle tone, and general fitness by putting in the time. There are no short-cuts to the finish line or to achieving your fitness goals (we know, we’ve been searching for those short-cuts for a while!). You will also gain more with frequent (almost daily) exercise. By including exercise into a daily/weekly routine, then after a month you will be on a roll with new habits that will lead to a fitter, healthier, happier mere mortal. Most folks give up on their New Year’s exercise resolutions after just 2 or 3 weeks. Together we can defy the odds and encourage each other to stick it out for a month! And then who knows what we can accomplish…perhaps a triathlon? Maybe even an ironman?! Sorry, got carried away.

MMT2 also takes into account the fact that it's the “off-season” (and a cold winter for at least some of us) and we should be having fun doing a variety of cross-training. The "Du the Resolution" steals blatantly from the "Play60" initiative of Michelle Obama and the NFL, which tries to enhance our kids health by enticing them to play (a not-so-new and sneaky form of exercise) for 60 minutes every day. MMT2 is more modest than Play60, but you may find it challenging nonetheless. Our goal is to build sustainable fitness while not beating up your body (no one wants to be injured or burned out).

Please review the rules under the “Rules” tab. The Tri for Mere Mortals management did not want to make them too complicated, but felt that we needed some guidelines in order to keep us all honest. Since we are after all mere mortals, we know that there is a natural slacker in all of us that needs rules and a push in the right direction!

Good luck and don’t give up! Please stay in touch with us through this blog or the Facebook page. You CAN do this, and we’ll be happy to offer our snarky encouragement along the way!

Happy New Year to all of our mere mortal teammates!

- The Tri for Mere Mortals Staff

It's Back! MMT2 - Du The Resolution

Check your email!

Tracking spreadsheet will be updated soon for the New Year and the new challenge.

Get fired up!

We're glad you gave it a tri!

Congratulations to all of the finishers of the first ever Mortal Man Triathlon! 19 of our 30 registered participants met the challenge of completing the distances of an ironman triathlon within one month, and crossed our virtual finish line! We had folks in their teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s participating in this event. Finishers ranged in age from 13 to 65; awesome!!!

Together we covered a combined distance of 5405.37 miles; that's over one fifth of the way around the earth, or, enough mileage to swim, bike, run from anywhere in the U.S. to Kona, Hawaii and still have enough left to complete the Ironman World Championships several times! This was not an easy fitness challenge, so kudos to all of you who had the gumption to give this a shot. Your body and mind will reap the benefit of your efforts...and who knows what finish lines it will lead to in the future.

If there is enough support we may do another Mortal Man in the not-too-distant future. Thanks to all for your mutual support and encouragement, and good luck in your future events. In the meantime, keep swimming, biking, running and smiling!

Triing our best,
The race administrators.

The T-Shirts Are Here!

Hope you earned one! (and signed up...)

The youngest competitor (and finisher) models...

Last Day - 31 Aug

Last day to achieve your Mortal Man status!

Good luck and thanks for all the fish.

10 Days Remain - Week 4 Challenge

Only 10 days to go! Lots of mileage racked up so far (we're well past our NY to Norway goal) and lots more miles out there calling our names. Thanks to everyone who's participating and logging miles - you're all very inspiring.

Since there are only 10 days left in the month - there are only 10 days left to achieve your Mortal Man Tri goals. If you're over, awesome - keep it up! If you're under, there's still time to train smart and safe and get to the finish line!

The Week 4 challenge is forward looking...since you're all close to putting the wraps on the Mortal Man...leave a comment with your next event (walk, run, tri, swim, bowling league, bike commute, etc.).

Last Call - T-Shirts

Deadline extended to 6pm (eastern) on 20 August (Sat).

Yay. Thanks to the folks who have already signed up.

Keep training! We're getting to crunch time!

Heading into Week 3! and T-Shirts!

Some important news:

* Week 2's weekly challenge winner is Brandie! Congrats on communing with nature while training!

* Week 3's challenge: if you have done a tri, provide a good piece of advice for a newbie (something you wish you'd known before your first tri). If you have NOT done a tri, ask a question that you've been wondering about (and really, if you're wondering, so is someone else...).

* Almost halfway to the end of the month - lots of great training going on. By Sunday evening, ya'll had trained for over 2500 miles - roughly the distance to drive from Boston to Salt Lake City. If we can get to 3700 miles, we'll have travelled the distance to our farthest competitor who's all the way over in Oslo, Norway. Cool.

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* T-shirts. Yes. Here's the skinny: we have a design that we're putting the final touches on. The general concept is that it will be a Champion Performance Tee (translates: slicky fabric / technical fabric / not your standard cotton undershirt). Cost: less than $20 each - I won't know the actual cost until I place the order, but in no case will it be more than $20.

* Go here: http://www.customink.com/signup/6wpd2k2 and sign up. There's a sizing chart on the webpage. Note that the design might change slightly, but that's the concept.

* Sign up by Thursday, 18 August. That'll allow me to order them in time to get them in and send them out over Labor Day weekend. I'll need to get mailing addresses, but will deal with that later.

Week 1 Recap and Week 2 Weekly Challenge

Awesome first week. Collectively, the 30 folks tracking their progress on the spreadsheet logged well over 1300 miles. To put it in perspective, that's about the same as the driving distance from Washington DC to Dallas TX! Poly moly! Ya'll swam/biked/ran a long way!

For our Week 1 Challenge, Linda H won! Her recipe for a recovery drink is yummy and hits all the bases: protein, classic flavors (pb and banana), and COLD!

Our Week 2 Challenge: wildlife spotting! Leave a comment with the craziest critter you see while training. Animals, birds, insects, gym rats, pool sharks, etc. Only criteria is that you have to post the name of the critter (and if you're using a human animal - give him/her a nickname). Have fun with it. And yes, you can comment multiple entries if you see multiple cool critters.

Keep up the great training and don't forget - it's swim, bike, run, SMILE!

Run Portion

Day 1 for the Mortal Man Tri Challenge.....3 miles w/Kady....Yay :>))))))

Mojo poster #1!

Game On! (and weekly challenge #1)

Woo Hoo! It's August and the Mortal Man Tri is going strong!

Weekly Challenge #1 (this one is the edible variety):

Post a comment with your favorite recovery beverage. You can only use items found in your house or that you typically have in your house.

Tracker Spreadsheet News

Woo hoo! More folks, more time zones! Add California time to the list (Pacific Coast Time?).

Two days to go!

This is also posted on the Tracker Instructions tab, but in case you don't check there:

***UPDATE: If you don't see your name on the bottom tabs...it's because we've got a great turnout and the list of folks exceeds the visible space! Yay! At the bottom right is a couple of left and right arrows, plus a little box with lines. If you try hard enough, you can imagine this box with lines as a box with all the tabs listed like a to-do list. If you click on the box, it'll open up a menu with the tabs listed vertically. This might help you find your name and tab faster.***

Wow! Just Wow!

Ok, MortalManTri-ers...here're the stats with just over a week to go.

We have folks from PA, FL, OH, VA, NC, and Norway. Yeah...Norway.

At least 12 folks have signed up...and we've got folks in their 20s, 30s, 50s, and 60s taking the challenge.

Ya'll impress me.

There's still time to join the fun!

We're now a Facebook Event!

Bear posted us on Facebook to lots of great feedback and a couple of sign-ups! Yay!

Sign-ups are still ongoing...we're at 8 and counting! You know you want a challenge....

Two Weeks to go!

Get fired up! Mortal Man Tri goes live in just two weeks! Yay!

There's still time to sign-up.

Mortal Man Tri has a home!

Here's the concept: complete an iron distance triathlon over the course of a month (August). Some places host this and call it "LazyMan"... in our version of the universe, there is nothing lazy about getting off the couch and swimming, biking, and running 140.6 miles. So, we're going to call our version the MortalMan.

Some disclaimers: we are not professionals, this is not sanctioned, you accept all risk and responsibility for participating. By sending us a note/comment saying, "I want to play!" -- you are saying that you have made the decision that you are capable of being physically active and that you realize that while funky trinkets are cool and motivational, they are not an excuse to do damage to your body (specific parts or in general).

With that out of the way...send us an email or post a comment saying, "I want to play!" and you're in. We'll post a link to the tracking spreadsheet. We're going to be posting some rules and the instructions for how to update the tracker.

The distances average out to less than 150 yards of swimming, about 3.6 miles of biking, and 0.85 miles of running per day since August has 31 days! Of course, we encourage you to structure your workouts so that you have rest days.

There will be weekly bonus challenges as well. They are unrelated to completing your distances (we won't add more miles to the challenge).

We're working on a graphic and some t-shirts. Stay tuned for more info! The challenge starts 01 August and ends 31 August. If you drag your feet and don't send the email until 10 August...the challenge still ends 31 August and totals the same distances!