FitMas or CRISISmas

CRISISmas Defined

Stay with me here..... CRISISmas is defined as the mid-year struggle for school employees to survive the two week vacation which includes lots of options for unhealthy food and potential couch time which we deserve but know the end result is a return to school with extra pounds and a feeling of dread.  (English teachers, if you are still reading I realize the previous sentence is probably a run-on.)

Instead of returning in January full of dread,  I challenge you to participate in your own version of FITmas instead of CRISISmas.  Insert some FITness into your Christmas.  I recently got a message from a fellow FitBitter, Meagan Malone, who said her goal was to not allow the holiday season to take away her fitness success.  Meagan has a plan in place which is what it takes to succeed.  Plan your work and work your plan.  I'm not suggesting that you avoid EVERY sweet treat, but I am suggesting that you make a conscious effort to not grab a pack of M and M's for the road trip but instead enjoy your mom's homemade chocolate pie for dessert after Christmas dinner!  And how about starting each day with a short workout, maybe walking,  a run (Keep the #RWRunStreak) or a few body weight exercises to help you get your metabolism going first thing!  

Bottom line is this.....

 Take care of yourself, enjoy special moments with your friends and family and have an awesome Christmas with some added Fitmas.

The Struggle Is REAL......

The Walking Woman and MadDog are representing their teams and the struggle is REAL!!!

SCES vs. HBOE

The trophy continues to travel up and down Oxmoor.  Week to week, The Owls and The "A" Team aka Admins are battling for the bling.  Is there a team out there that can knock these two off the top?

POST THOSE POINTS!

Lake Tranquility 50K, PR at Magic City Half and 5K fun

How tranquil is running 50K?  That's 10 times the 5K that the average weekend athlete aspires to complete.  Still confused?  Here is the simple answer 50K = 31.0686 miles.  Latta Johnston completed that distance to take him to the top of the individual leaderboard for week #13 of the PPC.  Erin Chelewski also had a great week 13.  She PR'd the Magic City Half coming in a close second to Latta's big week.  Several of our employees finished 5K's alongside the Girls On The Run team.

PPC WK 13 WINNER IS HBOE

This week HBOE squeaked out a one point victory over the Owls. 

Richard Simmons at HMSFest

Richard Simmons has been out of the headlines for a while, but finally surfaced for a guest appearance at HMS.  Thanks to Matt Kiser for making this happen.  It is truly a special "MOVEMENT MINUTE"!  

2015 RUNNER'S WORLD STREAK

#RWRunStreak

#hwdmoves

We are bringing back the "Streakers".  Run one mile every day starting on Thanksgiving and continuing through New Year's Day.  That's 37 consecutive days of running at least one mile.  Up for the challenge?  Read about it here.  If you join this challenge and complete this challenge you will earn 2 additional points per week of successful streaking AND this counts as an event toward The Movement Medal.  I'll place a special tracker on the Patriot Point Challenge for accountability.  Participants are also encouraged to use the hashtags #RWRunStreak and #hwdmoves to join other participants worldwide!  

PPC UPDATE

Big Scoreboard after 12 weeks.

1st place SCES 179 points

2nd place HMS 177 points

3rd place HBOE 176 points

4th place HHS 167 points

5th place EES 165 points

6th place HKES 107 points

POST THOSE POINTS

Big win for HBOE and Did you learn a lesson?

HBOE WINS THE WEEK

Congratulations are in order for Team HBOE.  The admin team crushed the competition this week with a big win.  

Lesson Learned

It's been a tough couple of weeks for me.  

I lost my father after his 9-month battle with COPD.  

Maybe it's because Dad's mom, my grandmother was a teacher, but one of his favorite quotes was, "Did you learn a lesson?" Anytime I failed or suffered a loss- he always included, "Did you learn a lesson?" During my basketball career as a player and coach I suffered lots of losses, but my toughest loss occured when I held my dad's hand as he took his last breath.  He taught me a critical lesson during the final months of his life, so please allow me to share this lesson with you.  

1. The most important things in life are friends and family.
2. Work, your career,  your profession is simply that.. but the people you interact with at work become some of your best friends so be sure to recognize that on a regular basis.
3. Try hard to win, no matter what you are up against but be sure to thank those people who are there to support you and help you along the way.  NOTHING is really accomplished alone, it takes a team to win.

Thank you HCS family for being such an amazing group of people.  It's truly an honor to be a Patriot.

Keep Moving.

9,419 MILES, Genie=473,1 Point Win.

CLICK HERE FOR FINAL LEADERBOARD

The month of October included some "high stepping" for our employees.  As a group HCS Walktober traveled 9,419 miles!  Genie Christian won the Walktober Challenge covering the greatest distance with a record-breaking perfomance of 473 miles.  

Check out the top 5 finishers:

Genie Christian- SCES:  946, 760 steps.  473 miles
Eric Swope-         HMS:   675, 136 steps.  338 miles
Rebecca Smith-   SCES:  576, 098 steps.  288 miles
Lauren Luckie-   SCES:  524, 511 steps.  262 miles
Paul Harbin-       HHS:    471,807 steps.   236 miles 

SHADES CAHABA WINS THE WEEK

  The Owls squeaked out a 1 point victory snatching the trophy from HMS.  

Keep Moving..

Mr. Pearson Takes One for Team HMS

TEAM HMS WINS WEEK

Mr. Pearson WINS "Best Movement Blog Episode EVER"

Three things:   

1.  I love his enthusiasm.  
2.  He is incredibly agile for keeping the trophy safe. 
3.  I'm so glad he is ok!

WALKTOBER UPDATE

PLEASE BE SURE TO POST YOUR FINAL STEP ENTRY FOR THE WALKTOBER CHALLENGE.  THE CHALLENGE ENDED AT MIDNIGHT ON HALLOWEEN.  I'LL ANNOUNCE THE WINNER IN NEXT WEEK'S MOVEMENT BLOG UPDATE.  

KEEP MOVING!!

Nested, Homewood Witches Ride and Ghost Run

SCES OWLS BACK 2 BACK WINS

Recognize that owl?  This owl sits atop SCES and currently is protecting the PPC Trophy.  Congrats to SCES on another strong performance in the PPC.  

HOMEWOOD WITCHES RIDE

Join other witches this Friday, Oct. 30 for a 2 mile easy ride through Homewood.  Toss candy to the goblins aka children along the route.  Read more about this fun event here.

UAB GHOST RUN

No Excuses Noah Galloway will be running a 5K this week in Bham and YOU can join him. The UAB Ghost Run is a great way to start Saturday Oct. 31st Halloween festivities.  

Weekend Events and PPC Year 6 update

Komen Race for the Cure and Stamp Out Sarcoma

Congrats to everyone who participated in the Race for the Cure 5K and Stamp out Sarcoma.  Be sure to add three points for each of those events in your PPC total for the week, and document your participation toward The Movement Medal.

PPC Year 6 Update

This has been the most competitive PPC in the six year history of our program.  

Here is a breakdown of our yearly winners from the past:

• Year 1-HHS
• Year 2-HBOE
• Year 3-HBOE
• Year 4-SCES
• Year 5-HHS
• Year 6-???? It's up for grabs!

Weekly team winner is based on four categories:

• % of participants
• % of participants improvement, week to week
• Average number of Patriot Points per person
• Improvement in average number of Patriot Points per person

Weekly winners so far this year:

Wk 1-HMS, Wk 2-HMS, Wk3-SCES, Wk 4-EES, Wk 5-SCES, Wk 6-HBOE, Wk 7-SCES

CURRENT BIG SCOREBOARD FOR YEAR SIX

Edgewood 5th place	3	22	27	47	59	74	89
Hall-Kent  6th place	5	16	23	33	41	48	60
Shades Cahaba 1st place	8	19	43	58	67	84	106
Middle School   2nd place	12	31	48	57	76	89	104
High School 4th place	10	28	43	57	81	89	94
BOE  3rd place	4	10	26	42	54	78	98

Walking, Walking, Walking, Walking

Last week was the start of something big for The Movement.  The Walktober Challenge is one of our most competitive employee events.  Participants began counting steps on Sunday, Oct. 4th.  Each week during the month of October participants total their weekly steps using tracking devices and enter weekly totals in the PPC form.  The Walktober Challenge will end on Halloween night.  The overall winner will then be crowned based on the total steps during Walktober.  We will also award WEEKLY WINNERS, based on the results from individual weeks.  Top 10 steppers each week will be eligible for WEEKLY WINNER Awards.  So step it up, step on out, keep in step and take a step!

INTERNATIONAL WALK TO SCHOOL DAY

Check out the awesome pics from Walk to School Day 2015.  Employees from each team joined in for fun, fellowship and coffee aka fuel!

Beautiful sunrise to begin our journey.

HMS is on the way!

Thumbs up from HBOE.

Is this pic taken from a drone?

Edgewood had a huge crowd.



Friends and fuel aka coffee at Edgewood track.

The "FACS" are walking is fun!

The family that walks together, wins together.

No, they didn't have dessert for breakfast.  Thanks to The Shaws at Magic City Sweet Ice, HK had coffee!

Facepaint for Walk to School.  HMS has some serious competitors ;)
Happy Homecoming.

All smiles for the trek to the Homewood Community Garden.

Be sure to continue to #hwdmoves and #hwdDCA 

This background looks like ya'll are waaaaaay out in the country!

PE Peeps reppin' and steppin'

FUNNY FACES!

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it's off to work we go!

Part of the HK contingency at Magic City Sweet Ice.

That teacher on the far left behind Justin is just bashful.  And maybe a bit undersized?

HHS starts the longest journey of our event.
These employees complete over a two mile walk, out and back to O'Henry's Brookwood.

HHS and Pathways employees.

Just can't say "Thank you" loud enough for the folks who showed up to walk together!

These two teach side-by-side and run side-by-side after school.
"Frands"

This is the perfect ending to Walk2School 2015.  Kristi and Andrea modeling wellness for their daughters.  Thanks to all participants and continue your daily walk toward wellness.  

KEEP MOVING...

Walktober Begins, HHS Wins

National Walk to School Day 

Wed. Oct. 7th

Join HCS employees Wednesday of this week for our annual Walk to School Day!  

Below is a list of coffee stops featured this year:

HMS and HBOE-Taco Mama will offer free coffee at Homewood Community Garden.
HHS- O'Henry's Brookwood (small coffee $1)
SCES-O'Henry's Downtown Hwd (small coffee $1)
ED- BYOC to the track at Edgewood
HK-Magic City Sweet Ice (small coffee $1)

Check with your Patriot Pack leaders for specific details for your campus.  Coffee available at 7am at each coffee stop.  

WALKTOBER 2015

Sunday, Oct. 4th-Oct. 31

Take a step toward wellness!  Track your steps for the month of October, report your weekly totals each week via the Patriot Point hyperlink.  This year will feature Weekly Winners, Daily Showdown challenges, "Feet on the Floor" Prizes and of course the overall winner.  Whether you are competing to be the overall winner or simply challenging yourself to take more daily steps, it's a great way to connect with co-workers and take steps to being a healthier you.  If you use social media be sure to use the #hwdmoves and #hwdDCA to highlight your superstepper progress.

HHS Wins!

Congratulations to employees at HHS for bringing the PPC trophy back on the campus of the reigning champions.  

This is the first weekly win for the high school.  

Keep Moving and POST THOSE POINTS.  

Walktober, MCMD5K, EES Wins.

Keep Reading...

WALKTOBER BEGINS OCTOBER 4

Get your activity monitors ready this week our systemwide step competition begins Monday, October 4th.  Employee with the highest step count during October 4th-October 31 will be crowned champion in our 4th Annual Walktober Challenge.  SCES employees have owned this competition each year.  Genie Christian is a two-time and current champion and Phillip Garner owned the championship for one year. 

Rick Baguley wins a Daily Showdown

Check out Rick Baguley,  winner of a TrakShak gift card thanks to his 27, 385 steps in ONE DAY in a FitBit Daily Showdown.  Rick was awarded the gift card on Friday and is gonna probably need that $25 to invest in some new shoes!  

Employees participate in Camp Smile A Mile 5K

Amy Marchino PR's her 5K!

Congrats to The Tumlin's 

Meagan finished the 5K and started a FACS WELLNESS CHALLENGE this past week. 

C.Y. HMS is winning on the Big Scoreboard?
Cristy and Tracy finish the 5K.

Jordan representing team HMS.

Edgewood Elementary WINS PPC Wk #4

Congratulations to Fran and the team at EES.  They scored 21/24 points to earn the right to host our awesome trophy.  If you haven't had a chance to see our trophy in person. POST THOSE POINTS!

Keep Moving...