Salivanth

Today, it just clicked. Left: Antranik, mod of r/bodyweightfitness. Right: Me. Now I just need to stop shaking so much when I do it, and I'll have it down!

With uni starting back next week, I've decided not to continue with the challenge. I won't be leaving Nerd Fitness, and I'll still be pursuing my goals on my own. I'll still be sticking around to participate in the threads I'm following and in my accountabilibuddy group, but I'll be doing it without a 6-week challenge. I've run into the same problem as before, where having goals is great, but writing about them here doesn't seem to achieve much for me, and it takes up my time that I'd rather spend doing other things. Besides, I prefer a month-to-month system when it comes to my goals anyway, across 6 weeks. If I decide I want to post about accomplishments every now and then, I can always start a battle log.

Congrats; starting is the hardest part when it comes to a complex program. I looked up the rules to Agricola; seems like quite a project!

Got a bit of programming in despite a mild illness, and I'll have my first semester's university results confirmed on Friday. They're looking very good so far though. I also have to do three strength workouts this week for Order of the Stick, so I got my first one done today. Leg raise progression, squat progression, push-up progression, and row progression. If I stick to the strength workouts after the week ends, I'll add a pull-up progression and a dip progression once I get some of my old strength back.

I don't know how long they've been doing it, but they've been doing it for at least one challenge before this one, so I assume they have plans to continue. Order of the Stick is a reference to this webcomic. If you know anything about Dungeons and Dragons, you'd probably enjoy it. I agree about Facebook, but what can you do? I made a fake account, Sal Ivanth, and used that. I haven't really thought about a plan for when to get the hours of study in. I usually study of an evening, but that's been less than successful lately. Now that I'm not drinking soft drink frequently, I find myself getting tired earlier and not wanting to study. I'm not a morning person, so I suppose that leaves afternoons.

I hopped on the bike and began to flee. This time I didn't fall off. Thanking any deity that would listen that I'd gotten some practice in a few minutes ago, I rode onto a narrow downhill path as the wingbeats drew closer. I pedalled faster and faster, but didn't seem to be going much faster. One of my feet flew off the pedals, and I suddenly remembered gears. Cranking the gears downward, I began going faster just in time, as a screech came from just behind me, and I heard a terrible crack as one of the birds tore into my helmet. The terrain was dangerous, but I went faster still. A part of me went calm as I wondered if I'd fall. The complexity of life had faded away, replaced by one simple fact; if I fell, I would die. That was all that mattered. I began to make some ground on the skirges, before having to slow down slightly to make a turn. Twice my legs were almost hit by sharp bits of debris as I rode, but finally the sounds began to ease, and the wingbeats ceased. It was still at least five minutes by my count before I dared to even slow down. By the time my near-suicidal pace slowed, I was exhausted, covered in sweat, front of my legs burning, and I had descended quite a long way. Looking carefully up at the sky, I didn't see any birds in sight. Carefully, I slowed to a stop, and got off the bike. I was ready for the slightest hint of their return, but after a minute, there was none. Taking off my helmet, I gasped. There was a large gash in the material. I shuddered to think of what might have happened if I hadn't been wearing it. Looking up at the sky again, I noticed several flying dots above my position. Heart in my throat, I hopped on the bike and began pedalling again. I wasn't sure if that was the birds returning or not, as I sped from the area without hearing any signs of them. But I wasn't taking any chances. As soon as I found a large enough space to land the escape pod, that was it. This was too dangerous; I was going home. I descended for another twenty minutes or so, before I emerged from the mountain trail into a small valley. Valley? Gulch? Canyon? I'd never bothered to learn the actual difference between them; I only knew the different names from video game levels anyway. There wasn't much call for study on the Axiom. The valley had a cave and a small spring, but more importantly, it had flat ground. I went to call for an escape pod, when I suddenly froze. Those mechanical monsters had destroyed the last one as it ascended. Not only could calling down an escape pod bring them on my position, there was no way I could actually leave the planet in it. I couldn't even take the chance. If I brought the birds down on my position here, without any downhill section to augment my speed, I probably wouldn't be able to get away from them. I was trapped.

Week One Progress Report One week in, and time for the progress report. Goal One: Ride 400 km (250 miles) across six weeks: (75/400) 75 km done for the first week. If I do that each week, that'll be 450 km, giving me a nice safety margin. This was achieved through three trips to town. I'll be going into town thrice this week as well, potentially four, and I'll be riding on each of those trips if all goes well. So I should be at 150 by the end of Week 2. Goal Two: Lose 2 kg. I haven't measured this yet. I'll probably weigh myself every 2-3 weeks. Calorie-wise, I've had some good days (mostly bike-riding days) and bad days (mostly non-riding days). Since 25 km of biking burns up approximately 500 calories, the amount of calories below maintenance I eat tends to fluctuate quite a lot. I'm unsure how it'll all turn out in the end. I haven't been particularly strict on myself; if my weight loss is insufficient, I'll just have to restrict myself further. But really, I'm in no huge rush. I'm not fat any more, so as long as I'm losing weight, the rate isn't a massive priority. Still, losing 2 kg would be nice. Goal Three: Save 50% of my income. I'm going to be removing this goal. I get paid at the end of Week 1, 3, and 5, making it very awkward to track expenses over the 6-week period. I'll still be saving money, but doing that on my own. I'll re-distribute the points this week. Life Goal: Program at least 5 hours per week. (2/5) Not good; will definitely have to step it up this week, especially since I'm back at Uni starting Week 3. I have made some good progress during those hours, but I can definitely get more hours in. Side Goal: Give up soft drink. Going well. I haven't bought any more, and I'm going two days at a time without any now. I've only got a little bit left, so one way or another I'll be off it completely very soon. I should have the next story post up within 8 hours or so.

Good to hear! I was getting a bit worried. IIRC, based on the time the first week's challenge was posted, we've got a little less than 24 hours to make it, and so far, only seven of us have arrived. But then I considered that if you count the people who only have a handful of miles to go, that would bring us up to eleven, which is still a pretty large adventuring party. And I expected a few people to bow out in Week 1. Not to blame anyone; 25 miles is a fair distance. I'd be quite hard pressed to do that on foot myself. The important part is that we get a strong and committed group to take on whatever awaits us in the more difficult parts of our quest. So the group itself will be fine, I'm sure. I don't mind a smaller group anyhow.

So I'm curious; how long after a challenge do we have to get revived before we need to use a healing potion or bow out of the adventure? I've noticed that only one healing potion has been used, and I'm not sure if the others have been revived, are waiting on revival, or are simply inactive/forgetful and haven't ticked off their own healing potions. I'm guessing 24 hours? I hope not to have to apply this rule to myself, but prepare for the worst, after all. If it's only going to get tougher from here on out, I may need help by the time our Underdark adventure concludes.

Yeah, same here. Honestly, even without the savings, "having to have it" is a pretty good reason to stop drinking it to begin with. Yeah, my bad. The keys are right next to each other Glad you're liking the book. The accountabilibuddy group is The Order of the Stick. Our dungeon master Hardway takes us through a six-week adventure each challenge, which consists of a series of individual or team-based challenges each week, plus wandering monsters. This week, we had an individual challenge to travel 25 miles to where the adventure begins; easy enough for me and my bike. The wandering monster was to do 4 push-ups for every mile travelled, so I had to do the full hundred. It's great fun; I should add them to my signature. In fact, I'll do that right now.

Haven't had to ride anywhere the last couple days, so I still stand at 50 km for the week. Will be riding in tonight though, if the weather holds up, so I should be at 75 by the end of the day. I also did a hundred push-ups as part of my accountabilibuddy challenge, 8 sets of 10, then 4 sets of 5. Two days later, my shoulders are still voicing their displeasure. I really have to get back into strength training next challenge. As soon as I'm used to riding the bike pretty much everywhere, I want to start again. Biking is great, but it's certainly not the whole picture. I've got two hours of programming done; the Invent With Python book is proving quite useful. Haven't gotten to object-oriented programming yet, but still learning some neat stuff. Finally, I went around 36-40 hours without soft drink. Going for 48 this time around. All in all, things are going quite well.

I'd recommend going with only one of negative pull-ups or chin-ups, or switching between the two each workout, rather than doing both each workout. For pulling, you'll still have dead hangs, rows, and now a pull-up progression, so you're doing plenty. Four pulling exercises, two of which are super similar, is definitely overdoing it. In it's place, I recommend a core exercise. If you really want to go hard on the pulling volume, you could do a hanging leg raise progression.

AFAIK, we all get 24 hours from when the monster appeared, regardless of time zone. I'm Australian, and that's how I figured it worked, even though today is Thursday for me.

Looks like we have a few people who aren't going to see the monster in time. I'm glad we have some individual challenges before any team ones; I'm guessing this is the reason why.

I've got my hundred in, but my arms and shoulders are letting me know quite emphatically that I shouldn't have done so many after having done no serious strength training for months. I really need to get back into strength training.

To the best of my knowledge, healing potions cannot be built up. They are "get out of jail free" cards, and you only get one of them per challenge. They revive you if needed.

That's the usefulness of having a bike in a locomotion challenge! Bring it on

There are ways to get better at pull-ups without actually doing pull-ups. Off the top of my head: Pull-ups with a resistance band. Chin-ups Negative pull-ups Rows - Not really a substitute for pull-up variations, but an excellent accessory to help build up pulling strength.

50 kilometres (31 miles) down! Had a fantastic ride yesterday; the rare double tail-wind. One in, one back. Especially on the way in, I think I would have set a new record if I'd been timing myself. The road tires I bought just before this challenge are definitely working well, too. Funnily enough, I got swooped by magpies today. In Australia, magpies are aggressive birds that will routinely swoop down on cyclists that enter their territory. I've been tagged quite a few times by them, but usually it's just on the helmet. I thought their breeding season was over, but as soon as I write about the mechanical birds that were inspired by the magpies, they're back again! So I guess both Salivanth and my real-life self will be on the receiving end of bird attacks for the near future. Fortunately, magpies are not, to my knowledge, co-ordinated or powerful enough to destroy an airborne vehicle. Though I suppose one could get caught in a plane engine if it wished to give its life for the cause. I should get a minimum of 75 km this week, perhaps 100. Since 75 km per week equates to 450 over the course of the challenge, I'm pretty happy with how it's going. Since I have to ride in for a local Magic: The Gathering tournament (Friday Night Magic for all you Magic players) on Friday, barring some unusual circumstances I'll at least meet my total for the week. As for my other goals, giving up soft drink continues to progress. I've had one glass of soft drink each day for the past two days, and should be having my first no soft drink day soon. I haven't done any programming work yet, but I've done some work in creating a physical prototype for my game. It's difficult because of the sheer amount of information that needs to be displayed; health, status, players, enemies, moves of the players. I've already dropped down from a party of four to a party of three, though I'm unsure if that'll make it into the digital version. That's what playtesting's for! I plan on getting a couple of hours of programming study done tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes. Not planning on programming the actual game until the physical version has been tested, so in the meantime I'll be going through Invent With Python to hopefully gain some insight into how my game's classes should be structured. Progress on goals will be shown weekly, with the exception of the savings and potentially weight loss goals, which will be fortnightly. A week isn't long enough to really get a sense of weight loss, and since I get paid on a fortnightly basis, my savings rate per week naturally fluctuates massively. Per fortnight is more stable. Thanks for reading!

Got the 25 miles done, via the medium of two round trips into town. Fortunately, now I get a couple of days off riding

The post says that revival spells are usually half an hour of yoga/meditation; but in this case, revival doesn't mean anything, since you can't revive someone who's alive, but has simply failed to walk far enough. Hence, the "one hour of meditation" seems to be a special type of druid thing for this week. I assume "half an hour of yoga/meditation" will be a revival spell later in the challenge. That's my interpretation, anyway.

Several hours passed, my excitement and trepidation growing in equal measure. What would I find on the surface? Would I even be able to survive? Would the Axiom actually take me back? As this last question dawned, I began to wonder if I'd made the right decision. Life on the Axiom was boring and unfulfilling, but at least food, shelter and comfort were guaranteed. My resolve was hardened by the knowledge that, at the very least, I could take a look at the surface. Even if I stopped there, I would have achieved more than anyone else on the Axiom probably had in centuries. And then, all of a sudden, we were there. The pod landed with a mechanical hiss, and the door opened. Slowly, I ducked my head out of the pod. Seeing nothing threatening, I wheeled the bike out of the pod, and looked around. I was standing on a decent-sized plateau that the pod had automatically gravitated to. Around me were numerous peaks and valleys, some flying creatures circling a large peak a few miles away. They were too far away for me to make out any details, but they looked bird-like. All around was a reddish-brown earth that I'd only ever seen in my research before. I knelt down and picked up a handful, letting it run through my fingers. This was dirt. A substance that represented everything the Axiom wasn't. This was real. The other thing I noticed was the metal. Scraps of metal and wire littered the landscape, wreckage of machines long dead, some of them covering other, even older machines. It was only then that I realised that machines had nowhere to actually go when they died, here. Not all trash was incinerated. And the machines had been the custodians of this planet for a long time. But even so, to me, it was beautiful. Stretching my legs, I took the bike out for a quick spin around the plateau. After a few minutes, I was getting better at getting a running start and keeping my balance, pedalling slowly around in circles. This would do for now; I'd get plenty more experience as I explored the area, after all. I double-checked my supplies, and sent the pod back up to the Axiom. Its engines roared as it began the laborious journey back to the Axiom, much slower than it had been on the way down as it fought against gravity. It was morning on this region of the planet, so I'd have at least a few hours here before I needed to find shelter. If I didn't find any, I could always bring the pod back down and sleep in that. In the meantime, I could explore for a cave or overhang, sheltered from the rain. That's what people did in survival movies, after all. My plan was foolproof, which just goes to show the ingenuity of a fool. Suddenly, disaster struck. While I'd been ruminating, I'd missed the approach of a swarm of mechanical bird-like creatures. They were about the size of a miniature cleaning robot, or a shorter version of one of my bike's wheels. With bewildering speed, they attacked the slow-moving escape pod. Despite the buffeting, the escape pod kept its course until one of the creatures broke through one of the windows. It flew inside, and the pod began to go berserk as the bird presumably attacked the controls. Then the engines turned off, and the pod began to fall. I watched in horror as it fell faster and faster into one of the valleys below, before landing with a deafening boom. Then I heard a shrill mechanical screech, and looked up at the source. The creatures were looking at me now, and as I stared, they began to dive...

I took the liberty of updating Week 1 of the sheet. If Hardway or Maeghaan want to do something different, feel free.

As mentioned in the FB post, I feel sorry for those that don't have bikes for this one! It's good news for me though. I imagine that there will be other weeks that involve things I don't normally do, which will force me to go outside my comfort zone while other, differently specialised adventurers will simply carry on with their normal routine. So it should all even itself out in the end. One thing to consider for next challenge might be to require different mileage numbers from different modes of transport. One mile of running is considered equivalent to about three of biking, so maybe next challenge there could be a river that goes straight to the location (5 miles swimming), or a longer, meandering route (15 miles walking), but the bikers need to carry supplies for everyone, so they need to go there, drop supplies off, head back, and go back there again. (45 miles of riding)

You could always put them up on Instagram, and if it turns out you can't share Instagram pictures on the challenge thread, upload the ones you want to share to another site.