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!