Xena

Me too...looking forward to seeing you win that prize!

First!!!* *post after WhiteGhost's

Yep, you are being taken advantage of. This sucks.

Take a break and do what's best for you! Come back any time!!

Yeah, sounds like perfect kayaking. If you're trying out for the Olympics or something!! Perfect description of ultrarunning. Really smart decision, but I understand how hard it must have been. I'm a little sad about the Waffle House, but understand. You should give yourself a raincheck! I'm really proud of you. You trained super hard and had a huge adventure. I'm sorry some of it was full-on legit scary, but it's cool that you tried something way outside your comfort zone and pushed so hard. You are awesome!!

^^ All of that. Plus I like that you talked about cotyledons in your gardening post :-)

I'll be on a ship for most of zero week. I'm not sure if I'll have internet access. I am sure that I'll be busy and tired. I haven't figured out all my challenge goals yet, but I will have a challenge! Here's what I have so far Leftover goals from last time 1. 60 min plank. I can take as long as I want to do this, as long as the increments are at least 30 sec. As of 5/20, I had 30 min to go. I get a reward when I finish this! 2. Make 10 new recipes or storage meals. This one also has an open deadline and a reward attached. As of 5/20, I'm up to 5.5/10. New goals! 1. Run 100 miles (yes the same goal as last time, just re-set). This is a 4-week goal. If I don't hit 25 miles in a week, I'm allowed to count cardio cross-training (1 mile per 10 min) up to a total of 25/week. 2. 100-200-100 pushups. No deadline for this goal. 100 knee push-ups, 200 negatives, and 100 full. The general idea is to progress from knee to negative to full, but I can mix them up however I want. 3. TBA. This is going to be some kind of rest and recharge anti-burnout goal. I just haven't decided what it will be yet. Possibly a grab-bag of rest and self-care ideas. Possibly some journaling. Possibly deliberately scheduled downtime. I'm still thinking about what will work best. Sushi list! I have a list of 10 "adulting" chores. When I finish it, I get to treat myself to sushi. I have 7/10 done on my old list. I have the next one almost ready to go too. It's kind of nice have the next list waiting. Nothing on it is particularly urgent, so I just write it down and stop worrying about it until the first list is done.

Yay Science! Spoken by a perfectionist. Balanced well enough to be tasty is sometimes ok too. :-)

Thanks! And yes, sort of. Field work for real, but not in the middle of a meadow or wheat farm or something. I'll be on a ship. :-) It's something I hadn't tried before, but in this case it has worked pretty well. The cooking and the planks were something I wanted to work on, but I knew this time period would be a little unpredictable. Still have a little bit of internet access and time, so here's at least one more update: I've done pretty well at shifting my hours. Two nights ago I stayed up until 6 am. Yesterday I stayed up until 7:15. I did it by making myself go for a run at 6....I REALLY didn't want to do that run! Tonight the plan is to do the same and follow it with breakfast (~7:30) and a long safety meeting (8:00-11:00). By then I'll be pretty much transitioned. My official shift starts the next day (midnight to noon). No one else really seems to be transitioning ahead of time. I suspect the others are going to be pretty groggy.

I've been on a work trip for a few days and will soon be out of email contact for a few days. My internet connection is slow here, so I'll do a big thread catch-up when I get home. so far.... Run 100 miles. By the end of week 3 I was up to 83.6. So far this week, I've hit 20.1, bringing me to 103.7. Goal accomplished! I was hoping to get more miles the past couple days but it's hard. I'm here for work, and my schedule is not really up to me. Cook 10 new recipes or storage meals. Have been traveling, so still at 5.5/10. Luckily the goal has no deadline :-) Plank 60 min. By the end of week 3, I was at 24.5. Over the past couple days I've done 5.5, bringing me to 30 min. Luckily this goal also has no deadline. Not sure whether I'll be able to work on this over the next few days or not. Will do the best I can. Sushi list....still at 7/10. Can't work on that remotely. Getting ready for a few days of field work. I'll need to be on the night shift (midnight to noon), so I've been shifting my hours. It's hard, but I'm glad to have had a few days to work on it.

Hope you have a great tournament. The custom shirts sound really cool!

Congratulations on making it to the other side!!

Good job getting it in. Did you make it to jujitsu? That seems like it would be a great workout, and nice to have something scheduled.

Sounds like you are ready for a weekend. Glad your back is feeling better!

Yet another challenge awkwardly timed relative to life events. I’ll be running a marathon at the end of week 1, so I won’t be training particularly hard in week 1 (tapering) or week 2 (recovery). During the second half of week 4, I’ll be traveling and will have constraints on my ability to exercise and types of exercise I can do. I also want to try to make my challenge goals line up better with my life goals. Doing stuff perfectly x times per week adds stress and isn’t always helpful. I have a feeling it wouldn’t work well this time around. So I’m making most of my goals open-ended. I can have as much time as I want to complete them. I get a reward when I’m done. I don’t usually post the specific rewards, and I’m still thinking about what they will be, but probably mostly some kind of clothing. 1. Lace up your shoes (Run 100 miles). I think this will be easy even with the taper/recovery, and this is the only goal that will be specific to the challenge period. My real goal is to do whatever my coach tells me to do unless I have a good reason not to. I don’t know yet what he’ll tell me to do, so it’s hard to set an ambitious distance goal. I like having some kind of goal though because this is most of my exercise effort, and I like it to “count” for something. I am giving myself the caveat that if the total planned mileage for any week is less than 25 miles, I’m allowed to count cardio cross-training (10 min = 1 mile) up to 25 total miles. It’s not my fault if he makes me ride the damned bike. 2. Pack your rations (Cook 10 point-earning meals). This is a little bit of a hodge-podge cooking goal that I think matches my actual life goal fairly well. I get one point for (1) Trying a new recipe…ideally from the “A Modern Way to Cook” cookbook, but any new recipe counts or (2) Cooking a storage meal. No double-dipping on this goal (cooking a storage meal using a new recipe is still only one point). ** When I get 10 points, I get a prize. It doesn’t matter how long it takes me. I can do this as quickly as I want or a slowly as I need to. 3. Brace yourself (1 HOUR OF PLANKING). Sounds like a lot, huh? Break it up as much as I need to, in chunks of at least 30 seconds. Any reasonable variants count, including side planks. Again, I can take as long as I want to do this. When I finish I get a prize. My other semi-random goal is to finish the sushi list. This was initially a list of 11 things, but I’m down to the last 4: (1) Wash living room floor; (2) Research home insurance and modify as needed; (3) Clean/tidy dresser; (4) Mail two packages. When I finish I get sushi! (I usually buy two rolls from a local carryout place. It’s not all that expensive, but it is a treat).