Mad Elf Challenge!

It's December - Winter is Coming - AND it's time for a new challenge.

The MMT staffers realize that lots of folks (to include us) will spend part of their time this month being "Santa's Helpers" (aka elves) in preparation for the holiday festivities. There's lots to be done: decorating, cooking, baking, shopping, honoring religious traditions, dealing with the company office party.

It's important to take care of our own health during the craziness of the holidays - hence the Mad Elf Challenge. The rules are going to be crazy easy because no one needs more stress. The goal is simply to do something healthy in the middle of all the chaos to help maintain sanity. And, since everyone knows that there's a whole bunch of elves needed to make Santa's Workshop function - let's collectively  get Santa across the finish line.

So - two levels of goals here - individual and collective. The INDIVIDUAL challenge is to collect enough "lights" to decorate your own Mad Elf Tree. A going standard is 100 lights per foot of tree; the MMT Mad Elf Tree shall be 5 feet tall - hence, you need 500 "lights" to light up your individual tree. The MMT TEAM Challenge is to get enough "lights" to light up the National Christmas Tree. Different places list different numbers of lights, typically in the 25,000-50,000 range. Let's split the difference and call it 37,500 lights for the MMT TEAM goal.

The fine print...

When: the Challenge runs from 01 Dec to Festivus (23 Dec). Why Festivus - well, wrapping this up on the 23d means the MMT staffers can have a "peaceful" Christmas without checking in to keep tabs on things! Plus, Festivus just sounds like an event you'd want the Mad Elves to crash.

What: Post your "lights" to the tracking spreadsheet (link at right). Let us know if you want "in" and we'll set up a tab for you and the spreadsheet will do the math for you. You'll just have to go in and log your lights on your tab. You can add notes if you like.

Why: It's the holiday season; exercising reduces stress; everyone likes a challenge; why not. Oh, and to sweeten the deal -- if we achieve the MMT Mad Elf Challenge -- MMT will make a donation of 1 cent per "light" to either the Toys for Tots program or the American Red Cross. We'll take a poll later (and yes, we're willing to consider other charities that do good for folks struggling).

Lights: You light a light by doing an exercise. This is the holiday season and you've got enough stress, so the rules will be absurdly easy. 1 minute of cardio is 1 light. 1 rep of an exercise is 1 light. 5 second of a "hold" type exercise (like a plank) is 1 point. That's it - that's all. For the record, a "rep" should be a right-left pair (so if you're doing fire hydrants, you don't get to count 10 right + 10 left as 20 -- it's 10 pairs so 10 lights...) Oh yeah, 12 ounce curls don't count. Other than that -- be a good Mad Elf and count the legitimate stuff. No, you don't have to get all your "lights" in the same setting. You can walk in the morning, do something at lunch, do lunges while watching tv and you get to count all your "lights."

Example: A 20 minute walk with the dog, plus a 30 second plank, plus 10 push-ups  = 20+6+10 = 36 lights you can log.

How hard is this going to be: Individually, to hit 500 lights, you need to do 22 "lights" per day for the 23 days of the challenge or 44 "lights" every other day. That's pretty darn reasonable. The TEAM goal is going to be a bit harder - and yes, that's intentional.

So, yeah - get yourself some sanity - light up your tree - and let's get to the TEAM goal so that a charity gets a boost.

Too easy! We got this. Be a MAD ELF!