Jarric 2019 - To Oblivion and Back Again

[Jarric]

The Road to Oblivion

or

 

2019 has got some silly big goals for me. If you've already read @Charlie_Quinn's or @jonfirestar's 2019 road maps you might be bored of seeing this, but this year I plan to qualify for the Obstacle Course Racing World Championships at Nuclear Oblivion in May, and then run them in October.

 

Goal 1 - OCR

Nuclear Oblivion is a lapped 12-14km race, and completion of 3 laps (about a marathon) automatically qualifies you for an Age Group place at the Worlds, whilst 4 laps (about 50k) qualifies you as an Elite. I'll be going for the 4 laps and the Elite qualification, which may or may not be possible, but if I fall short and only qualify Age Group I think I'll be ok with that (providing I've given my all).

 

That's not my only goal for the year, but I have it first as I will be breaking up the year in line with it, and all of my goals will be split into similar phases. Here's the breakdown:

 

Phase 1 - The Road to Oblivion

Challenge 1 - January 7 to February 3
Challenge 2 - February 11 to March 10
Challenge 3 - March 18 to April 14
Challenge 4 - April 22 to May 19 - Oblivion takes place May 19th, giving a perfect end to this phase

 

The focus here will be on building my mileage so that I'm actually capable of running a 50k ultra OCR. Whether I will do it in the 8.5 hour time cap is another matter, but I want to at least stand a chance of going the distance.

 

Phase 2 - Return From Oblivion
Challenge 5 - May 27 to June 23
Challenge 6 - July 1 to July 28
Challenge 7 - August 12 to September 8

Challenge 8 - September 16 to October 13 - OCRWC takes place 11th-13th October, so again this lines up perfectly

 

Having trained for a 50k ultra, I will now be heading towards the OCRWC where the longest race is 13k. Focus for this phase will be on improving obstacle proficiency as all of the obstacles are mandatory completion, and on building speed (I am under no illusions that I can actually compete with the top athletes at the Worlds, or that I will ever get to that level, I just want to put in a showing I'm proud of).

 

Phase 3 - Find a New Goal
Challenge 9 - October 21 to November 17

Challenge 10 - November 25 to December 29

 

I don't know what the focus will be here. With the big goals out of the way I hope I'll be setting my sights on even bigger things, but I don't know what that is going to be yet.

 

 

Goal 2 - Finances

My second big goal for last year was to clear my debt and start saving. I made a sizeable dent in my credit card, but fell short of getting debt free. This is really important to me as I want to own my own home one day and have a big of financial stability, and I get really stressed about my lack of money and pointless debt.

 

Phase 1 of this year will be all about clearing debt - I should absolutely be able to entirely clear my credit card in this time period. I'll be looking to spend less and also reduce household bills. Phases 2 & 3 will focus on building up a pot of savings - I'll explore the shape of this in more detail when I can asses where I am at the start of each phase.

 

 

Goal 3 - Career

My last goal for the year is to push on with my career - I'm not an overly ambitious person and I won't be looking to hop jobs or anything like that, but I really want to be better at what I do. Phase 1 will see me completing the current module of a work related qualification that I have let slide for far too long. Phases 2 & 3 will see other goals linked to work, likely more qualification based but subject to what opportunities arise.

 

And that's it, I'll put together a post now with some more details on my phase 1 goals, and then write my challenge which will take the first steps of those goals. I plan to post copies of all of my challenge intros and wrap-ups here, so I can easily look back and see how I'm progressing on all fronts.

[Jarric]

Phase 1

 

Goal 1 - OCR

So phase 1 of this year is all about getting ready for Nuclear Oblivion, which if I do it right will be a 50k ultra-OCR on May 19th. No surprises then that my goals really all focus around running for this phase. Currently I'm running 4 times per week, with a tempo run, and interval run, a 5k and a long run, and I'll stick with that patterns for as long as it works. This fits in well with Crossfit and climbing, which are the things that make me good at obstacles. 

 

In order for me to map out my runs and give me a bit more of a long-term game plan, I'm going to list below all of the long runs I plan doing in this phase, and where they clash with OCRs that I may well be doing instead. My other 3 runs probably won't change that much over the period, so it's the long runs that are key. I've put two dates for each one, as I may do the long run on a Saturday or a Sunday

 

Challenge 1

5-6/01 - 7 miles

12-13/01 - 13 miles

19-20/01 - 14 miles

26-27/01 - 15 miles

2-3/02 - 16 miles

 

Challenge 2

9-10/02 - 8 miles

16-17/02 - 15 miles

23-24/02 - 16 miles

02-03/03 - 17 miles - Nuts Challenge

09-10/03 - 18 miles

 

Challenge 3

16-17/03 - 9 miles

23-24/03 - 17 miles

30-31/03 - 18 miles

06-07/04 - 19 miles

13-14/04 - 20 miles

 

Challenge 4

20-21/04 - 10 miles

27-28/04 - 19 miles

04-05/05 - Deload TBC

11/05 - Rat Race Dirty Weekend

19/05 - Nuclear Oblivion

 

I am also considering running 4 laps of Nuts Challenge. This would give me a chance at qualifying for the worlds early, and also makes me eligible for attempting 6 laps at Summer Nuts on 1st September, which is another automatic elite qualification if I can do the distance. March 3rd is my birthday and I don't know if putting myself through 4 laps of frozen hell is how I want to spend the day, on the other hand I don't want to put all of my eggs in one basket and this looks like a great plan B. It's only 7k a lap, so the distance is doable, it's just the cold that scares me. I'll have to make a decision on this at January payday.

 

Goal 2 - Finances

The goal for this phase is simple - get out of debt. This is all about spending less and getting chunks off the credit card. Every challenge should have a goal relating to this.

 

Goal 3 - Career

By the end of this phase I plan to have finished my current module for the qualification I'm working towards. I missed the deadline for a piece of coursework over Christmas, which is really unlike me and shows I've not been taking this seriously enough. There's a variety of reasons behind that, but no excuses, I need to get it done. One coursework piece has been passed, so I need to pay for a late submission of the second and get it in, and research, write and submit the third. Again every challenge should have a goal dedicated to this.

[Jarric]

--Placeholder for Phase 2 details--

[Jarric]

--Placeholder for Phase 3 details--

[Charlie_Quinn]

Following. I love the training block plan. This is so organised! 

[deftona]

Following along to watch all kinds of awesome that is bound to follow here  

[Jarric]

Hmm, I never posted the first challenge of the year in this thread... Here we go:

 

 

[Jarric]

So, a very late challenge wrap then :

 

 

 

Nutrition went very well, followed the plan 21/28 days, and it would have been more if it weren't for the fact that I added a tracking goal on top of it at the end. Going to keep up the raw veg bit and the fat bit (seeds and olives) going forward. 

 

 

 

On the alcohol side I basically ended up doing dry January and then drinking the last 3 days of the challenge. Interestingly looking back at my mood throughout January it was pretty dark at times, and it's pretty uncomfortable to read. I think I can safely say that the amount I now drink is not having a negative affect on my health, but that not going out and socialising does have a negative affect. 

 

 

 

I learned some stuff, and mostly stuck to the plan, lets say 13/20XP awarded. 

 

 

 

Running/Rehab went pretty well too. If you can call being injured and unable to run "going well" that is! Got at least near my mileage for the first 3 weeks, and hit all my rehab sessions in the last 2. Let's say 13/15XP.

 

 

 

Climbing goal went OK - I hit all days on 3 weeks, and in total 29/34 total. The ones I missed were because I felt like I was on the verge of injury, and all in all I'm starting to realise that whilst this is making me stronger it doesn't seem a sustainable way to train. 

 

 

 

I didn't track the hangboarding side properly, although I think I hit most sessions, and I still really need to work out how to get it into my routine. 8/10 XP awarded. 

 

 

 

Budget goal wasn't particularly SMART, so it's hard to judge. I do know that not drinking saved me a small fortune, but because that took the pressure off I did care less about sticking to budget. *shrugs* 4/5XP feels right. 

 

 

 

Study went really poorly. Must. Try. Harder. I managed 4 hours studying in 5 weeks out of my planned 20. With deadline time approaching this is not good. 0XP

 

 

 

Forums I hit 26/34 days on here. That was on any thread, not necessarily my own, but that was the point as I knew I'd be busy and wouldn't update this every day. 26/34=76%. *5XP = 3.8XP. Let's be generous and call it 4XP.

[Jarric]

New challenge is up, with a slightly shorter 3 week format:

 

 

[Jarric]

February challenge very much didn't happen, but here's the March-April one:

 

On 3/19/2019 at 12:55 PM, Jarric said:

KISS

Keep It Simple Stupid

 

Last challenge was a flop - I started late and then didn't update after the first week. Not good.

 

Work is mega busy at the moment, and I can't pretend that it's going to let up much before the end of this challenge.

 

But I miss this place, and I feel a bit directionless without the accountability here. That's why I'm running a super simple challenge this time round, with simple daily goals that I can answer "Yes" or "No" to.

 

Rehab - 15XP

I am still having hip issues, and pending seeing a specialist and figuring out what's going wrong I need to keep doing my rehab exercises. I'm not even 100% sure that these exercises are doing anything given that the physio isn't sure what's wrong, but building glute strength for my wear-arse arse can't be a bad thing.

 

Workout - 10XP

I might have mentioned this before, but I'm running an ultra-marathon OCR in 9 weeks (that would be Oblivion). So I should probably stick with the programme in terms of Running and Crossfit. One thing (at least) every day.

 

Budget - 5XP

£50 weekly budget. Stay under it. Simple.

 

And that's it. I can't pretend that I'll post daily or keep up with everyone here, but I'll try to get on as much as I can.

 

[Jarric]

Challenge wrap for March-April:

 

Just now, Jarric said:

I was going to wrap up this challenge on Monday, and it's now Thursday, which is kind of the story of this challenge.

 

Last week ended ok - I got in my Friday Crossfit, my 15 mile (24km) run on Saturday and a 5k on Sunday. Drank a reasonable amount as I went out on Friday with my dad to see an ACDC tribute band, had a couple of afternoon snooker beers and fair few evening beers in front of the TV with WW on Saturday, and a bit with WW and her mum with Sunday lunch. Was a nice weekend all told.

 

Overall for this challenge the goals have taken a bit of a backseat. Well, workouts have been at least 6/7 every week and most of the missed ones had good reasons, so i guess I owe myself about 8XP there. Rehab goal stopped pretty early on while I wait for a better diagnosis. Budgeting goal I got somewhat close to in week 4, but still didn't get there.

 

We've got bank holidays (UK public holidays) here on Friday and Monday for Easter, so yay 4-day weekend! At some point over that I'll get my next challenge posted, which will be my final one leading up to Oblivion.

 

[Jarric]

Aaand we're on the final stretch to Oblivion:

 

Just now, Jarric said:

This year the first of my major goals is Nuclear Oblivion, a 12km lapped obstacle course where I'm hoping to do 4 laps (~48km/~30 miles) and qualify for the Obstacle Course Racing World championships. Nuclear Oblivion takes place on 19th May, which is the last day of this challenge.

 

On the Saturday of week 3 I'm running Rat Race Dirty Weekend, a 20 mile obstacle course, just for a bit of fun.

 

The end of week 2 will be a taper run at 10 miles. The end of week 1 will be my last long run before the events at 19 miles. I ran 17 miles yesterday.

 

So that sets the stage of where we are for the next 4 weeks, Now for some goals;

 

Track Your Workouts - 10XP

My usual plan of a minimum of 7 workouts per week, but this time with a twist - if I didn't write about it it didn't happen. I've fallen out of the habit recently of writing out my Crossfit workouts, and I'd like to get back to that and have a full picture of my running and climbing too.

 

Plan Your Food - 10XP

I read a great Nerd Fitness e-mail yesterday about knowing what you're going to eat tomorrow, and how that planning helps you avoid making bad choices. It sounds interesting and I want to give it a go. And to start, here's what I'll eat tomorrow:

• 1st thing - Glass of whole milk
• Breakfast - 3 eggs, banana, protein shake
• Snack - Apple
• Lunch - chicken, veg and rice
• Snack - WW's homemade lemon cake
• Dinner - Tomato-y sausage pasta
• Snack - Easter chocolate
• Last thing - glass of whole milk

 

Sort Those Finances - 10XP

I got a promotion (and payrise) at work this month, and next month I should get my annual bonus, so it's a good time to think about where I'm putting my money. I'll have weekly goals for this:

• Week 1 - do family budget
• Week 2 - do personal budget
• Week 3 - investigate help to buy ISAs
• Week 4 - Reduce some bills, get pet insurance

 

Check In - 5XP

I'm terrible at keeping up on here, so I'm making it a goal to check in daily, even if it's only for 5 minutes.

 

[Jarric]

August challenge (intro and wrap-up in one post; man I'm organised!)

 

On ‎7‎/‎29‎/‎2019 at 1:05 PM, Jarric said:

Roll The Dice

 

I've been away from the forums for a couple of challenges now, but I think it's high time I got back here. I've been struggling with my hip injury and it's hurting my general motivation to train, so I need to commit to doing the damn rehab exercises and getting strong again.

 

D&D

I've been thinking about D&D quite a bit (ok, a lot... for the past couple of years), and with the introduction of the 5 week challenges I was thinking about what a 5 session D&D campaign would look like. That varies wildly, but it could look something like this:

 

Session 0 - create characters, lay ground rules and set house rules for the game.

Session 1 - the player characters (PCs) get into some trouble, or start a job they were hired for, and eventually defeat an enemy which leads them to a wider plot. They progress to level 2.

Session 2 - the start of a two-part arc, in which the PCs must face the greater challenge they have uncovered.

Session 3 - the second part of that arc, at the end of which the PCs reach level 3, and discover some kind of plot twist which changes the nature of what they know so far.

Session 4 - the PCs investigate that plot twist, eventually uncovering the real truth behind the matter.

Session 5 - the PCs face off against the Big Bad Evil Guy in an epic boss battle.

 

I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this, but I figure I could theme a challenge around the idea of a 5 session campaign, making each session up as I go along.

 

Goals

I want to keep this simple as my first challenge back, so 3 shalt be the number of the goals, and the number of the goals shalt be 3.

 

Rehab - 15XP

Do my stretching/exercising/rolling every damn day. I've got 10 things to do each day, so each day shall be scored out of 10.

 

Run - 10XP

Run as part my home-made running programme. That's 3 runs per week, 1 intervals, 1 tempo, 1 long.

 

Eat Real Food - 10XP

I'd like to lose a bit of my waistline, and hopefully I can do that just by being a bit more sensible with the type of food I eat. I know what real food is, so that's what I'm going to eat. I'll allow two variances from that per week. A variance can be a snack or a whole course, but not a multi-course meal.

 

Week 0

So I've set my ground rules, and what's left for session 0 is character creation. I'll score the above goals, and use those to generate my ability scores. Geeky bit of how that works:

  Reveal hidden contents

Using D&D 5e point buy system, accumulate points to spend on point buy:

 

Score	Cost
8	0
9	1
10	2
11	3
12	4
13	5
14	7
15	9

 

Rehab = +1 point per day or decimal therefore for each activity. Total for the week x 2 for a max of 14.

Run = +1 point per mile, should be a max of about 22.

Eat real food = -1 point for every variance over 2

 

 

This is where I need your help.

I have no idea what kind of character I want to create. Or, rather, I have dozens of ideas, which is actually worse. So let me know what you think would be cool, what races and classes you like. You don't need to know anything about D&D, just tell me what you'd like to see me ramble about for 5 weeks  .

 

 

 

On ‎9‎/‎9‎/‎2019 at 3:18 PM, Jarric said:

Challenge Wrap-Up

This has been an amazing challenge in a few ways, although the goals themselves were far from perfect.

 

Rehab - 15XP

Scores for the challenge (out of 20) were 19, 16, 16, 15, 15, 12. That's actually worse than I thought I was doing. Hitting only 75-80% of the work isn't really enough, and the fact that it declined over the course of the challenge as I lost enthusiasm is worrying

 

This is hard to do when I have busy mornings and busy evenings, so I need to make it a priority and just do it regardless. I'm not going back to the physio for a while and I'd like to not have to for my hip ever, so this remains a work in progress.

 

That said, my hip has been better over the course of this challenge almost than it's ever been before, so we're going in the right direction.

 

11XP awarded.

 

Running - 10XP

I ran 110 miles in the 6 weeks of this challenge - not masses for 6 weeks but that's ok. My scores, again out of 20, were 20, 20, 15, 6, 20, 15. Not consistent, but generally not too bad, and at least i did some running every week.

 

I'm not really focussing on getting faster or running longer right now, it's just a case of being consistent and not getting injured.

 

9XP awarded.

 

Food - 10XP

I had 3 weeks bang on target here, in each of weeks 2 and 4 I was two variances over, and week 5 was the real shocker as I was 4 variances over. I've lost about 5# this challenge and I've definitely not lost any strength, so I think I can say that even with those slips this is working.

 

5XP awarded.

 

Other Stuff

I qualified for the OCR World Championships this month! I had an amazing run at Nuts and felt the strongest I've ever felt on a race. I had some fun with a challenge theme (even if it fell to the wayside fairly early on). And I introduced @starpuck to toad in the hole . It's been a damn good challenge overall.

[Jarric]

On ‎9‎/‎10‎/‎2019 at 1:03 PM, Jarric said:

Query: How did I come to be here, far from others of my race?> 

> 

>> 

Answer: We were performing our work as directed, as normal, when an error was made. I watched the gears fall, shattering the others in our unit, before they faded from vision.> 

> 

I lay in the rubble, beneath cogs and walls and stone, for countless time. I had no orders to act, and so I did not act. I lay there, and I awaited instruction.> 

> 

I could sense that I had been severed from the collective, but I could not comprehend it. The collective was all that existed, so to not be part of the collective was impossible, and I therefore did not conceive of it.> 

> 

After time, a great deal of time, I saw figures approaching. As they came in to view I felt confusion, a feeling I had never conceived to feel, for these were not modrons. I would learn later that two of these creatures were humans, and that the third was a dwarf.> 

> 

One of the humans asked me for a name. I responded that we did not understand the question. She asked me to identify myself, and I confirmed that we were monodrones of Mechanus. She asked me how I identified myself from other monodrones, and I did not understand the question.> 

> 

She named me Cog.> 

> 

I have found that it is difficult for humanoids to understand the importance of that moment. Before I was given my name, I had no sense of self. We were monodrones, there was no individual consciousness. But when I was given a name, we were no longer monodrones. I was Cog.> 

> 

That shift broke something inside me, it was information that I was incapable of processing.> 

> 

The human, Lilia, instructed me to come with her. I followed her home, to her temple. There she cared for me, as best she was able, and I was instructed in the way of The Gentle Flame, Goddess of home and community. It was in this time that I began to learn of my individuality, to understand the concept of being an individual and not just part of a collective. At the same time I took comfort in the community of the temple, of its structure and rules and laws, like and yet unlike my previous home.> 

> 

Over the course of the subsequent years, the acolytes of The Gentle Flame taught me new things. They taught me of order, but they taught me that laws should be used to help people, to protect individuals and protect communities from pain and unrest. And so I became a priest of The Gentle Flame in my own right, an individual in a community of individuals, working together efficiently and compassionately.> 

> 

I understand now that Lilia named me Cog as she felt I was a piece of a machine, a piece which she had removed. But I feel now that I am a Cog in a greater machine, individual and yet part of a whole.> 

> 

---- 

 

So, as some of you might know if you've looked at other Ranger challenges already, I have the privilege of being involved in a dungeons and dragons play-by-post campaign with the wonderful @SheriffWolfpool, @Raxie and @Starpuck, DM'd by the illustrious @DarK_RaideR. I will be playing Cog, a modron, and the little story above is an intro to his character. For those o you who want a better visualisation of modrons, here's the cute versions:

 

And the less cute version:

 

Anyway, this challenge I will be learning to play a construct/robot/cyborg (and learning to play a cleric too!), and I'll post some of our PbP narrative when I get the chance. To learn to play this character I'll need to channel lots of other robot-type characters that I've heard of, which is where my goals come in!

Cog - 10XP

Cog is a modron, and specifically a monodrone. They're single minded, simple creatures, that can only focus on one task at a time. My exercise goal will be to do one thing every day. Most days that will be either crossfit or running, and recovery days (more on this later) will likely be yoga. I will also track my total running mileage for the challenge, because I like large numbers  .

Seven of Nine - 15XP

Seven of Nine (Star Trek Voyager) is ripped from the Borg collective, very much like Cog has been pulled from the collective consciousness on Mechanus. She has a lot of recovering to do as she heals from the Borg implants which were part of her body. In honour of this healing goal I will do my rehab exercises every day. This is slowly working to improve my hip issues, but I can definitely do better. There's 12 exercises in total (2 added since last challenge), so each day gets a score out of 12.

Bender - 10XP

Bender (Futurama) eats and drinks excessively and often. I need to be less like bender, and only eat real food. This goal is the same as last time - eat real food with two variances per week. Drinking beer at home (unless we have people over) counts as a variance. I had some success with this last challenge and lost 5# without losing any strength, even if I didn't stick to it 100%, so it's here to stay.

Lt. Com. Data - 5XP

Data (Star Trek TNG) is analytical and calculated. I'm bringing back an old goal here, a £50 weekly budget for all spending money, as part of my ongoing goal to save funds towards one day owning my own home.

Kryton - 5XP

Kryton (Red Dwarf) is a cyborg butler and loves to clean things. I've just bought a new electric toothbrush and I want to get into the habit of using it daily before bed.

Other Stuff

This challenge exciting things are happening, chief of which is the OCR World Championships, which I qualified for last challenge. That takes place at the end of week 4, and is my main drive for the above. I'll be taking a break from Crossfit in the week leading up to it to make sure I'm in the best shape possible. Other things:

• I'm volunteering at and then running a Tough Mudder at the end of week 1
• I'm hosting a D&D game for @Charlie_Quinn, @jonfirestar and @Rhovaniel at the end of week 2
• I'm going to NYC at the end of week 5, and will be there fore week 0 of next challenge

 

Finally, I should say that I'm on my lunch break and ran out of time to add gifs to my goals. So please, send me you robot, cyborg, android and construct gifs!

 

[Jarric]

OCRWC Race Report

 

Well where do I start? Friday I got up at half 4 to get to the Obstacle Course Racing World Championships (OCRWC) for the literal crack of dawn. I was seriously nervous the day before and that morning, but I had plenty of time to calm my nerves and get registered. The first race was the 3k race, and I was in the first wave of the day at 9am.

 

The 3k race went really well. On all of the races you get an obstacle completion wristband, and you have to complete every obstacle to keep your band. If you lose your band you're allowed to complete the course, but designated "did not complete" in the official results.

 

For the 3k race, I kept my band. Really really happy with that, it's something I didn't think I could achieve, but I got through every rig, monkey bar, ninja ring and everything else on that course. My favourite was "Gibbons", which requires you to make your own monkey rings by putting rods into hanging slots and then swinging between them. It must have taken me 15 attempts to find a technique that worked for me, but once I smashed it!

 

Of course I took a horrendously long time completing it (think 5 times as long as the top pros), and I came 218th out of 243, but I got the 100% completion and that's what matters!

 

Saturday I got a lie in until 5am, and didn't have to arrive until sunrise! Saturday was the 15k race and that was just brutal. My grip was already worn down after the 3k and it just got harder and harder as the race went on. I got nearly to the end with the band, with the help of cheering from @Charlie_Quinn, @jonfirestar and @Rhovaniel, but a few obstacles from the end fatigue got the better of me and I gave up the band. All the remaining obstacles I had done the day before so I knew I could do them, but I just had no energy and no arms less.

 

Sunday I was able to sleep in to half 6, and arrive at the venue just before 9. I had a rather clumsy attempt at the 100m course - wish I'd been able to do it fresh on the Friday as I know I could have done a lot better. It was a fun course though; wish I had the opportunity to practice it.

 

Then we set out for the team race, with Rho on the speed leg, Jon on the strength section, and me running the technical section before we all took on the team section at the end. This was a really fun race, but really tough (especially after the previous couple of days of runs). I kept my band through the technical section, but there was no way the three of us were getting up the final wall so I had to give it up at the last hurdle. Still, we finished a very respectable 33rd in a category of 79, and we had a lot of fun doing it, so no complaints there.

 

I was also due to do the charity fun race on Saturday, but I was knackered, and I whilst I could have dragged myself round I wouldn't have enjoyed it, so I opted to give that a miss.

 

Challenge wise goals are going ok, food over the weekend was "eat as much as possible" to just try and stay fuelled for all of the activity, and money went a bit out of the window but nothing too bad.

 

I took yesterday off work to recover and did lots of stretching. Back to normal today for 4 days, and then on Saturday I fly to the USA!

[Jarric]

September challenge wrap:

 

      On ‎9‎/‎10‎/‎2019 at 1:03 PM, Jarric said:

 

Quote

 

Cog - 10XP

Cog is a modron, and specifically a monodrone. They're single minded, simple creatures, that can only focus on one task at a time. My exercise goal will be to do one thing every day. Most days that will be either crossfit or running, and recovery days (more on this later) will likely be yoga. I will also track my total running mileage for the challenge, because I like large numbers  .

Seven of Nine - 15XP

Seven of Nine (Star Trek Voyager) is ripped from the Borg collective, very much like Cog has been pulled from the collective consciousness on Mechanus. She has a lot of recovering to do as she heals from the Borg implants which were part of her body. In honour of this healing goal I will do my rehab exercises every day. This is slowly working to improve my hip issues, but I can definitely do better. There's 12 exercises in total (2 added since last challenge), so each day gets a score out of 12.

Bender - 10XP

Bender (Futurama) eats and drinks excessively and often. I need to be less like bender, and only eat real food. This goal is the same as last time - eat real food with two variances per week. Drinking beer at home (unless we have people over) counts as a variance. I had some success with this last challenge and lost 5# without losing any strength, even if I didn't stick to it 100%, so it's here to stay.

Lt. Com. Data - 5XP

Data (Star Trek TNG) is analytical and calculated. I'm bringing back an old goal here, a £50 weekly budget for all spending money, as part of my ongoing goal to save funds towards one day owning my own home.

Kryton - 5XP

Kryton (Red Dwarf) is a cyborg butler and loves to clean things. I've just bought a new electric toothbrush and I want to get into the habit of using it daily before bed. 

Other Stuff

This challenge exciting things are happening, chief of which is the OCR World Championships, which I qualified for last challenge. That takes place at the end of week 4, and is my main drive for the above. I'll be taking a break from Crossfit in the week leading up to it to make sure I'm in the best shape possible. Other things:

• I'm volunteering at and then running a Tough Mudder at the end of week 1
• I'm hosting a D&D game for @Charlie_Quinn, @jonfirestar and @Rhovaniel at the end of week 2
• I'm going to NYC at the end of week 5, and will be there fore week 0 of next challenge

 

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I'm not going to do a full rundown of last challenge, as I'm not 100% sure where I ended up, but I did want to acknowledge it.

 

Cog - exercise was good. I need a new running plan to keep that focused, but generally I don't miss many workouts.

 

Seven - rehab has been ok, but not great this challenge. Need to keep working on this as it's definitely working but it's slow going.

 

Bender - I didn't hit this goal much, but I still think I ate better having a goal than not having one at all, so this helps.

 

Data - didn't really stick to this, need to make the effort to take cash out at the start of the week for this to work.

 

Kryton - didn't do badly, but will keep this up next challenge to really cement the habit.

 

Other stuff - I ran the OCRWC and exceeded almost all of my expectations! So so happy. I'll talk about my week zero trip to NYC in my next challenge.

[Jarric]

November Challenge:

 

Quote

 

Last challenge I dropped off the boards a bit towards the end. In an effort to avoid that this time I'm writing this challenge on my phone, and I'll be updating it on my phone to be more accessible.

 

I've also just come back from a week in New York City. I had an amazing time, got to meet @raxie (who is the most lovely person in the world if you didn't know), saw all the sights and did some interesting work related things. I also drank to massive excess, slept very little, and smoked a lot when I was drinking. So I need a bit of a reset on most things.

 

I also only exercised twoce in NYC - a brilliant run around Central Park, and a reasonable workout in a hotel gym. To be honest that's all I expected to get though, and I'm not worried about my chances of falling back into my Crossfit and running routine.

 

So, lets have some goals then!

 

Mobile Updates - 10XP

To keep me on here and keep momentum going I'm going to update, from my phone, every day. I can also come on here from a computer, but when work gets busy I stop doing that so I'm enforcing the mobile thing. Scored out of 7 each week.

 

Rehab Exercises - 15XP

I've had a dodgy hip for a long time, but I'm making progress with exercising it regularly. I have 12 exercises/stretches/rolls to do, and I need to do all of them every day. And to do that I need to plan my time to do it. Scored out of 84 each week.

 

Don't eat like a dickhead - 10XP

Simple enough - eat real food, allowing up to 2 variances per week. Planning those variances will help me. Scored as variances remaining each week - 0 is target score.

 

Budget - 10XP

I take out £50 in cash at the start of the week, and that's what I have as spending money (excluding bills, fuel and that kind of stuff). Again, planning my spending ahead will help here. Scored as money left out of the £50 each week.

 

Brushing - 5XP

I started this last challenge and I just want to cement the habit - use my new electric toothbrush every evening. Scored out of 7 each week.

 

Sun Salutations - 5XP

Something else I wanted to mess with. Last challenge I did a lot of yoga in preparation for races and it really set me up for the day. So I'm going to do a quick sun salutation every morning and see how that makes me feel. Scored out of 7 each week.