Hong Kong (1/6): 5^3

I wanted to let you guys know about my next personal challenge. 

In my other blog I had asked for suggestions on what I should do for this challenge.  I received a lot of good suggestions (many of which I may still do later on) but this is the one I decided to do next.  It's basically a combination of suggestions, along with some of my own ideas.

Again, the main idea here is just to take action.  Using that momentum from the NaNoWriMo and the 25for25 to keep myself going in a positive direction.  It's less about results and goals, and more about just doing something, without over analyzing it.

So, what is 5^3 (five cubed)?  Continuing on with my previous exercise-related challenge I'm going to start "upping the ante".  This time around I'm doing five different exercises, five times a week, for five weeks, each with a different goal associated with it.

5 exercises x 5 days/week x 5 weeks = 5x5x5 = 5^3

I have lots of details about why I chose each exercise, how I'm approaching it's execution and all that other good stuff, but I won't bore you folks with the details.  However, I will let you know the exercises and my goals for each one:

1. Pushups: complete 100 in a row without stopping

2. Situps: complete 100 in a row without stopping

3. Run:participate in a 10K race and complete it in 1 hour

4. Kicks:Do front stretch kick 100 times non-stop for each leg

5. Wall Sits:Hold for 10 minutes

Now, if you're familiar with any of these activities you'll know what a challenge this is.  But at the same time, I think it's possible to reach these goals.  I did a lot of thinking about this to make sure that the goals were very do-able, but also very challenging.

This is the first challenge for 2008.  I am going to have it run from January 7 to February 10.  Originally I was going to run the 10K portion of the Standard Chartered Marathon, but they filled up, so I might just go run my own 10K out in New Territories or something.

In any case, that's the gyst of things.  Yesterday I went to the gym to see what my starting totals were for each activity.  Here are the results of that:

1. Pushups: 20

2. Situps: 21

3. Run: 1.44K / 6:00

4. Kicks: 20L / 18R

5. Wall Sits: 2:30

Some of the numbers were higher than I expected, and some were lower, but that's okay.  It gives me a good idea of where I'm starting from.  It should be an interesting five weeks ...

I will post up updates as things progress ...

• Mark