Syren

On 6/7/2013 at 9:07 AM, Syren said:

 

Hmm, this first post was over 10-years ago and there have been some changes, mostly unhealthy ones sadly.

Since the March 24 challenge is almost over, I will try to keep up and come back for the May 24 challenge.

But in the interim, let's blow the dust off the old Battlelog while I wait to see if my R code wants to freeze 🤣

<>< Insert Coin to Respawn ><>

🪙

Level 1

Boto Adventurer

Background: Scout

Subclass: reach level 3

Stats

Weight: 245 lbs

Height: 5'8"

Constitution - 12

Dexterity - 13

Strength - 10

Wisdom - 14

Intelligence - 15

Charisma - 8

*The day rises from the calm beaches of a lake, the nascent sun tickling the water's surface with rising tendrils of mist as it peeks from behind the endless rows of pine. It's a brisk breeze that rustles the boughs and ripples break the surface of the pond. A bloated creature thrashes for a moment gasping for breath before rolling to it's back and settling into the litoral muck. Reeds whistle and stutter at the broken calm and silence. Across the twilight void, a duck quacks in indignation.

After several wretching coughs and careful deep breaths, the creature drags itself from the pond and onto the sandy shore. It's eyes are bleary, full of half remembered waterlogged visions. Slowly things begin to take shape in its mind and it begins to both feel and look more like a person rather than a half drowned manatee.

It rises from the beach and stares into the pine woods to its back. Dappled sunlight is starting to permeate the mist between the trees. The creature finishes it's half turn and mumbles to the world,*

"Looks like I have a bit of hike..."

___________________________________

Chapter 0 - The Interim Challenge

*At the base of a tree a small yellowish, green sprite dances from grass stem to grass stem as the boto makes its way towards civilization. It hums softly, but loud enough to be heard - a small trill that catches the boto's ear. It turns, feminine features becoming more plain as the sun rises to dry the pond water away.

She catches sight of the sprite dancing among the blades and moves to catch the creature in her more dextrous hand. She misses, but the sprite jumps to her grass green hair, still damp and full of pond scum. The sprite thumps her gently in the ear.*

"While you walk, you should watch what you eat at the end."

*The boto scowls and rubs at her ear. She is unable to see the sprite. The fearsome glare wasted she sighs and settles into her walk.*

Diet: the bilirubin sprite says to eat less fat - knock out this new fast food lunch habit, we're not in undergrad anymore.

Exercise: the Scouts Tavern is far from sight, if it even still exists. Get walking while the light is good and the day's temperatures aren't quite to melting strength - 7,000 steps a day.

I'm out of town for work this week, and I had intended to swim yesterday, but due to combined efforts of cramps, cozy bed, and a stiff breeze with temps in the 50's, I elected to not go to the outdoor pool and chance sprints.... however the coach sent the workout through FB later and there were no sprints.

Because I couldn't find a pool open in tandem woth my travel schedule, I did a hotel strength training workout this morning on a five minute interval:

4x

15 wide stance bodyweight squats

15 wall pushups

10 doorframe pulls

30-second plank

Walk and stretch between intervals

Tomorrow I am hoping to go out in the field for a couple of seagrass transects, but it is weather dependent. I'm in central FL this week so the air temps are in the 70's. So yes, I will happily jump in chilly water to count underwater grass blades for multiple hours risking hypothermia, but sprinting in the heated pool for an hour when the air temps are FL level cold - hard pass. 🤷‍♀️ Priorities 

This morning's workout was all about sprints

100 easy free

2 x 100 drill, kick, swim easy, swim fast

4 x 50 scull, kick/drill

8 x 25 sprint distance per stroke

4 x 75 descend on 1:40

4 x 25 sprint on 0:30

3 x 50 descend on 1:35

4 x 25 sprint on 0:30

2 x 50 descend on 1:30

4 x 25 sprint on 0:30

8 x 50 descend on 1:20

50 easy 

A whine....

I was a great big ball of anxiety this morning - to the point I was playing out Q&A scenarios at 3 am for my presentation at 1 pm today. I did not sufficiently distract myself by planning out Isekai plots, and was very close to saying nope to the alarm for pool time. But despite it being an anxious mess, my brain is a good brain and did convince itself that swimming will temporarily stop the chattering monkey running through hard questions.... it's also a good brain that knows it's audience, because I did get those questions this afternoon....

Anyway, the presentation went.

Tomorrow brings finalizing a final draft of a report our management can't decide how they want to look as well as making edits for a presentation my director is giving next week. Oh, and a meeting with our watershed modeler.

Wednesday is a meeting with a sister regional agency to determine why the monitoring stations might be showing ridiculously high nutrient concentrations.

Thursday...I didn't look that far into the week.

But Swimming!

250 free

2 x 100 kick with find and 0:20 rest

3 x 50 descend on 1:20

16 x 25 drill, build, fast, easy choice stroke on the 0:45

2x 

    150 pull on 4:00

    100 build to fast on 3:00

    3 x 50 fast on 1:15

I'm glad I didn't try to implement a live with less stress goal this week because work has been brutal to the point of memes.

Indecisive or contradictory management and no instructions before review are not my friends today.

Swim workout this morning

Warmup

Swim whatever in 10 minutes - 400 easy freestyle

3x

    2 x 75 on 1:30

    2 x 50 on 1:25

    2 x 25 stroke, no free on 1:00

50 easy

3 x 100 alternate fast/easy by 50's on 2:15

6 x 50 alternate fast/easy by 25's on 1:15

50 easy

Workout this morning was a test to determine benchmarks.

Warmup

250 freestyle 

Preset

100 pull

2 x 50 kick and swim on 1:20

75 pull

2 x 50 kick and swim on 1:20

50 pull

2 x 50 kick and swim on 1:30

50 easy

Main set

5 x 50 on 1:30 strong pace

4 x 75 on 1:40 strong pace, but a little faster

3 x 75 on 1:50 strong pace, but a little faster

100 sprint

My 100 sprint was 1:42

I looked up qualifying times for if I ever want to entertain races and I need to get that down to 1:01 for my age bracket.

Well Monday I did well - I hit most of my intervals at practice - just missed 1 (work out below if anyone wants to try it out).  Also did well on following the plan until dinner time. I realized when I got home from work that I had left my swim gear bag at the pool. Luckily it had not wandered off when I called the lifeguards. 

So my partner and I decided to go walk around one of the neighborhood stormwater parks near the pool while we tried to think about what we wanted for dinner. After a couple of laps around the pond and some grinding in Orna, we decided to just go grab some burgers from Culvers and split a shake....only we discovered that there was a food truck event at another neighborhood park between us and Culvers. Forget the butter burgers, we have superior poor, yet delicious local choices. I ended up with a couple of chili dogs because they are a clearly superior food second only to Pizza and Mountain Dew - which are my S tier junk food.

Anyway, poor choices continued through Tuesday. I did some garden maintenance instead of walking to work this morning, I didn't pack lunch so I just got snacks from the snack shack at the office, and tonight I made slaw dogs for dinner - because the food truck gave us two extra plain hot dogs last night.

Tonight I am prepping another breakfast burrito amd salsa for breakfast and leftover jerk chicken and rice for lunch again.

Monday Swim 

Warm up

200 freestyle

6 x 50 on 1:30 

Drill

Stroke build

Fast/easy

4 x 25 IM order descend on 0:45

Set 1

2 x

2 x 50 underwater kick on 1:30 minutes

6 x 25 kick with fins 0:40 fast then easy 

Set 2

300 free - in 5:00 minutes but focus on a regular breathing pattern (every third stroke breathe with proper rotation, not a head lift)

2 x 100 free on 2:30 minutes descend

4 x 50 IM order on 1:20 minute 

I missed my 300 interval by 20 seconds....which isn't terrible for someone getting back in the pool, but a little infuriating.

And this is how I will track all the things: Challenge Tracker

I am making jerk chicken legs with coconut brown rice, maduros, and collard greens for dinner - enough to have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. I got some frozen breakfast burritos to take to work too with salsa verde along with a pineapple peach salsa rojo. Meeting myself halfway on breakfast- let's get the routine down before we go for supreme champion with the homemade breakfast burritos.

Starting stats:

Average resting heart rate: 70 bpm

Weight: 243 lbs

Waist: 47 inches

Hip: 49 inches

Wrist: 7 inches

Bicep: 16 inches

Calf: 17 inches 

Thigh: 28 inches

Strength: +1

Dexterity: 0 

Constitution: 0

Intelligence: +4

Wisdom: +2

Charisma: -1 

Hit Points: 1 d4 + Con 

AC: 0

Rewards for following the plan:

    New fins for kick drills!

    New goggles with defog!

    New shorts for the summer!

    +1 to Constitution 

    +1 to Strength or Charisma

I just learned that there is a swim meet at the end of April in Jacksonville. I don't really jive with competition but I am wondering of it will hold me more accountable to go to practice if I do sign up for something.

Hi all! I've taken a bit of a hiatus from the Rebellion since I started my big girl job in 2017. I came back for a short bit when I transferred from one division to another, but have fallen into the same work life balance rut that is typical of the over achieving perfectionist and have let the important things slide in order to prioritize things that should be less important - like an unsustainable work ideal.

These challenge goals all require intention and planning to achieve so they build on one another:

Challenge Goals

1. Swim with the Master's Swim Team three days per week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday).

2. Set a bed time - practice starts at 6:30 am and it takes 15-minutes to get to the pool. Cats also demand to be fed, and I like sleep.  I'm aiming for 7-hours since I tend to have middle of the night insomnia, bed time is....10:00 pm so I can get up at 5:30 am to do all the things!

3. Time management bundling - I also need to prep breakfast and lunch to take to work the night before. 

* 7:30 - 7:45 am practice ends

* 20 - 30 minutes to shower & dress

* While getting to the pool only takes 15-minutes at dawn, it takes 45-minutes to get back home/work from the pool following practice - because in Tallahassee everyone needs to go to the same place for work at the same time...

* And this puts me right up to about 9 am, panicking that I will be late.

Sweet! I came back in time to think up a new challenge. Howdy y'all 😁

On 2/23/2021 at 7:45 AM, Chesire said:

Did you peter out?    Still in the game?

I yoyo'd between weeks this time.

Lets see, I recorded majority of my workouts with my fitbit since the beginning of February-

Feb. 1 - 7: I made it 6/7 days with at least 30-minutes of activity

Feb. 8 - 14: I made 3 days with 30-minutes and 2-days with at least 15-minutes

Feb. 15 - 21: I only managed 1 day with a hike - it rained all week and motivation was 0 probably because I was busy with work 

Feb. 22 - 28: I managed to do 7/7 days with at least 30-minutes of activity, but forgot my fitbit for a couple of walks and today's strength training.

Food...

I cannot remember how it went for the first 2-weeks of Feb. I think it was about 80% on top of things

Feb. 15 - 21: stuck really well to the diet if not to the exercise

Feb. 22 - 28: We shall not speak of the failure that was sticking to the menu this week

mostly not wanting to cook and not wanting the menu we made up - we need more flexibility and prep to make it work?

Hmm, I get the hype for about a week and then peter out a bit week by week. I may be trying to do too much at once?

Why be healthy?

Be pain free and able to do (almost) anything!

Hike

Kayak

SCUBA Dive

Wetland delineations...>.>

Honestly if I could figure out how to SCUBA every day and still get my work done I think I may find happiness...

Haven't figured out how to get paid to do this where I can have retirement benefits and health insurance...

1. Do some exercise - 30-minutes each day 

walk, strength train, yoga, stationary bike, hike, kayak, SCUBA, Swim 

red is not really temperature dependent... <.<

2. Eat some food each day (just not too much)-

2 servings fruit

2 servings dairy/alternatives

4 servings grains/breads/pasta

2.5 servings proteiny things

5 servings of veg

3. Use the metric system.

Exercise Tracking

10 x wall push ups

10 x assisted squat

10 x leg raise

10 x at 40 lb resistance band overhand rows

10 x at 40 lb resistance band underhand rows

10 x at 40 lb resistance band triceps extensions

20 x alternating high knees

15-minutes on the exercise bike

10-minutes static stretching

2021/01/01 | 2021/01/02 | 2021/01/03 | 2021/01/04 | 2012/01/05 |

11 minutes ago, sarakingdom said:

As a fellow swimming fan, have you tried rowing? I find it hits a pleasantly similar set of muscles, and can be done at home if you have room for a rowing machine.

 

Also, cheese melts very well on roasted vegetables in the oven. Just saying.

 

And podcasts drown out rumination.

I did spring for a rowing machine, however I found the one I purchased was very awkward and uncomfortable to use so got rid of it. I don't quite have the desire to buy anything more expensive right now :$

I tried sitting on our stationary bike and pulling my resistance bands as a proxy too. It was a lot unstable, I don't recommend. 

Cheese does melt on vegetables, it's a great hack to get people to eat their vegetables - my problem is not the eating of the vegetables, it's the wanting of the soft ooey goey package of meat, bread, and cheese - veg doesn't do this and it is incredibly unappealing when softened - better for me to find ways to avoid it altogether, especially with the mild lactose intolerance I seem to be developing as I get older.

Podcasts are great - usually I start my day either listening to an audiobook or podcast - the problem is remembering to restart them after I've had to take a call or attend a meeting. Some days those back to back meetings with a free hour right before the end of the work day are the worse - I don't have enough time to do anything and I can't focus one what I need to get done. 

Meal Plan Week 5 (Jan. 31 - Feb. 6)

Meal Plan Week 4 (Jan. 24 - 30)

Meal Plan Week 3 (Jan. 17 - 23)

Meal Plan Week 2 (Jan. 10 - 16)

Meal Plan Week 1 (Jan. 3  - 9) - changing this up a bit since I 100% forgot to take into account that this week is the week my uterus must shed it's unfertilized lining - it's also going to be chilly.

Breakfast:

Cereal (bran flakes or other low sugar, high fiber type), banana, non-dairy milk, dried cranberries

Coffee with a splash of cream (so far does not upset my digestive system and makes me happy)

Lunch:

Leftovers!

Omelet with tortillas and salsa or turkey arepa with roasted carrots on the side or turkey noodle soup

optional to try with small amount of shredded cheese for flavor as a test

Dinner:

I am very excited about 2020 burning in a dumpster. Yes, I totally understand that a new year will not make everything that continues on from 2020 disappear, but there's just something about the prospect of a fresh page that is hopeful, slightly daunting, and over all, an up tick of not being in the previous moment. 

I did a lot (probably too much) of introspection yesterday:

I have returned to my undergrad habit of eating fast food all of the time (with a 33-yo metabolism)

I have returned to my love affair with Mt. Dew (ambrosia of the gods)

I really hate exercise (except swimming, but I need warm temperatures and 80% of the local population vaccinated)

I do love to hike and kayak and SCUBA dive, but I need time and light to do these things which is not feasible with the prepackaged 8-hr a day (really 9 when you include the lunch break) 5-day a week work schedule

My first challenge of 2021 will be geared towards managing my anxiety - something general, non diagnosed, but pervasive.

Steps to success

Spoiler

• keep a regular sleep schedule (we do this most of the time... build for consistency!)

• in bed by 9:15 pm
  • thermostat down to 67* F
  • turn off the screens
  • listen to relaxing music
  • read before bed
• get up at 6:30 am
• No caffeine after 3 pm (good on this one almost all of the time)
• 7 pm is last call for alcohol if imbibing (I like a beer or a glass of wine with dinner occasionally - that said, I do probably seek it out more often than not when I've had a bad day at work)
• 8 pm is last call for water (my insomnia prevents me from getting back to sleep if I wake up in the middle of the night, so I would like to avoid those 2 am pee breaks)

On 12/8/2020 at 8:44 PM, Xena said:

Hi Syren! Just found your thread because I just learned how the new tagging system works!

I was curious about your dryland workout that included things like breaststroke and butterfly. What were you actually doing? Were you using something like a vasa trainer??

Hi Xena, 

I do not have a fancy swim trainer, though those are pretty awesome. I use a 40 lb resistance band at the moment for each of the arm strokes. I took some video of the movements this morning. I t is not 100% analogous, and I have to adjust a good bit on fly especially. I will see if I can get it uploaded to the site and link it back

19 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

I thought you weren't updating your thread but then I realized you have a very unique system for keeping track of your challenge. I've never seen anyone make posts for each day of the challenge ahead of time.

It actually seems to be helping me keep on top of it this time around. Not sure if it is something for everyone. I think Talos did this kind of thing, but weekly rather than by day if I remember correctly.

Similar goals. Might try out your point system, it seems more of a happy place than my self beratement.   

On 11/29/2020 at 10:33 PM, Rookie said:

 

- Do productive adult task

I too would love to be efficient at the productive adult task

cheers!

On the 26th day of December, my path to health granted me --