Social Workout

Feats

Every Journey Begins With A Single Step And A Google Search

Remember Ed Stafford, the guy who completed his walk along the entire length of the Amazon last month? He's got a few more things to say about his adventure. First, everything is doable if you break it down into small pieces:

Invariably when people say that something is impossible, it's very rewarding to deep down have an inkling that you can do it and then prove people wrong. Say we walked seven kilometers a day. There was no one seven-kilometer stretch that was impossible. And if it's possible to walk any one little bit, then certainly you could do a bigger expedition.

Second, apparently crazy epic adventurers start their adventures the same way I make decision about brunch — they Google:

Buns of Steal

Crawling To The Top of Mount Kilimanjaro

I am happy to report that I reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro!! 5,900 meters high, bitter cold and no oxygen. It was far and away the hardest thing I've ever done, and I feel amazing.

I'm not gonna attempt to describe the five day hike up to the summit, because everything—the 3 hour stair master exercise of day two, the revenge of the African intestine gods on days one and two, the marriage proposal (my second one thus far!) from our guide— pales in comparison to the bitter, excruciating seven hour midnight journey to Uhuru Peak, the tallest point in Africa and the final destination of my uphill journey. Curiously, the image that truly comes to mind when describing the ascent is of my old tennis coach Nancy, who used to tell me: "I don't care how you get the ball over the net. Shit, get that ball over the net with your p***y if you have to, just get it done."

Feats

The World's First Wheelchair Double Backflip

18-year-old Aaron Fotheringham, born with Spina Bifida, landed the world's first wheelchair double backflip last week. And caught it on film. 'Nuff said. 

(via Outside)

Online & Video

Feats

Walking The Amazon In 859 Days

What's your longest walk or run? 26.2? 10K? How about 6,000 miles? That's the length of the walk completed yesterday by former British Army Captain Ed Stafford, who followed the entire length of the Amazon River on foot. Starting from the origin of the Amazon at the peak of Mount Mismi in Peru in April 2008 to the mouth of the river at Meruda Beach in Brazil yesterday, he kept slogging despite 50,000 mosquito bites, a bow and arrow attack by the Ashaninka Indians, and some other freaky tropical insect and skin disease situations. You can read about Stafford's adventures on his website. On a much more reasonable note, yeahredgymnast beat her personal longest run record yesterday. Congratulations! (via Outside)

Feats

Redefining Girl Pushups

A little inspiration for all you pushup challengers:

(via Conditioning Research)

Online & Video

Feats

Build Your Plank Prowess

In one of the greatest acts of buffness ever witnessed on Social Workout, body electric once held plank for 15 minutes. (I feel buff when I hold it for like 90 seconds). For most of us, five minutes of plank would be amazing, and the video below is all about getting you there. For the easily bored, good news — you get to shift a tiny bit every 15 seconds. If the video soundtrack isn't exactly revving your engines, plug in spindig's awesome five minute plank playlist.

(via Conditioning Research via Physical Living)

Online & Video

Workout

changing it up without changing it much

Sadly, I haven't done any day rides during the MMM. My cycling minutes have mostly been commuter minutes except for a handful of spinning classes and a few 7ish minute stints on the rowing thing.

Caffeine Free

Social Workout 2.0 Wrecks My Morning

Last Thursday I got all cocky. Tooling around Social Workout 2.0, I enthusiastically whipped up the "28 Days to Caffeine Freedom Challenge. No sodas, no coffee, no tea, no yerba mate, and no tears!" and without much thought about the consequences of my rash action, I set the start date for that very day. Today marks my first caffeine-free Monday morning. And I'm not crying, but I am drooling on my keyboard. I just picked up my wallet and told Oliver I was caving, for the sake of the blog. He recited a bunch of Wake Up Call quotes and suggested I try some pushups. I complied. Image above: What I'm dreaming of right now. After the jump: Video of a peppy person who has given up coffee in a much more reasonable fashion. Apparently the secret is "determination" and "sports drinks."

Feat Suggestion

Here's my Feat idea:  For the duration of the challenge - no Fried Food.  No French Fries, no Chicken Fingers, no fried ANYTHING.  I'm trying to do that for the month before my wedding and its hard, but do-able.   And its uber healthy :-)

Challenge that i am doing this summer

I am already doing a challenge, it started today in fact.. oops yesterday, the intenSati Rise & Shine challenge... For the month of July, I have to commit to 4 intenSati workouts a week... 2 of them MUST be 6:30am classes, no matter what! this is incredibly difficult challenge bc i go to bed late and to wake up at 5:00am... is so HARD..