Accountability Tuesdays – Week 19

~Raindrops keep falling on my head…~
Literally and figuratively! It’s raining out again (I love you, Spring weather [/sarcasm]) and I had the pleasure of watching the Toronto Maple Leafs completely blow a 4-1 lead in game 7 of the first round playoffs. ARG.

With that depressing thought in mind, I don’t have much to report this week.

Health and Body Image Goal
My intention when I got home was to continue on with the Zombies! Run! program and try to get my energy up enough to maybe do something a little more intense. The days and days of rain put the kibosh on that. We’ve only had two half-days of decent weather so far since I’ve been home, and I spent those outside playing with the baby and tossing some junk to the curb for heavy trash pick-up. Why didn’t I just run in the rain, you ask? Because screw that, that’s why. *grumble grumble, excuses excuses*

Editing Goal
I haven’t done any actual editing, but I’ve been working on figuring out a better method. So far I’ve been printing out so many pages of my manuscript at a time and scribbling all over it in red ink. While this method is somehow strangely satisfying, it’s slow and messy and requires me to lug a bunch of printed sheets back and forth across the country with me. It would be a lot simpler if I could just use Scrivener, but since I take my tablet out West with me instead of my laptop and the internet out there isn’t reliable enough for any kind of remote access setup, that’s not really an option. I’ve recently downloaded an app called Kingsoft, which might be a better word processor than the one that comes with the tablet, so we’ll see…but in the meantime, if anyone has any better suggestions to make editing quicker and easier, please share!

1,000,000 Word Goal
I might have to hide my head in shame on this one. After doing a quick count of a couple of pages I wrote for my Final Fantasy fanfiction recently, I found that this week I wrote a grand total of 749 words. That’s 749 words that I may not have written, but still. For shame. I’m getting ever closer to having a week during which I write 0 words, and that is all kinds of not good. It’s almost as though other things keep coming up to keep me away from writing…huh. Well, anyway, if you’ll excuse me I have to go cuddle up and watch My Little Pony with my daughter now. 😛

Zombies! Run!

Due to a combination of late flights, loud fellow passengers, massive amounts of turbulence, and a very strange inability to sleep even though I was already running on less than five hours of sleep from the night before, I had a really bad day yesterday. Thus no post yesterday.

Along those lines, I have something simple and a little different for today: an app review!

I don’t usually review apps. I rarely even rate them in the App Store. This one, however, amuses me so much that I feel I need to mention it.

Zombies, Run! 5k Training is exactly what it sounds like. It’s an eight-week program of roughly half-hour recordings that use the threat of zombies to train you to run 5k. It works on the same concept as other apps such as Couch to 5k – that is, a “trainer” tells you when to walk, when to run, occasionally when to sprint, and slowly builds you up to being able to run faster and longer. The thing that makes Zombies, Run! different is that the recordings you’re listening to tell a story.

The welcoming recording starts with a helicopter pilot talking to you as she flies you into a zombie-surrounded township. You’re headed there for some secret mission that even you don’t yet know the details of. En route a mysterious party fires a rocket launcher at your helicopter, sending you and the pilot to the ground. Once on the ground one of the township’s citizens – Sam, the communications operator – calls you over your radio to tell you that you’ve got to get moving…there are zombies headed your way! From there on you are lead through the zom-infested world by Sam and the other township citizens and deemed to be their new “Runner 5” (the old one had a, uh, accident).

The whole thing is just so amusing, I can’t even tell you. The recordings are very well done, the voice actors convincing, and the storyline fun as sin. I find myself constantly wanting to keep going so I can learn more of the story, and the “threat” of zombies is a surprisingly excellent motivator to run and run hard.

If you’re even more ambitious, the makers of Zombies, Run! 5k Training also have a follow-up app simply called Zombies, Run! which has a ton more stories and extra content.

Both apps also link to zombiesrungame.com, which allows you to share your progress and any maps you may have created by running with the GPS option on. The site also houses any info and “items” you may have come across throughout the course of your missions. It’s a nice little addition that makes the game aspect that much more fun.

In conclusion, I highly recommend either of these apps for someone who loves games and/or zombies and needs a little extra motivation to get moving and get into shape. A real jewel amongst a pile of boring fitness apps. Two thumbs up!