[Jarric]

  

On 12/30/2021 at 6:32 PM, Jarric said:

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.

 

ETA: I've signed up for my first ever sprint triathlon - if this goes well I might end up doing a few more!

 

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 be 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.

 

Wrap up from last challenge:

Spoiler

  

7 hours ago, Jarric said:

Challenge wrap-up

 

Not a wholly successful challenge, though not really through fault of my own. My one goals was to run, and I managed:

 

Week 1: 3/4 runs

Week 2: 3/4 runs

Week 3: 4/4 runs

Week 4: 1/4 runs

Week 5: 0/4 runs

Total: 11/20 runs

 

My last run was Tuesday of week 4, then I picked up a knee injury on the Wednesday and haven't run since. I'm going to try a short run tomorrow morning (Tuesday of week 0), and then on Wednesday I've got a physio appointment to find out what's going on with my knee. Timing isn't ideal with Dirty Weekend falling on Saturday, but logically the best choice was to rest and my knee feels a lot better than it did when I hurt it (though still not 100%).

 

Despite not running I haven't been idle. I've kept up Crossfit and just made modifications as necessary to work round the knee, I've done a couple of yoga sessions, and been swimming a couple of times. I've not been exercising as much on the weekends, but I think that's ok for now.

 

Perfect completion would have given me +3 STR, +2 SAN, so with the swimming and some genuine effort made I'm going to call it +2 STR, +1 SAN

 

ETA: Between the 15XP for 3 points of stat increase, and ticking off an old goal on my list (completing a professional exam), I've hit level 16!

 

 

Anatomy of an Orc

 

So I'm coming into this challenge with some kind of injury on my knee, which is a bit of a bugger as I have a 20 mile race in less than a week (running Rat Race Dirty Weekend with @Mr_Willes). Then at the end of the week 1 I have a 12km race (Nuclear Rush). Oh, and a sprint triathlon at the end of week 5

 

On the other hand, I feel like there's a possibility that work might calm down over the course of this challenge (wishful thinking maybe) and I'll be able to keep up here a bit better. The injury is also no reason to stop me doing things I want to do, and particularly things I feel motivated to do right now. I've just started a new journal too, and I'm a little bit hyped about that coinciding with the start of a challenge.

 

I continue to be inspired by my orcish muscle wizard, Guglug, so I've very loosely themed my goals around orcs. (I'm not good at themes - feel free to make my goals fit better and then tell me how!)

 

Physio Rx - +3 STR

An orc needs to be strong. On Wednesday of week 0 I have an appointment with a physiotherapist, to try and find out what's going on with my knee. I presume that that will lead to some kind of exercises I'll have to do regularly, so my first goal this challenge is to do whatever the physio tells me for 6 weeks.

 

Life drawing - +2 CHA, +1 SAN

An orc needs to understand anatomy, to know their own body and their enemy's weak points. I found a cool series of life drawing lessons on YouTube the other day, and I've got WW on board to do them with me, so I'm going to use them to help me pick my art back up. The goal is to complete a minimum of one video each week (they're a couple of hours each).

 

The art of war - +2 INT

An orc must study to compete with their peers and defeat their enemies. I've got to write another 6, 3,500 word essays for my professional qualification. The first one is due in June, but really I want it out of the way much quicker than that so I can get ahead on the others. The goal is 4 hours of essay writing per week. I get 2 hours study time at work, so providing I do that I only need to do 2 hours on evenings and weekends.

 

Tusks - +1 SAN

An orc should take pride in their tusks. I'm pretty good at brushing my teeth in the morning, and pretty poor at doing so before bed. I got on top of this for a while, and I want to get back there. Goal is to brush my teeth twice per day, including interdental sticks in the evening.

 

Ale - +2 CON

An orc should enjoy an ale, but not allow it to make them slow and fat. I have been habitually drinking a little more than I would like of late, so I want to put a limit on that. I have also gone from smoking when I'm drunk to smoking when I drink, which I'm not a fan of. I don't have the energy to address the smoking right now, but the less often I drink the less often I will smoke, and that's good. Goal is no more than 10 pints of beer per week (or equivalent alcoholic content).

 

[DarK_RaideR]

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

The anatomy of an orc consists of two parts.

Dakka.

 

And more dakka.

[Jarric]

12 hours ago, DarK_RaideR said:

 

 

12 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

The anatomy of an orc consists of two parts.

Dakka.

 

And more dakka.

 

[Mrs Van]

Good luck at the physio, hopefully the damage is minimal. I hope you can at least do some of the runs during the month, if not before.

Awesome that you've started drawing again. My son is taking art once a week this year, but spends hours upon hours every week drawing. He still calls himself a"self taught" artist 😁 and has even sold some "avatar" drawings he made for friends online. She had him work on a drawing of Smaug the last two months. I would love to see some of the art you finish.

[Katammers]

The type-A brain in my skull appreciates how thorough your roadmap is! I believe in your plan, Orc man. 

[Jarric]

47 minutes ago, Mrs Van said:

Good luck at the physio, hopefully the damage is minimal. I hope you can at least do some of the runs during the month, if not before.

Awesome that you've started drawing again. My son is taking art once a week this year, but spends hours upon hours every week drawing. He still calls himself a"self taught" artist 😁 and has even sold some "avatar" drawings he made for friends online. She had him work on a drawing of Smaug the last two months. I would love to see some of the art you finish.

 

Thank you! I'll be attempting the runs whatever, I just hope I can get to the end of them!

 

Oh that's cool! Glad he's enjoying it. Smaug sounds like a cool challenge - I suck at drawing dragons (or dogs, or anything with a long muzzle, I can't quite get my head round the perspective), so let me know if he has any tips!

 

I may well share some of my drawing here, when I finish stuff.

 

9 minutes ago, Katammers said:

The type-A brain in my skull appreciates how thorough your roadmap is! I believe in your plan, Orc man. 

 

Thank you! I've not been great at hitting my goals so far this year for various reasons, but the pillars help me to remember what's important.

[Jarric]

Monday - W0D1

Yesterday was a good day. It was a bank holiday here, so I got up a little late and had a late (8am) Crossfit session. I'd gone a bit overboard on Sunday in the knowledge that I had Monday off work, so I was feeling a little hungover.

 

Started with deadlifts, which I took fairly easy at 140kg (~308#) for 5 reps. Then we had 7 rounds of 8 dumbbell snatches, 4 weighted chinups, and 2 strict handstand pushups. I was pretty slow and felt pretty sick by halfway through, but I got a decent workout.

 

I spent a big chunk of the day writing an essay, which I more-or-less finished with 3 hours of work. Meant to do 4 hours, but I got distracted by setting up my new challenge and my new notebook. Still, nice to knock a chunk out of that, as this one is due in a couple of weeks (and I need to finish it before starting the 6 other essays I mentioned in my intro!).

 

In the evening we made pizza in our little home pizza oven, which was fun. I was intending to then finish the life drawing video I started on Sunday, but it turns out that after WW said she enjoyed the video and wanted to run through the series with me, she actually doesn't want to do that. The goal remains, but we might find another series of videos to work through, or I might have to do these ones solo.

 

Teeth were done, 3 hours of studying, no beer so far this week, nothing to note on other goals.

[Jarric]

Tuesday - W0D2

Yesterday was a good day. First thing I went for a very short run - my knee felt weird and I was super aware of it, but it didn't really hurt, so that's encouraging.

 

Got in an hour of studying at work and submitted my assignment for marking; I should get the results by the end of this challenge. I really hope I pass - if I fail I have to re-do the whole module, which is 3 essays that I don't want to write again!

 

After work I rushed home to cook dinner, but WW wasn't feeling well and didn't want to eat much. We opted to have cereal and I had some fruit, and to get out on time for D&D.

 

D&D was great fun! We've just started a new Pathfinder 2e campaign, set in a Greek mythology inspired setting, and it's a blast. I'm playing psyche, an elven cleric of Aphrodite. She's all sunshine and light and very sweet, and then all blood and murder when it comes to combat; I'm very much enjoying playing her! Officially our party are on a pilgrimage to tend to a sacred flame that protects civilization from the wild lands, but Psyche also has some other things she wants to find out there.

 

The rest of our party:

 - Phoebe, a sphinx monk and scholar who has gone seeking knowledge of her goddess (Selene, I think?)

 - Ish'Kabel, a human sorcerer who believes he is fated to take the journey

 - Anathmodes, a human(ish) wizard who is basically treating this as a research trip for him university

 - Jasper Overalls, an orc barbarian who has little to no idea what's going on, and accidentally wandered on stage when acolytes were being selected

 

Yesterday we had a lovely session of starting our exploration across the wilds, and discovered a forest that had been entirely turned to stone. We don't understand why this has happened, but we also met a dryad who inhabits this forest, and the leafy parts of her have turned to stone and are causing her great pain. After scaring her off when she attacked us, we sought a way to deal with this curse. We have discovered that a pack of cockatrices live in the area, and whilst we can't see how they would be able to petrify a whole forest, we've set out to hunt and kill them anyway on general principles.

 

Teeth were done, studying now complete for the week, no beers yet, no life drawing/physio.

 

This morning I had a physio appointment for my knee. Their verdict was it's likely torn cartilage in the knee joint. They recommended that I stay away from running for a few more weeks, and weren't terribly impressed with the idea of me racing on Saturday, but just told me to be careful when I do race. I've got some exercises to do twice per day (single leg bridges, banded hamstring curls, chair pistol squats), so now I have something actionable for my physio goal at least!

 

I must also try not to explode my knee this weekend - that would be bad.

[deftona]

Always here to follow a Jarric challenge! 

 

Also, majorly hoping your knee doesn't explode! 

[DarK_RaideR]

8 hours ago, Jarric said:

on a pilgrimage to tend to a sacred gentle flame

FTFY

[starpuck]

We've got some goal overlap here Jarric!

I too am great at teeth work in the morning, but will ditch it if I am tired or busy in the evening.  I'm on a good streak now, so I will lend you some of my momentum to get back on track!

Plus art! Yes yes!  Very cool that you and WW are diving into it together.

Bummer on the knee.  I get not wanting to cancel, but just don't push it.   Don't make something that needs a certain amount of fixing, into something that needs a LOT of amount of fixing, ya know?

 

Following along!

 

[Loveable_Bouncer]

14 hours ago, Jarric said:

I must also try not to explode my knee this weekend - that would be bad.

Following to see how this ends...

 

Also curious by drawings. 

[Mrs Van]

18 hours ago, Jarric said:

D&D was great fun!

I've never played but it always sounds like a book come to life... or a book gamified, basically.

18 hours ago, Jarric said:

This morning I had a physio appointment for my knee.

Bummer! Just be careful. You don't want to cause more injuries that would hamper you later on.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

4 hours ago, Mrs Van said:

I've never played but it always sounds like a book come to life... or a book gamified, basically

It's a book by committee. 

[Jarric]

18 hours ago, deftona said:

Always here to follow a Jarric challenge! 

 

Also, majorly hoping your knee doesn't explode! 

 

Great to have you! I hope so too!

 

15 hours ago, DarK_RaideR said:

FTFY

 

the similarity wasn't lost on me

 

15 hours ago, starpuck said:

We've got some goal overlap here Jarric!

I too am great at teeth work in the morning, but will ditch it if I am tired or busy in the evening.  I'm on a good streak now, so I will lend you some of my momentum to get back on track!

Plus art! Yes yes!  Very cool that you and WW are diving into it together.

Bummer on the knee.  I get not wanting to cancel, but just don't push it.   Don't make something that needs a certain amount of fixing, into something that needs a LOT of amount of fixing, ya know?

 

Following along!

 

 

Some of your momentum would be really helpful, thanks!

 

I'm excited for the art - hopefully I'll have something to share at some stage. Need to do some tonight actually...

 

Wise words on the knee. I know logically that I don't want to push too hard - identifying how hard is too hard might be, well, that might be the hard part.

 

9 hours ago, Fairly_Bouncer said:

Following to see how this ends...

 

Also curious by drawings. 

 

I'll let you know how it all goes.

 

6 hours ago, Mrs Van said:

I've never played but it always sounds like a book come to life... or a book gamified, basically.

Bummer! Just be careful. You don't want to cause more injuries that would hamper you later on.

 

It's so much fun - really worth a play if you ever get a chance. I really believe there's a game for everyone, whether it's a really numbers based system that's almost a board game or a really narrative-based system with almost no rules whatsoever, or anything in the middle.

 

And you're 100% right - I'll try to be careful.

 

1 hour ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

It's a book by committee. 

 

that's a really great description actually.

[Jarric]

Wednesday - W0D3

Yesterday was a good day. Physio first thing, as mentioned in my last post. Work was crazy busy - I'm desperately trying to get ahead before two days off work and three days away at a conference, and so far everything is coming in much faster than I can possibly deal with it.

 

I finished work at 6, which isn't mega late (albeit we close at 5), but I was so shattered I couldn't manage anything more. When I got home I was so tired I just slumped on the floor for a while. WW cooked bacon and eggs on toast while I did some washing up, and then we watched Questing Time and went to bed.

 

I did manage to do my physio exercises (though I realised this morning I may be doing them slightly wrong), and my teeth got done. I usually drink beer with Questing Time but I held off as I know it'll be a boozy weekend after the race. No drawing, and studying is done for the week.

[Mr_Willes]

9 minutes ago, Jarric said:

I know it'll be a boozy weekend after the race.

 

[fearless 2.0]

cant wait for your race review! was so turned on by all you runners here that I just signed up for a 5k. thanks for being an inspo for me!  

[starpuck]

11 hours ago, fearless 2.0 said:

cant wait for your race review!

I can't wait for the Willes/Jarrics selfies to be honest!

 

 

[Jarric]

19 hours ago, Mr_Willes said:

 

 

 

16 hours ago, fearless 2.0 said:

cant wait for your race review! was so turned on by all you runners here that I just signed up for a 5k. thanks for being an inspo for me!  

 

Oh wow, that's great! When's the race? 

 

5 hours ago, starpuck said:

I can't wait for the Willes/Jarrics selfies to be honest!

 

 

 

I'm sure that can be arranged

[Jarric]

Thursday - W0D4

Yesterday was a good day. I went swimming first thing, did a 200m breast stroke warm-up, 400m front crawl, and a final 200m or breast stroke. I was a bit careful kicking off at each end, but other than that it seemed to be fine on my knee.

 

Work was crazy - I tried really hard to catch up with everything I've got going on before having time off, and that was a real struggle. I had to leave at quarter to 7 because the directors wanted to lock up and go home, so I then went and logged on at home until about 8pm. But hey, I cleared a lot of stuff, and now I have a 4 day weekend!

 

In the evening we watched Sewing Bee and Taskmaster, and then went to bed. Didn't get my drawing done due to the lateness and WW being ill, so I'll have to do that today.

 

Physio and teeth were done, no beer, study is done for the week, no drawing. 

[Jarric]

Weekend Zero

It's been a great weekend. On Friday I packed up at a leisurely pace, picked up a hire car, went shopping for supplies, and drove up to Rat Race Dirty Weekend. When I got there I met up with @Mr_Willes, who helped me get my stuff to the campsite. I got set up, grabbed some food, and we set about drinking and catching up.

 

 

I wanted to make sure that I was fresh for the race, which still meant I had 7 beers and went to bed at 11pm. There was an ACDC tribute band on in the evening, who were pretty fun, and lots of people I know from other races to catch up with too.

 

Saturday was race day. Apart from failing to pack my burner to make a cup of tea, I got ready without drama and headed over for my 8.45 wave time. Willy, his Dutch friends, and the UK mud running group, were all in the 9am wave, so I ran round the first couple of corners and then stopped and waited for people to catch up. I found one of Willy's friends, F, but we waited for the whole wave to pass but couldn't see Willy or his other friend, A. So F and I set off to catch them up.

 

It was a really fun race - it's not a mega technical one so we got a decent amount of running in, and there's a good variety of obstacles and a great lake zone. F was a really good running partner; he set a pretty quick pace which was about all I could keep up with and I was glad for his company. He also speaks very good English, which is handy because I speak bugger all Dutch.

 

After about 9 miles of trying to catch up with Willy and A we finally found them... about 2 miles behind us. Apparently there had been a mix up at the start and they had started half an hour later, so all our effort to catch up had, if anything, got us further from them.

 

By that point my knee was also starting to really hurt, and whilst I could have forced some more running on it I really wanted to avoid any permanent damage. F and I walked for the next couple of miles, ostensibly to allow Willy and A to catch up, but also because I couldn't go faster. I took the short course option when we got to the course split, and finished in 14 miles instead of the full 20. Finishing at about half 2 was nice though. I got a shower, had a snack, and grabbed a victory beer.

 

 

Then I managed to see Willy and A finish their race, and got some pictures of them on the final slide and at the finish line.

 

 

The rest of the day was spent chatting, drinking, and eating. In the evening there was a Queen tribute band, followed by a set by The Darkness, followed by fireworks, and finally a DJ set from Chris Moyles. It was a great party day, and I had 9 beers over the course of it before finally rolling into bed at 2am.

 

Sunday was pack up and leave time. We went at a leisurely pace, and eventually met up with @Rhovaniel and @Charlie_Quinn for dinner and a lovely evening with lovely company. I had a couple of hours of driving to get home, and after the race and lack of sleep I made sure to take it carefully and stop for an energy drink on the way. Finally got home about half 10, and had a final beer that Willy gifted to me before collapsing into bed.

 

Zero Week Scores

Physio Rx: 2.5/5 - this wasn't easy to do at the camp site, and after the race I was doing no exercise of any kind!

Life drawing: 0/1 - I didn't make time to do this, and WW not wanting to join in made it a little harder to find time. I will find a way to do it this week though.

The art of war: 4/4 - knocked this out right at the start of the week.

Tusks: 6/7 - I missed race day between trying to get ready in the morning and the late party night.

Ale: 17/10 - not all of the beers were pints, and everything was a different strength, but whatever this number is it's definitely a fail for the week. With that said, this goal did stop me drinking earlier in the week, and I didn't have a single drink just for the sake of it - I enjoyed it all very much.

[Chris-Tien Jinn]

Wow - sounds awesome.  I'm amazed that you were able to meet up with so many people!

[Sovalis]

Sounds like you had a great time, congratulations! Hopefully you recover well from the race and keep on crushing your goals!