WVUengineer vs the spartan ultra beast

[wvuengineer]

Hello Rangers, I come to you( a week late) from an unintended hiatus. I started a warrior, with my training goals to become as strong as my favorite viking, Hafthor Bjornsson, aka The Mountain

 

Now, my course has taken a drastic change, I have signed up to take on the Spartan Ultra Beast, for those who dont know its a 26 mile obstacle race, and I have chosen to do one in colorado, at a ski resort. So technically I am still training to fight the mountain. 

 

This will prove to be the most physically difficult thing I will have ever undertaken. And I am training hard to get ready for it, and it is the reason I have come to the rangers, as this seems more like a ranger style event than a warrior one. 

 

Naturally most of  my goals for this challenge revolve around defeating the ultra beast (All bolded ones are the goals for this challenge)

Training to fight the mountain and the ultra beast:

1) Strength train 3x a week

2) run 3+ miles 3x a week

3) walk 3 + miles a day (pretty easy seeing as how my walk to and from work is 1 mile each)

4) keep a thorough log of workouts/progress

5)WARM UP AND STRETCH PROPERLY TO PREVENT INJURY (I'm really bad at this, and I have definitely ached unnecessarily)

 

obviously besides training right, I need to eat right, which also ties in well with my desire to budget better, and thus came this category

Eating greens while saving green

1a) leave the card at home, only use the $20 cash pulled out at the beginning of each week (AKA stop buying food and coffee)* special dinners coming up are exception this is mainly for during working hours*

1b) bring snacks and a large thermos full of coffee or bring coffee grounds to make coffee at work ( i really like coffee)

2) plan trips to the grocery store only allow for 1 misc. item on the list, to avoid buying unhealthy and over spending( new ingredients are like shiny things to me)

3) review budget at least once a week

 

 

Recently I traveled out of the country for the first time,  to the Dominican Republic and caught the travel bug

Exploring new worlds (kind of)

1) save 5% to 10% of pay check for travel( this kind of helps give motivation to stop eating out)

2)pick a country and start to plan a trip

 

Lastly, I  have been inspired recently to tap into my creative side, and I would like to  try to launch a youtube series and an associated blog, the reason being, is that I have not found any very good series that explains aerospace engineering, and I get a lot of value from video tutorials. At the same time as making a video tutorial, it should help me review, reinforce, and maybe learn new things, by teaching it to an audience(even if it is only one person). At the same time I have ideas for other topics as well, but I figure one at a time.

 I have some ideas, but I really need a name for the channel if anyone has any suggestions

Building and Online presence

1) pick a name for video series/blog

2) film one "episode"

 

i  know this seems like alot, but I feel they are very doable, many of which I have started doing already( been training for a while now), but the supporting quests are not there for example. I have been bad about logging my workouts, and have to rely on memory for reps/weights etc. Other quests here are simpler, and may only take a day if that, yet are quests all the same. 

 

I know i was late to the party(again), but hopefully not too late. Let me know what yall think of my goals.

Sorry for wall of text.

[EricMN]

Wow. Awesome.

 

I did the Beast in Breck last August. The elevation (the resort starts at over 9000 ft And we went to 11.5 during The race) was brutal. I never once caught my breath in two days. The temps were also cold -low- to mid-30s F in the early morning, and they will start you before the sun crests the peak.

 

Good luck. Following with great interest.

[jonfirestar]

Major cudos for signing up to the ultra-beast! Following with great interest!

[wvuengineer]

18 hours ago, EricMN said:

Wow. Awesome.

 

I did the Beast in Breck last August. The elevation (the resort starts at over 9000 ft And we went to 11.5 during The race) was brutal. I never once caught my breath in two days. The temps were also cold -low- to mid-30s F in the early morning, and they will start you before the sun crests the peak.

 

Good luck. Following with great interest.

Im going to spend 4 days out there before the race to try to adjust to the altitude, and to tour boulder as well. I saw some pictures of the mountain and that is probably the most intimidating part. 

[Jedediah The Wolf]

Awesome goals dude! Can't wait for you to start up your channel

[EricMN]

 

On 7/17/2017 at 1:53 PM, wvuengineer said:

Im going to spend 4 days out there before the race to try to adjust to the altitude, and to tour boulder as well. I saw some pictures of the mountain and that is probably the most intimidating part. 

Breck is just a big hill. If it weren't for the altitude, I didn't think it was a particularly difficult course last year, and my understanding is that there is a limit to what they are allowed to do on the hill not only due to the resort restrictions, but environmental restrictions as well.

 

As long as the altitude doesn't knock you on your butt - and I was winded just walking uphill to the starting gate - and you start training on hills, you'll be fine.

[wvuengineer]

17 minutes ago, EricMN said:

 

Breck is just a big hill. If it weren't for the altitude, I didn't think it was a particularly difficult course last year, and my understanding is that there is a limit to what they are allowed to do on the hill not only due to the resort restrictions, but environmental restrictions as well.

 

As long as the altitude doesn't knock you on your butt - and I was winded just walking uphill to the starting gate - and you start training on hills, you'll be fine.

 

Normally I would say hills aren't a problem as I live in West Virginia, but this summer I am in the great plains of Ohio lol. Luckily there are some inclines where I am. I'm curious, but did you follow the Spartan WOD's? Or did you do something else?

 

 

Today I am taking a break from upper body stuff for AMRAP in 30 minutes 100 yd sprints, 30 yd lunges, 20 yd bear crawls.

[wvuengineer]

Well so far so good, Ive been averaging 3.5 miles walking everyday, and have one strength training day, and one running day done this week. Today I took it easy, because I am pretty sure I pinched a nerve, as the past few days my left ring and pinky finger have felt tingly like they were asleep. I have been heating, massaging, and taking anit-inflammatory for it so far, to little effect.

 

I have only used 7 dollars cash so far this week for "eating out" (coffee 2 days, and a snack today). I have been bringing in coffee grounds to make coffee, and drinking more water. This isnt too bad, considering I have been doing intermittent fasting for the past few weeks (though today I couldnt focus so I got a small thing of hummus as a snack, which helped immensely). 

 

My gf and I are currently trying to decide what country to go to, possibly for christmas. I would like to see the Scandinavian countries, but it might be a tad cold

 

I am struggling to pick a good channel name. I just cant think of any that are original or catchy. I want my channel to provided tutorials on rocket science and space. Do you guys have any ideas?

[Jedediah The Wolf]

The Rocket Man! Also, how is your challenge going bro

[wvuengineer]

On 7/21/2017 at 11:51 PM, Jedediah The Wolf said:

The Rocket Man! Also, how is your challenge going bro

Sorry for the delayed response.

No channel yet, but I have purchased a domain and am starting to set things up. I would share, but its lacking any real content yet, just me toying with the visuals and learning stuff, maybe by Friday.  Jk, the link is astronautically.com, I am still working on it, so if you want to check it out and offer up advice feel free. The videos will be named as such.

The challenge is going well, 

Training to fight the mountain and the ultra beast.

Training continues, with strength training 3x a week, and cardio the other 3 days, however the cardio has shifted from longer runs to sprints. Sometimes when its hot I miss the longer runs, because then I atleast get some shade... 

As mentioned before I believe I have pinched a nerve, so I am making an appointment in the morning to get it checked out, as nothing I have done has worked

Eating green while saving green.

 So far so good, I have been bringing in coffee to make in the office, however I still allow myself a couple times a week to go to the coffee shop here, as it gets me out of the office, and its a nice change of environment to work

Exploring new worlds.

 So, its been decided that I am going to travel all next summer, I am currently assesing the costs of either trekking across to different national parks in the us, or traveling europe. 

That aside, my GF and I have decided to go to Canada this fall, near Niagara falls, as well as for a concert. It is a very doable trip, as it is only 6 hours from WVU.

Building an online presence

 Name Picked! Astronautically.com is it, I am currently planning my first video, which is going to take some time, as it turns out I dont really know how I am going to film this, or edit it. Oh well, I have the domain, and can take this one step at a time.

[Jedediah The Wolf]

Awesome work bro! The piece of advice I have is to maybe change the background to a scene with a bit more color in it. Here is an example...

[Jedediah The Wolf]

Also, something that would be cool with your channel and domain could be live streams of solar eclipses and events!

[Jedediah The Wolf]

How are ya doing bro?

[wvuengineer]

On 7/26/2017 at 0:08 PM, Jedediah The Wolf said:

Awesome work bro! The piece of advice I have is to maybe change the background to a scene with a bit more color in it. Here is an example...

 

On 7/26/2017 at 0:09 PM, Jedediah The Wolf said:

Also, something that would be cool with your channel and domain could be live streams of solar eclipses and events!

 

Thanks on the background advice, my plan is to put up my first blog post tonight after work. I did a little bit of format changing and have a sample logo now(on the welcome page) 

 

Including livestreams shouldnt be too hard, and that could be useful in the future when i am filming.

 

 

[wvuengineer]

On 8/2/2017 at 1:00 PM, Jedediah The Wolf said:

How are ya doing bro?

I'm doing ok, my internship has been wrapping up and its been kinda hectic, hence the sporadic updates, and unfortuanately it has taken a toll on my challenge as well.

I have been eating out every other day now, but healthy choices though(salad base instead of rice at bibibop, my new favorite restaurant, and bunless burgers etc) 

However my training is going great*. I feel extremely strong, weighted pull ups, flipping tractor tires, burpees/long jump for 100 yds. 

*my pinched nerve is either subsiding or im getting used to it, either way I'm seeing a doctor when I return to school (cheaper). forearms hurt sometimes during pullups but 2 days off from arms should help

 

I am doing research/ writing a draft right now for my first post. I am still trying to figure out how to film the videos, format wise and if i need new equipment. I have been watching lots of tutorials on film editing and have some software to play with (Hit Film Express). Unless the channel takes off, i probably wont invest more than a couple hundred dollars to start

[Cheetah]

When is the Spartan?

[wvuengineer]

5 hours ago, Cheetah said:

When is the Spartan?

August 26, 645 AM

[Elastigirl]

Way to go on the challenge. It is hard to eat  healthy while eating out. Woot for making good choices