100 days, 100 minutes, 100 pages

What the heck does this mean? In an effort to better my mind and body at the beginning of both this new year of 2011 and the final year of my 20s (ack!), I am challenging myself to do 100 minutes of physical activity and 100 pages of reading EVERY DAY for 100 days, in a row. No breaks, no cheating, no negotiating, and no getting around it regardless of what else is going on in my life. Starting Saturday, January 8th and ending Sunday, April 17th, for these 100 days, I will put myself first and do things that I love in order strengthen my mind, body and spirit and maybe have a little fun in the process too.

Rules and Regulations

100 Days

Saturday, January 8th through Sunday, April 17th. Every day, no matter what I am working on, where I am traveling to, or whatever else is going on in my life. Full disclosure: I am one week away from being unemployed and therefore will have quite a bit of free time on my hands. The current project I am working on wraps this week and my last day is Wednesday, January 12th.  I will only have 3 days of squeezing in the 100 minutes & pages on either side my 10-12 hour work days.

100 Minutes

1 hour and 40 minutes of physical activity every day...every, single, day. When I was in peak shape back in the ol' glory days of high school, our volleyball and basketball practices were 1.5 to 2 hours everyday, so 100 minutes shouldn't be THAT hard, right? This does not mean I will be pumping iron for over an hour or sprinting for close to two hours every single day. I would quit after day 2, if I even got that far!  My definition of physical activity includes but is not limited to the following: running, walking my parents' dogs, golfing with my dad (yes Dad, I will finally fulfill this promise), biking, swimming, yoga, Pilates, stretching, lifting weights, doing yard work, helping my grandfather with house repairs, kayaking, etc. My definition is anything that gets me moving and up off the couch or away from a desk (no, shopping does not count). However, to make sure I don't totally slack off and start counting the minutes it takes to walk from the couch to the refrigerator as "physical activity," I will be training for a half marathon and a short triathlon during these 100 days. I have successfully trained for both a half marathon and a triathlon before, but not simultaneously. To celebrate the completion of my 100 day challenge, I will run the Zooma Austin Half Marathon on Saturday, April 16th and participate in the short and sweet Rookie Triathlon on Sunday, April 17th (300 meter swim, 11.2 mile bike, and 2 mile run).

100 Pages

I was an English major at Colorado College, a small liberal arts school that prides itself on something called "the block plan." On this block plan, students take only one class at a time for an intensive 3.5 week long course, focusing all their time, energy and studies into a single class on a single subject, thereby cramming the contents of an entire semester into their brains in under a month. (Most of these contents are then lost during the "block breaks" between classes, but that is for another post.) As an English major, reading at least 100 pages a night was standard, so this does not feel too daunting. Especially since this time I won't have to be prepared to intelligently discuss and/or write papers about my readings, I can just write a rambling blog that no one grades instead! These 100 pages must be from books I currently own or borrow, as the collection of unread books on my shelf is embarrassingly large. (However, I do have a $50 gift card to my favorite local book store, Book People, that I might allow myself to use since it isn't really my money.) I currently own a wide range of unread books including non-fiction on topics like nutrition, career changes and personal finance to fiction works by everyone from Toni Morrison to Tom Wolfe. What 100 pages does not include is magazines, comic books, picture books, cook books or anything else that contains more advertisements, photos or drawings than actual words. Oh, and the 100 pages do not have to be from a single book, I can read 40 pages in one book and 60 pages in another so long as I read a total of 100 pages per day. 

The Blog

This blog is NOT an exercise training guide nor a book review site. I will post what I do each day pertaining to the 100 minutes and 100 pages, any thoughts or topics that inspire me as a result, and any complications that arise from attempting to take so much time each day for myself.

My intention for this blog is to keep me accountable to complete the 100 day challenge, knowing that I might have a friend or family member or two checking in on it from time to time. Also, I enjoy writing and do not often write anything more than the occasional long-winded email to friends. I have toyed with the idea of starting a blog for some time now. It only took me 3 years to come up with an idea and challenge that I am willing to share with the world, or all three of you reading this.

Please forgive my misspellings (ironically, I always misspell the word "misspell"), miss-use of words, creation of new words, gratuitous grammatical errors, incorrect size/color/type of font, and lack design, pizazz, photos or any real content for that matter. I am new to the "blogging" world and haven't quite mastered anything involving this "HTML" or "flash" or "blog design" that people are talking about.  I will do my best to proofread and edit my posts in between reading and not sitting on the couch, but there will still be too many commas, parentheses, dashes, run-on sentences, wordy paragraphs and long-winded ramblings that may or may not make sense. Just because I was an English major don't mean I can right real good! Don't say you haven't been warned but please keep coming back, someone has got to keep help me complete this crazy challenge! Let the countdown begin...