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Hello TL! I thought id make a blog about this for a few reasons but the main one being: motivation. I felt like blogging about my activities might help me to keep pushing through with it when im feeling abit lackluster. I guess I should give some backround first and then lay out what Im intending to do over the next 8 weeks or so.
Im a 22 y/o Aussie that over the last year or so has slipped out of regular sporting and exercise and into more casual sitting on the computer time. I use to play badminton competitively and be really routine about my fitness, but since giving it up Ive really lost a lot of motivation. I work full time doing a physical job (deliveries) so my health is still in good shape though. So I guess this is an attempt by me to get abit of the structure back into my life.
My starcraft backround is basicly non-existant, I never paid any attention to Brood War. Ive been a WoW addict for many years and with the release of SC2 I started watching streams and tournaments and have found a real passion for the game. I switched over to SC2 about 8 months ago and with it being my first RTS experience quickly found that I wasnt very good at all. I managed to climb my way into Gold after sporatitic play with sometimes month long breaks.
Anyway I am starting to ramble as I always do so onto the reasons for this post!
In 8 weeks there is a half marathon in my town and I intend to participate. Yes I know it sounds crazy, but remember im not running to win, Im running to finish. This idea came about when I was challenged by my brother last week to enter because he was sure hed enter and beat me. A few days later he decided there was no way he was going to run. In those few days I had already started to lay out a training plan and ask a couple of friends if they wanted to join me, which they have. So when my brother pulled the plug I sort of realised this was exactly what I needed to get me back into exercising regularly. The race was a goal that I could work towards.
Now onto Starcraft. I suffer from what is known as “ladder fear” although its not actually fear of the ladder. It is infact my ego, I hate to not be good at things. This season I havent even played my placement matches and last season I had maybe a total 30 games. I realise Starcraft has a lot of skills involved that there is no way to just pick it up and play perfectly. But that doesnt stop me getting upset about failing. So with me taking a new fitness routine I thought this would be the perfect time to address my stupid ego and start enjoying to play as much as I use to.
I realised if a goal can work for running and fitness it can most certainly work for starcraft. The problem is with starcraft setting goals is a lot harder. Sure I can set goals like “play 5 games a day” or even “Make platinum by Christmas” but im not sure that this is the right way to go about it. So I am wondering what the fine people of TL think about this subject. Have you had experiences similar with ladder and how so have you learnt to deal with it? My main problem is I like to theory and make my own builds, which I read in just about every thread is terrible. Should I just be copying the pros blindly?
Anyways Ive rambled on a lot more than I should have so Il sum it up for those that dont want to trawl through my wall of text: 8 weeks of fitness training for a half marathon, 8 weeks of SC2 experience to try and find that passion I had back before I started worrying about stupid ladder points.
If anyone has any sort of suggestion on anything at all Id love to hear it! Thanks for reading my first blog 
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Games/day is in my (very brief) experience the best way to set starcraft goals. Just make sure you leave enough time to also do things like analyze your play and develop practice strategies - to coach yourself, in other words. This is what I've been doing and a month into my SC2 career, I feel just about ready to start moving up to diamond. There's still SO MUCH for me to work on, but just thinking about it in terms of "I should keep playing because this is training, not a test of my skill" keeps me from getting too frustrated after a game and doing something else - instead I shrug and move on to the next one.
I somehow can't managed to stop myself from getting super happy over every win, though!
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A combination of team games and finding other people to practice with IMO, using ladder as your primary practice can be draining if you see it as your only indicator of improvement, just like the marathon if the only time you trained was running the marathon that would be really disheartening. Team games also take the pressure off and let you practice your mechanics without it being a reflection of your own mistakes.
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yo gl with the marathon. when i ran cross country and my coach told stories of his experience running the boston after i had to run my 10 mile race (which was forced upon us by our coach first month of training), i felt dizzy just listening. cant imagine doing a full marathon after only doing 10 miles 
also is there a specific marathon u plan on running? i still remember stories of "the hill" at the boston
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I'm not sure if this is a SC or a running blog, haha. I'll comment on the running part for the hell of it.
If you have good physical fitness, you should be able to run a half-marathon, it just depends on how slowly. There are two aspects to running- the physical training and the experience of knowing how to run a race. If you have reasonable endurance you should be able to train in 8 weeks for a half-marathon. I don't really know how people go about training (not a kinesiologist or anything), but you can start by running for 5k every other night. That should get you in a reasonable level of fitness by itself. Once that feels comfortable to you, bump it up to 10k (once or twice a week). I wish I had better advice to give, but there's nothing else to do but get out there and run. Like I said, I think anyone half decent at running can finish a half marathon, but you want to train as much as you can to prepare yourself so you don't run too fast and screw up your race or something like that. And also to prepare yourself for what will be a grueling experience. Your legs will literally cease to function. You won't feel tired or overheated, your legs will just be out of gas. Anyway, that ends my run-on sentence here. GL!
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Thanks for the replies guys!
@Jerubaal: Its abit of both really! Thanks for the addive good to hear that what ive been doing is like what your talking about. I have running experience from my schooling years as i use to run cross country etc. And yeah since im running it with my friends i think the pace will be pretty slow which is good, we are just aiming to finish. Im mixing it up between running and abit of time on the exercise bike. I actually really enjoy going for the runs just dont wanna over do-it by trying to do too much!
@sung_moon: Thanks luckily its only a half marathon (21km / 13 miles?), there is no way i could run a full marathon! I think it would be the end of me! The run is called the Point to Pinnacle. Unfortunately its mostly up hill too, which will make it that bit harder. But i live near the course so im thinking il be practicing parts of it on some of my training runs to get a feel for it.
@CaptainPlatypus & Dingobloo I think il probably do both fun games and some 1v1, they are both really good ideas. The team games will be good to sort of cooldown or to break it up if im feeling stressed. I got to play monobattles with Day[9] today which was awesome fun! (even if i played terrible) and thats given me a big boost into wanting to get back into it. Its just not the same watching games if you dont play the game yourself i think, really gives you that little bit extra understanding and respect for how good the play is!
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Good luck with the half marathon. I prefer to do 5-10km, 21 is too much for me 
And at the end you only get to brag that you did a half marathon
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Just yesterday I ran a half. I can confidently say half marathons are much, much easier compared to a full marathon. With 8 weeks of training, and more or less a major time commitment (how bad do you really want it?!) you should be okay to finish a full marathon while enjoying the experience, and not just surviving it. The number one rule many distance runners recommend to newcomers is to never run a full marathon as your first race, mostly because of the lack of experience, and the lack of appreciation that 42.2km can do to your body. I believe it's safe as long as proper training and logical preparation is kept in mind. Much of it is just exposing the body to getting used to running for 2-3 hours continuously. I hope you enjoy it, and shoot for a full marathon one day. A halfsie is fun and games compared to a full! =)
There's lots of tips I could give you with what to do on race day, and training techniques I've picked up over time, your likely mental state through km breakpoints, etc. PM me if you'd like to talk more.
Source: Ran countless half mara's, and numerous full mara's.
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EPT
