It's never too early to play a little RL Dig Dug (image by abbybatchelder on Flickr)

“Strong people are harder to kill, and more useful in general.” – Mark Rippetoe

Having grown up in Buffalo, I’m no stranger to encountering large amounts of the white stuff vigorously and repeatedly burying the upper-right quadrant of the United States. However, living in Florida, we’re missing out on the fun.

I’m not actually being facetious or snarky, for a change. Mowing the lawn on New Years’ Day is nice, but kind of lame when it comes to instilling that whole “winter” motif. We can’t make a decent backyard ice rink, have a snowball fight, or get a “snow day” away from the office.

Put down the shovels, torches, and pitchforks, people. Well, not the shovels. Record snowfall is obviously a huge inconvenience, and we want to make sure everyone stays safe, warm, and all that good stuff. However, you can still turn it to your advantage, even if you’re not a frost-spec Mage.

Every once in a while, it’s time to perform a +SAN check. Today, we’ll give you a peek under the hood, behind the veil, or inside the other metaphor of your choice, to see the sort of stuff we do here for our own workout routines. Not that we’re expecting anyone to decide that what we’re doing for our own fitness regimen is the cure for what ails you – but if you want to play along with the home game, that’s cool, too.

This comes up now for a couple of reasons. One, a month into 2010, a lot of the momentum from the well-intentioned New Years’ resolutions is flagging, and a kick in the pants might be in order. Two, I’m about to undertake something completely new, and am a bit nervous about it. Three, it might provide you with some ideas on how to shake up your current routine if you’re stuck.

The Druid's Aquatic Form (World of Warcraft, (C) Blizzard Entertainment)

If you’ve spent much time perusing the gaming aisle or the sci-fi section of your local media emporium, you’ve no doubt noticed the high concentration of military bad-asses featured prominently therein. From the Halo series to Gears of War and Call of Duty to much of Robert Heinlein and John Ringo’s oeuvre (heck, even the Jedi were an elite fighting force), there is no shortage of hand-picked combat troops blowing the bejeezus out of things. Oftentimes, it’s not just the run of the mill Army or Navy enlisted folks, either – it’s the creme de la creme, the various flavors of  Special Forces.

There’s no way the likes of us could qualify to do that sort of stuff… or is there?

Badwater Road, Death Valley (courtesy of Wikimedia)

One of the subjects that came up in our interview with Elizabeth Bear was the Eowyn Challenge – hiking in the footsteps of our friends from Middle Earth on their journey. Oddly enough, not everyone wants to go to Mordor. I hear the Orcs are lovely this time of year, though….

Instead, some folks have given it their own spin, and I’m not just saying that because they’re putting their exercise bikes where their motivation is. Mike talked about walking across the United States, from Tampa to Seattle – probably for the coffee, or maybe to get hit with a thrown fish (not to be confused with getting slapped with one).

So, where else are people pedaling off to in the name of healthy motivation?

January 1st is, traditionally, a day that many people use as the motivation to make positive changes in their lives. From getting in shape to going to church more often and everything in between there are countless ways in which many people are vowing to improve themselves, starting today. If you’ve made a resolution to improve yourself but you’re not quite sure how to go about doing so, you may find value in taking on some kind of challenge to help you reach your goals. We’ve collected a list of 10 of our favorite ones for you to check out below the cut.