Jarric

Yesterday was a good day. Went to the gym in the morning - bench press, rowing, ring rows, toes to bar, dumbbell hang power cleans, and wall climbs, so all pretty easy on the knee. After that I didn't leave the house all day, so the knee got a proper rest. I managed a little sketching whilst watching a training video, and spent a bit of time stretching my calves and quads. Totally blanked on rolling my shoulders though. Food was tracked - I made an exceptionally high calorie persian lamb stew with kateh (persian rice with a lot of oil to make a fried crust). So a very high calorie day thanks to that. Teeth were done in the evening. Failed the no spend goal as I ordered a wall calendar that I suddenly decided I really needed for my office.

It feels fine at the moment. It's really hard to judge, it felt fine all day yesterday, but it only hurts when I walk or run and the most walking I did yesterday was from my frint door to my car. But the walk to work this morning felt fine, so that's really positive. Going to try a short run tomorrow morning and see how it feels. I also found a particularly disgusting knot in my calf this morning while foam rolling it, so I'm going to work on that and see if it helps.

Late to get to this, but I'm really glad you've spoken to a doctor. If you are in pain, that's important and it's something that needs to be sorted out. And even if you manage to convince yourself the pain might all be in your head, in that case you are still in pain, and it still needs to be sorted out. I might be way off base here, but I feel like you don't want to complain or make a fuss, so you second guess whether you're injured enough to really warrant talking about it. Whether I'm right or wrong, I wanted to say that you are important, what you're feeling matters, and it's ok for you to take up space. You do not need to feel embarrassed, or like you're 'just making a fuss', for making sure you're treating your health as a priority. I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree with your dad here; you are so strong Rho. And you've got so much stronger over the time I've known you, both physically and mentally. I'm always impressed when I see you at a race, or hear about your crazy walks and multi-day canoe adventures. None of us here are going to become process athletes, but we can all strive for growth, and you have definitely grown in the time I've known you.

Hi all, does anyone know how to get RSS feeds working? I clicked the 'subscribe to RSS' button in the 'content I follow' feed, but the link doesn't seem to work with my RSS reader. ETA: this is the link that the RSS button gives me: https://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/discover/3.xml/&member=48718&key=27a239ef922753f58d25d4d9a7213b05

Week 4 stats The decisionist: 7/7, but no extra credit for staying under budget The muscle: 6/7 The face: 7/7, with extra credit for brushing my teeth standing on one leg The cartographer: 2/4 The hoardsperson: 4/7 I'm not going to dwell on last week too much. I did write myself a running plan to take me up to the end of June, as I've now booked that 25 mile race for 1st weekend of July. Then I got excited and bought two pairs of running shoes while they were on offer, so that was one of my spending days last week. I only slightly missed my calories by 283 over for the whole week, so weight loss is still pretty on track. Edit: I did finish shading my grick last week, so here's that. It's very much a copy of the pose in the original D&D art: Week 5 So far week 5 has been pretty tough. I went out for a run in my new shoes on Tuesday and fucked up my knee. I got 2 miles in and thought "this doesn't feel great...". By 4 miles in that turned into "fuck this hurts," and I had to walk/limp the remaining 2 miles back home in the cold. I spent the day feeling sorry for myself, but also having a lot of fun theory crafting Pathfinder 2e characters for our next campaign (we've decided to run through Abomination Vaults, which is a highly-lethal mega dungeon and I'm really excited for it). Yesterday I was in town for a training/networking thing all day, which meant a bit of walking about so I couldn't keep off the knee. It was a really interesting day, but the trains were fucked on the way home which added another hour to a usually 90-minute journey. By the time I got home I was very done with everything. I even missed brushing my teeth for the first time this challenge. I've also been feeling a bit sick, so I've been eating a bit more. I think that's the right call, even though it's very unlikely I'll hit my calorie goal this week. No art has been done, but I still have time to catch up to hit the goal this week. I've only rolled my shoulders once, though I spent half the day on Tuesday rolling my legs to try and improve the knee that doesn't actually count for this. I've also spent money every day - new laces for my new shoes, a bottle of diet coke when I was feeling shitty Tuesday, and the entry fee for Man vs Mountain yesterday (it needed to be yesterday to get a 20% discount, so it was the right call at least).

Sounds like an excellent reason to have a couple of meals off and enjoy yourself. Good call

Hope your first class goes well today!

I guess the key word there is 'moderate'. You've got a ton on your plate at the moment, and it'd be totally unreasonable to do a ton of work on personal stuff on top of that. I'd count anything you can do at all at the moment as a massive win. I hope you get more, trained up night workers soon, so that work can become a lot more manageable.

This sounds like a good thing? Like, if it was incredibly fun, it would be harder to stop taking a break. That's seriously impressive stuff; definitely keep in mind what you've achieved already here.

01/01/2024 - 174.4lbs 08/01/2024 - 172.0lbs 15/01/2024 - 170.9lbs 22/01/2024 - 169.2lbs 29/01/2024 - 169.0lbs Well, I was right - this week was almost bang on target for calories, and I've only seen a 0.2lb drop. At least it's not a surprise :lol: One thing that has helped is changing my lunches. When I get a chance I take leftovers for lunch, but when I've been busy I've just been filling a lunchbox full of fruit and veg, which is much more filling at lower calories then going to get a baguette from Greggs.

As someone who's got their runs planned out until July, I very much support this line of thinking. You can always tweak things if they're not working, but just having a plan and not having to think about what you're going to do and when makes it so much easier to be consistent (for me at least).

A bit of a spendy week this week, though I don't regret it. Tuesday I went for a haircut, which was pre-booked. Thursday was payday, so Friday night WW and I went out for tapas, which was wonderful. We don't do it very often, and it was an evening well spent. Then Saturday, after a couple of hours writing a running training plan, I went and spent £120 on running shoes. Intellectually I think it was the right move - they're exactly the shoes I want, they were half price (two pairs at £60 each), I would have to buy new ones when my current onces wear out anyway, and I won't get them cheaper than this again. So logically it's a good call, but it's also a chunk of money I don't have to chuck on a credit card. Things are tight at the moment, and both my main accounts will be in overdraft by the end of the week. That's not really a problem; I have savings available and I'm choosing not to use them because it reduces my interest if I access them, but being this tight to the wire makes me feeel very stressed.

I like both of those theories, particularly the second one makes sense. Thank you mate.

Yeah, this is a half marathon improvement programme, so it's got me doing longer workouts and longer intervals. Though they're also slower, so it's a mixed blessing. I thought I'd hate these pyramid workouts; I've very much a long slow distance kind of runner, so I'm pleasantly surprised to enjoy them!

This describes every educational establishment I have ever attended

Seems entirely reasonable - spending on a good working environment is an investment worth making. Can you get the spending back on the rails for the rest of the challenge, to retroactively recover the money for the speaker?

I hope that times get much less interesting for you as soon as possible; sounds like you've had one hell of a week. Also...

Stats at Friday - week 4 day 5 The decisionist: 5/7 The muscle: 4/7 The face: 5/7 The cartographer: 1/4 The hoardsperson: 2/7 It's been a few days since I updated, let's see... Calories have been tracked. Last night I went out with WW for post-payday tapas. We had a lovely meal and a few beers. That was obviously high calorie, and I'm not right on the cusp of my calorie goal for the week being possible. If I can have a low calorie day today it might still be possible. That was also a day off for my no spending goal, but I did make a point to spend no money before we went out (even if i picked up a couple of extra beers on the way home). I've mostly been good with rolling my shoulders, it was only yesterday that I totally blanked on it (I blame the beer!). Art has been less good; I haven't really been thinking about it. I did work on a drawing of a grick on my day off on Wednesday, might try and shade it tonight before I share it here. Teeth brushing is going fine - is it weird that I think making the goal doing it standing on one leg is helping? Crossfit's been going well - some days better than others but I managed a 50ft. yoke carry at 215kg (473lbs), which I'm fairly sure must be a PB. This morning I went for a run and then bouldering. I've done the same ridiculous interval run a couple of times now, which is: 1 mile warmup Speed intervals (10k pace) of 1/16 mile, 1/8 mile. 1/4 mile, 1/2 mile, 3/4 mile, 1 mile, 3/4 mile, 1/2 mile, 1/8 mile 1/16 mile, each with 1/4 mile rest between them 1 mile cool down Total: 8.25 miles Or, if you're metrically inclined: 1,600m warmup Speed intervals (10k pace) of 200m, 400m, 800m, 1,200m, 1,600m, 1,200m, 800m, 400m, 200m, each with 400m rest between them 1,600m cool down Total: 13.2km Either way, it's a big one, but oddly I'm really enjoying it for some reason. I also feel like I'm getting faster too. Tomorrow is a 10 mile (16km) session at pace, so we'll put it to the test. This afternoon I might write myself a running plan - my current one ends at the end of February, but I'm pretty convinced that I'll be running a 25 mile trail race in the summer and I'm exciter to start getting ready for that. On the other hand, I might just play Baulder's Gate all day!

It's pretty amazing isn't it?

I'd second this; it's quick to prep and it's so nice to come home to a warm meal and a house that smells of stew. I'd even stick all of the veg in the pot, so that I don't have to cook anything on the side.

This is always going to be a bit of an individual thing - there's plenty of studies on protein intake, but they can only tell you what is ideal for a population average, not what is ideal for your specifically. You've said that, as far as you can tell, what you're doing is working. I'd keep monitoring that, and if it keeps working then you're probably doing fine. Or you could experiment with a little more protein, and document any changes in trends to see if it helps or not. There will come a point where your body is using all of the protein it can possibly use, and increased protein won't make a difference, though judging by the levels you've mentioned you're probably not there yet. This is quite a good, in-depth article on protein if you want a more scientific opinion: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/barbell-medicine-protein-recommendations/

I don't tend to plan like this, but very much interested is seeing how others do it. My main strategy is just to make massive meals, and then have the leftovers for lunches on subsequent days. That sucks. On the bright side, at least you have the savings to cover unexpected costs, even if that's not how you want to spend them. Think how much worse it would be if you hadn't had the foresight to put some more away for the future.

Honestly, I don't imagine many people here would make that connection. I very much appreciate you doing so though.

This looks like a thing that might be useful for me - will have to dig into it further. Oo, now you're making me want to buy it! Sounds really good though, glad you liked it. I find my feet hurt a lot more when I'm standing around than when I walk a lot, thought that might just be me.

It's not even the only one (there are two piers - one it's in great shape...)