Happy New Years

Sunday morning around 1:00 am me, Johnny, Scott and Aaron decided we needed some sort of a new year's challenge. I wanted to get into shape and lose a few. Johnny and Aaron wanted to get into shape and gain a few. Scott wanted to get married. Because all of our goals are slightly different, we decided we needed a challenge that was flexible enough for all of us. We also thought it would be helpful to have some personal accountability - especially since we don't all live close enough to get together all the time and discuss our progress.

The Contest
We came up with a game that we like to call "exercise for a prize", a game that will reward each player for time spent exercising as well as consistency. There will be a monthly reward for the highest scoring player each month as well as a larger annual reward for the overall winner. Everyone in the family is invited to participate and we'll be seriously offended if anyone declines our invitation (just kidding - we understand). Here's how the contest will work:

1. Each week, everyone will write a brief post (I will give you all posting rights) to this blog telling which days of the prior week they exercised and how many total hours/minutes they exercised that week. Day-to-day activities or work won't count as exercise but any weight-lifting, running, biking, swimming, speed-walking, yoga, P90X, sports, etc. will count.
   
2. Participants will receive one point per hour of exercise and a bonus point each week if they exercise for 30 minutes or more at least 5 days that week. If you forget to write a post one week, you forfeit all points for that week. The idea is that we want to reward consistency and motivate each other through the blog.
   
3. Each participant will contribute $3 each month. $1.50 of that will go towards the monthly prize and the other $1.50 will go toward the end-of-year prize. If we can get at least 10 people to join, the monthly prize would be $15 and the final prize would be $180. We will also try to have some other monthly giveaways to keep us all motivated.
   

Since not everyone was a part of the original conversation we should probably officially get started on Monday the 9th. I volunteered to collect and distribute the monthly $3 contribution so when you're ready to commit I'll give you my payee info and you can set up an automatic payment with your bank's bill pay. If you want to join the competition, just make a comment at the end of this post and I'll give you a call to discuss the details.

-Nate