[Jarric]

2022 Road Map

 

Usually I start a year by making a roadmap for the year, and then create my first challenge with that roadmap in mind. This year is no different, but rather than running a battle log for my roadmap I want it at the top of every challenge so I remember what I'm trying to do (looking back over my 2021 roadmap just now I was surprised to find out what some of my goals were!).

 

Goals for 2022

I've been trying to decide what my goals should be for the year, and that's proving quite difficult. I have the option to enter a few endurance races - I'll be doing Rat Race Dirty Weekend that clocks in at 20 miles, and then there's Nuclear Oblivion Extreme (6.5 hours), Nuclear Oblivion Maxx (13 hours). I could add in Europe's Toughest Mudder (12 hours) and even Quarry Events Longest day (16 hours 38 minutes). The trouble is I don't know if I really want to do endurance events; they're really hard work! At the same time I don't know what I would want to focus on if not that; there was talk of the Spartan European Championships being held in the UK this year, but I can find precious little information about that at the moment.

 

With that said, I can always decide these goals later in the year. This arbitrary change of date doesn't have to be the time that I plan to do something cool in the future, so if I do find something that really captures my imagination I'll add it here.

 

The 5 pillars

So I don't really have any big goals in the same way as I had in previous years. But I've been thinking recently about what's important to me, and I worked out that it falls quite well into 5 pillars. And then I worked out that I could map the 5 pillars to RPG stats, which made it much more exciting. So my goal for the year is to advance as much as possible in the following:

 

Exercise (Strength) this includes everything I do physically - climbing, OCR, lifting, crossfit, running etc. I really enjoy seeing progress in all of these areas, and as long as I stick with them I'm bound to improve. I couldn't really separate what would fall under STR and what would fall under DEX, and I don't think it's really a useful distinction for the kind of things I do, so I just chucked everything under STR.

 

Nutrition (Constitution) this is about putting the right things in my body (you heard!). That includes food that fuels me well, but also things like moderating caffeine and alcohol intake, and generally balancing anything else I consume.

 

Creativity (Charisma) being creative is really good for me, and it's a side of myself I want to foster. That includes drawing, playing music, and writing. I still want to write and publish some basic D&D stuff, so hopefully I can incorporate that at some point.

 

Self-care (Sanity) this is really just about doing the basic stuff that I know keeps me ticking over - cleaning my teeth, cleaning and tidying my house, keeping in touch with friends. Really basic stuff, but it has such an impact on the way that I feel, so it deserves its own category. Arguably I could have stuck with core D&D stats and put this under WIS, but SAN makes more sense to me for this goal. Also, I'm a super low-WIS person; I have very little awareness a lot of the time, and it's not something I'm really interested in working on (or even know how to work on) right now.

 

Learning (Intelligence) I feel like it wouldn't ne Nerd Fitness without an INT goal. I want to get through the professional qualifications I'm doing (which feels easier said than done right now, as I've somehow ended up working on three units concurrently). I also just love learning things. I'd like to get back into learning French, which I did a good chunk of on Duolingo for a while last year. Really, all learning is good.

 

Under the hood

The plan is that my goals for each challenge will have stats assigned to them, and over this course of this year I'll try and get each of these stats as high as possible. I'll start everything at 0, and hopefully by the end of the year I'll have a decent looking stat array. To tie this in with my previous format, I'll be looking at levelling up backwards compared to most systems. Every stat point will be equivalent to 5XP under my old system, and every 20 stat points I will level up. That should mean I can gain 3-5 levels in a year, which feels about right.

 

I don't have to hit every stat every challenge (though I am for the first challenge of the year as it happens). If I want 3 STR goals one month or need all my goals to be SAN based another month, that's all fine; it'll work itself out over the course of the year.

 

Muscle Wizard: Origins

 

I started out last year with some muscle wizard challenges, inspired by Guglug, the half-orc wizard who works as bouncer at the Fiery Grog Tavern. He's even my current profile picture.

 

The trouble with that is that Guglug is a big, burly half-orc, working at being a wizard. That's the total opposite to me; I have the nerd bit down, and it's the muscle bit I'm working hard at! So this challenge is the start of my becoming the muscle wizard.

 

Run 3 times per week [+3 STR]. I've decided that I'm going to commit a bit more to crossfit for the next few weeks. I'm not sure if that's a particularly good plan for long-term training, but I'm just enjoying it more than running right now. That means changing from 3 to 4 crossfit sessions per week, and reducing from 4 to 3 runs.

 

Doing that means that the 3 runs I get in are even more important, so I'm making them the goal. Usually runs will be Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday, and possibly will comprise a drills session, hill session, and long run respectively.

 

Calories - 600 x 4 x 8 [+2 CON] I don't feel up to tracking calories too exactly at this point, but I came up with a plan last year that just might work. Estimating my calories as best I can, I'm going to aim for 600 calories per meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and 600 calories worth of snacks throughout the day. That's 2,400 calories per day, 7 days per week.

 

The 8th day of the week is beer . There's no restriction on when I drink, but I'm aiming for no more than 2,400 calories of beer over the week (about 10 UK pints, 12 US pints, or 5.7 litres). Adding that to my 2,400 of food per day gives me a daily average of ~2,743 and, if I'm at all accurate, that will lead to a reasonable amount of weight loss.

 

Of course, I'm estimating calories, not recording them formally, so I might be well out, but just the mindfulness towards eating and drinking will still be helpful. I'll score my days based on if I feel I've got it about right. I don't have too much weight to lose, and it's not a priority, but if I could shed 5lbs over the challenge that would be nice.

 

Creativity every day [+2 CHA] I don't mind what it is, whether I do a little doodle in a sketch book, or play with a bit of digital drawing, if I pick up my guitar and strum out a couple of chords, or even write a little narrative on here. I'd like to work on the D&D adventure I'm writing up; that would be good. Hell, this could even be prep work for my own D&D game. It doesn't have to be much, but I want to do something.

 

Revise 4 x 30 minutes [+2 INT] I've got an exam in late February, which is a re-take of an exam I failed last year. I fully do not want to have to re-take this again (not least because it's bloody expensive), so I want to get in 2 hours' study time every week outside of working hours. I've split it into 4 x 30 minutes as that seems more manageable somehow.

 

Teeth brushing twice daily [+1 SAN] This is something that I do better when I'm accountable for you guys about doing it. It's also inextricably linked to my mental health and, though I've never figured out where the cause and effect lies, I'd like to think sticking to this will stop me spiralling when I'm having a bad time.

 

Right, that's all the things; if you've stuck with this post for this long then good on you! Lets go and lift some heavy shit.

 

ETA: This is apparently my 51st challenge on the forums. I'm hugely grateful for all the support I've received over the last 50 challenges. Here's to the next 50!

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

I really like the concept of an 8 day week for calories.

[deftona]

I am a big fan of beer getting it's own day of the week and I kinda want to jump in on this too. 

[Jarric]

1 hour ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

I really like the concept of an 8 day week for calories.

 

Thank you! I'm hoping it will be easier than worrying about varying calories from day to day.

 

55 minutes ago, deftona said:

I am a big fan of beer getting it's own day of the week and I kinda want to jump in on this too. 

 

Yes, join me on beer day! Not the healthiest day of the week, but it's going to happen so I might as well plan it.

[Jarric]

Thursday - Week 0, Day 4

Yesterday was a good day. In the morning I went out for a run, just an easy 4 miles, which was nice. Work was alright - things are pleasingly quiet this week which gives me a bit of a chance to catch up on stuff.

 

In the evening I posted this challenge, and then spent the rest of the evening browsing the forums and drinking weird beer in front of the tv. It was a really nice evening.

 

Friday - Week 0, Day 5

Today has been a good day so far. Had Crossfit first thing, and as it's the last day of the year our coach decided to give us 'Murphish':

 

  1 mile run, then

  20 rounds:

        1 deadlift

        5 pullups

        10 pressups

        15 air squats

  Then another 1 mile run 

  45 minute time cap

 

I went for 120kg (~264#) on the deadlifts, and got 12 rounds and 2 reps before the time cap. It was actually surprisingly good fun! The pressups killed me though; everything else is ok but pushups are just so hard.

 

I worked this morning; had to sort out some last minute bits for a couple of colleagues who have the week off.

 

This afternoon I went bouldering with Hopalong and his brother. When I got there it was absolutely packed, and I definitely don't feel as comfortable in big crowds as I did a couple of years ago. It wasn't mega productive thanks to the aforementioned Crossfit WOD, but it was good fun once the place quietened down.

 

Now I'm off to get ready to go to a NYE party at The Captain's house. That'll be another fairly large crowd, but at least I'll know most people, and it should be a fun night.

[Kestrel Grey]

A big fan of your 2022 goal setup. I might borrow it at some point - it's hard to make a yearly plan when you aren't sure what events you want to go for. 

[Harriet]

Your challenge looks really well planned, and of course the eight day of the week is beer. Of course it is. I also love the muscle wizard (gains mage? hypertrophenchanter, squat warlock, sorcerer of strength?)

[Rhovaniel]

 

Lurki ahem, following!

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Oi! You haven't posted all year long.

[Jarric]

On 12/31/2021 at 5:27 PM, Kestrel Grey said:

A big fan of your 2022 goal setup. I might borrow it at some point - it's hard to make a yearly plan when you aren't sure what events you want to go for. 

 

Borrow away! Yeah, it's definitely easier to plan a year around fixed events, but I don't trust anything planned more than 3 days in advance to happen any more!

 

6 hours ago, Harriet said:

Your challenge looks really well planned, and of course the eight day of the week is beer. Of course it is. I also love the muscle wizard (gains mage? hypertrophenchanter, squat warlock, sorcerer of strength?)

 

Thank you! I love those! How about witchlifter? Swolecaster? There's got to be a pun on necromancer, but I haven't got to it yet.

 

59 minutes ago, Rhovaniel said:

 

Lurki ahem, following!

 

 

Good to have you Rho

 

 

9 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Oi! You haven't posted all year long.

 

Good shout, you're absolutely right! Today is the first day of the challenge though, and so I'll give a proper update later.

[Jarric]

Friday - Week 0, Day 5

I forgot to mention in my last update that I got out the guitar and strummed a few chords on Friday. I'm not counting score for zero week, but as it was goal relevant I thought I'd mention it.

 

The Captain's NYE party was fantastic - he's got such a lovely group of friends and he and Mermaid put a lot of effort into making everyone happy. I don't envy them having to organise it all, but they did a great job. There was a lot of drinking, smoking, singing and dancing, just as the last day of the year should have.

 

Saturday - Week 0, Day 6

Saturday was a good day. WW and I had our standard New Year's Day plans - eat party food, watch TV, and play computer games. WW wasn't feeling well - she hadn't come to the NYE party as she'd had a horrible headache and that was continuing, so it was a pretty subdued day. We watched all of World's Strongest Man, which is amazing lifting inspiration to watch whilst eating mozzarella sticks, pigs in blankets, and an entire Oriental party selection.

 

Sunday - Week 0, Day 7

Yesterday I went climbing with Hopalong and MG in the morning. Given the ridiculous workout and climbing on Friday, and the copious amounts of beer and party food since, it was not my most successful climbing session. It was still good to go though, and it's as much about having a nice time with mates as it is about the exercise.

 

In the afternoon we went to my parents' house for a late Christmas dinner, having been at WW's parents on actual Christmas. That was a nice day, and it was good to see my parents and my grandma (though also a bit stressful, as seeing family often is). We had a massive roast goose dinner and I drank about a bottle of red wine.

 

In the evening WW and I played Northgard, drank beer, and ate more party food for about 5 hours. I'm really loving Northgard at the moment, and having WW and I playing co-op in the same room (me on the PC, her on the laptop), is loads of fun.

 

I'm realising that none of this sounds very much like a fitness challenge! But today is day one of the challenge proper #mondaystarter4lyf #mondayisthefirstdayoftheweek.

 

It's a bank holiday in the UK today, so the plan is to use it to sort myself out a bit and generally get prepared for the year before I go back to work tomorrow.

[DarK_RaideR]

[Jarric]

11 hours ago, DarK_RaideR said:

 

[Jarric]

Monday - Week 1 Day 1

Let the challenge commence!

 

Yesterday was a good day. Went to Crossfit first thing (thankfully at 8am, rather than the usual 6.30, as it was a bank holiday). We had a fun session, starting with a medley of deadball/sandbag clean and press - basically we lined up deadballs from 15kg (~33#) to 70kg (~154#), and walked down the line cleaning and pressing until we could lift no more, then going back to the start until we'd done 3 rounds.

 

After that we had dumbbell bench press and farmers' carries. I felt so damn weak, but I guess doing 'murphish' on Friday, climbing Friday and Sunday, and drinking copious amounts of alcohol whilst eating endless party food will impair performance somewhat.

 

WW and I spent the next 4-5 hours tidying the house. Well, mostly what I did was 5 full loads of washing up, because we're absolute slobs and every dish, plate, and pan we own needed washing. Everything looks much better now, though there's still plenty more house to clean.

 

When we got bored of cleaning WW and I got back on Northgard for a few hours until dinner time. We had a baked camembert for dinner, and then I jumped into Northgard again while WW watched old Taskmaster re-runs. Fortunately I finished my level about 15 minutes before bedtime, which gave me a chance to do a bit of drawing before bed. I spent a little bit of time reading The Silver Way and thinking about picking up the drawing exercises in there again, and then did some silly doodles which is more than enough for my creativity goal.

 

Food was good: An avocado and two fried eggs on toast (about 700 calories), because of the larger, late breakfast, I just had a protein shake, a couple of bits of fruit and a KitKat for lunch (about 500), and the baked camembert and veg for dinner (about 500 again). Two glasses of milk, morning and night, and 300 calories worth of chocolate fudge cake baked by WW's sister rounded out the day on target.

 

Teeth were done, nothing for the revision or running goals today.

[starpuck]

I love so much about everything here.

 

Firstly - the term Pillars.  Man.  That struck me so hard.  It gave weight to what's behind each one.   I might adapt this for myself because it's just so rock solid.  (That was almost word play, but I'll let it slide...)    Having your why at each challenge seems like a good idea.   I feel like maybe I need to refocus on my why.   Word it out.  Thanks for the tip there too.

 

Then, creative stuff ticking all the same boxes as mine, hah!   And the Northgard!  SO GOOD.    I am so flipping excited to follow along on this!

 

[Jarric]

21 hours ago, Starpuck said:

I love so much about everything here.

 

Firstly - the term Pillars.  Man.  That struck me so hard.  It gave weight to what's behind each one.   I might adapt this for myself because it's just so rock solid.  (That was almost word play, but I'll let it slide...)    Having your why at each challenge seems like a good idea.   I feel like maybe I need to refocus on my why.   Word it out.  Thanks for the tip there too.

 

Then, creative stuff ticking all the same boxes as mine, hah!   And the Northgard!  SO GOOD.    I am so flipping excited to follow along on this!

 

 

Thank you! It's good to have you! Some of your goals inspired mine so I'm not surprised we're ticking some of the same boxes.

 

Also pretty sure I got Northgard on your recommendation, so thank you very much for that! We should play together sometime if we can make the timezones work (though I'm pretty rubbish if I'm honest!)

[Jarric]

Yesterday was a good day. A challenging day, but still a good day.

 

I woke up when my alarm went off at 7. This was a problem, because my gym session started at half 6. Clearly I forgot to change my alarm after the bank holiday back to normal working week time.

 

I was annoyed at missing the gym, but I dragged myself out of bed and did 15 minutes of yoga so I could at least say I'd done something with my morning.

 

Breakfast was three boiled eggs, a banana, and a protein shake. Well, most of a protein shake, some of it I managed to chuck across the floor, and my brand new shoes, when I got into the office. That was annoying! About 600 calories, some of which were shared with the floor .

 

Lunch was a Gregg's ham and cheese baguette and a carrot, about 600 calories. I had a nectarine as a snack mid-afternoon.

 

Work was good - was pretty chilled out as we chatted and caught up with people, but I still got a reasonable amount done. I stayed late at work so that I could walk WW home, but for some reason her text didn't come through, so she got home before me and I stayed late for no reason. For those of you sensing a theme here yes, that was annoying.

 

I was irritated and hungry when I got in, so I finished off WW's sister's chocolate fudge cake. For dinner I made a potato and onion omelette with cheese, and somehow it was bloody excellent. I cooked it through slowly, more like a Spanish tortilla than a French omelette, and put it under the grill at the end to finish the top and brown the cheese. We had it with a crusty roll, for about 600 calories again.

 

After dinner we took lateral flow tests. We hadn't been able to get hold of any for ages because there's shortages here. I was on the phone to my dad when I glanced down and saw that WW's test was positive! Not a good end to the day; she now has to isolate at home for the next week or so, and go for a PCR test. On the plus side she hasn't been particularly ill, it's just annoying that she can't go anywhere. I apparently don't have the 'rona, but I'll keep testing every day and see what happens.

 

I'd saved enough snack calories for my evening glass of milk, about 150, but decided I'd rather have a snack. So I worked out and weighed how many chocolate coins I could have. 3. 3 chocolate coins have the same calories as a whole glass of whole milk. I ate them anyway, and hit my calories for the day.

 

Before bed I did a bit of digital drawing on the laptop. I'm not sure how well I'm going to get on with it, but it's fun to play with right now and I'm sure it'll have its uses.

 

Teeth done, no running or revision today.

[Kestrel Grey]

I'm sorry that it was such a frustrating day, great job staying on target despite it.

 

Sending healthy recovery vibes to your house!

[Jarric]

1 hour ago, Kestrel Grey said:

I'm sorry that it was such a frustrating day, great job staying on target despite it.

 

Sending healthy recovery vibes to your house!

 

Thank you! They're much appreciated.

[Jarric]

I keep meaning to stay that we picked up the 1001 albums list again.

 

Monday's album was The La's by The La's. The only La's track I know is There She Goes, and I was pleasantly surprised that the rest of the album wasn't much like that. Actually, it sounded a lot like The Kinks, which is always a good thing in my book.

 

Yesterday's album was Rubber Soul by the Beatles. It was pretty good, but then I guess Beatles albums are generally pretty good. I knew more tracks than I was expecting reading the track list, which helped.

[starpuck]

7 hours ago, Jarric said:

We should play together sometime if we can make the timezones work (though I'm pretty rubbish if I'm honest!)

I'd super love that!  Saturday or Sunday mornings seem to be the most logical overlap time!   I'm sure you're not rubbish - and I've seen so many different play styles that still work!  So it's pretty neat.

 

[Jarric]

12 minutes ago, Starpuck said:

I'd super love that!  Saturday or Sunday mornings seem to be the most logical overlap time!   I'm sure you're not rubbish - and I've seen so many different play styles that still work!  So it's pretty neat.

 

 

Sounds good! Let me know when you've got a free weekend morning and we'll set something up

 

[Jarric]

Wednesday - Week 1 Day 3

Wednesday was a good day. I got up first thing and got out for my run. I say first thing - I woke up, started browsing my phone whilst I properly came to, and then promptly fell asleep despite the phone light shining in my face. I did manage to get out for a couple of miles in the end, which was shorter than I would have liked but at least it's something.

 

Work was ok, but for some reason I was mentally exhausted by the time I finished and in a not great mood. I finished more or less on time because I was too tired to keep working.

 

In the evening WW cooked kedgeree and we chilled on the sofa, where I had a couple of beers. I didn't drink that much, but I definitely stayed up to late, and had a whiskey because I didn't want to go to bed. I don't know why I felt the need to stay up drinking, or why I was in a bad mood. Maybe I'm worried about WW being in isolation and whether she'll get COVID symptoms? Maybe I'm stressed about work (which would be ironic, as it's much quieter that it was for a lot of last year)? I don't know.

 

Standard 600kcal breakfast, cheese and chutney roll for lunch with a carrot and an apple, plus a KitKat to make it up to 600kcal, the kedgeree was about 460kcal, pretty sure I made up a little on snacks so I wasn't too low but it's a tick for the day anyway. Beers day is now at ~800/2,400kcal. No creative stuff; I just wasn't feeling it, and no teeth brushing or revision either.

[deftona]

Anxiousness has no rhyme or reason sometimes. I hope this is a shortlived period of anxiousness, and that WW's symptoms don't appear. 

[Jarric]

2 hours ago, deftona said:

Anxiousness has no rhyme or reason sometimes. I hope this is a shortlived period of anxiousness, and that WW's symptoms don't appear. 

 

Yeah, maybe I shouldn't be worrying about looking for a reason. Thank you.