[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.

 

Edit - June 2022: I've finally picked a goal! I'm going to run in the Open Wave of the Spartan European Championships in October. My training between now and then will be focussed on getting the best possible result in the Beast that weekend. After that I'll start looking at events for 2023; maybe something with some more swimming, or an adventure race or something.

 

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.

 

July edit: I have a new mechanism with this. I've previously tried to bet money on my goals, but that falls down at the end of the week or the end of the challenge when I don't have the cash to pay the bet. So, new plan: I've budgeted £250 per month to bet on my goals. On payday each month, I'll take that £250, plus any leftover money in my account, and bet it against my goals over the past month (using only the full weeks since last payday). For the percentage of challenge goals I hit, I get to spend that money, or put it in my savings. For the percentage I fail, I use the money to pay off my mortgage. This means that the bets won't line up with challenge dates, but they will line up with me having money and that's more useful.

 

 

Previously, on Nerd Fitness...

 

Spoiler

Challenge wrap-up

 

Physio Rx - 34/42 - +3 STR

Well my knee isn't a lot better than at the start of the challenge, but it's a process. I've stuck with the physio pretty well, and I'm just going to keep doing that until we find a solution. I'm not going to get to run as much as I want to between now and the races I've got this year, but that's life.

 

Creativity - 23/42 - +1 CHA

Well, I didn't do much drawing in the new book I bought just before this challenge, but stuff was done. A bit of drawing, a bit of messing around with my new drawing tablet, some playing guitar, some D&D prep. It's all good for me, thought I would have liked to have been more consistent.

 

Study - 12/42 - No stat increase

Well, that was a pretty poor show, wasn't it? I've started my next essay, but that's about the most I can say here. Work was pretty unbearable at times this month, which took away some of the study I would have done during work time and a lot of the motivation to do any after work. I'm starting to pick up the pace on it though, which I need to to get everything submitted on time, so here's hoping next challenge goes a bit better.

 

Teeth - 23.5/42 - No stat increase

It felt like I was doing better than this, but clearly not. Still, that score is approximately 23 higher than I would have done had I not made it a goal, so it's a bit of a win.

 

Waistline tracking - 25/42 - No stat increase

I'm not sure if I like this goal or not. I think it's a useful thing to track, but I didn't really get much insight from doing it daily (when I remembered to do so). Also, it's quite hard to measure my waist and know I'm doing so consistently. I think if I try it again I'll try measuring the maximum and minimum I could get on a given day, rather than trying to get a natural number, if that makes sense? I don't know, it might well not come back.

 

Other stuff

It's been a really challenging 6 weeks, with work stress and my general mental health not being fantastic. But having the structure of this challenge has helped, I think. And it, together with some of the lovely nerds who contacted me at various points and some people in my real life, encouraged me to reach out for some professional counselling support. The actual counselling calls will be next month, but it feels good that's in the diary.

 

I have also come up with a method of betting on my goals again. I've been trying things for a long time, and generally they have fallen by the wayside. I'll detail that for next challenge, but this time what you need to know if that my average goal completion was 55.95%, resulting in me keeping £359.62 in my savings, and paying £283.11 to my mortgage (I got my bonus this month; these numbers will be substantially smaller most of the time).

 

I think that's about it - tomorrow's job is to post a new challenge!

 

Honour amongst thieves

 

 

I'm unnecessarily excited for the new D&D movie next year. It comes out on my birthday, and it looks really good. And I know it's early days, and I know we've only got one trailer and a couple of interviews to go on, but I dare to dream.

 

So, the challenge theme is the easy bit. As far as I know we don't even have the names of the main characters yet, but that's not going to stop me building a D&D party.

 

 

Barbarian - +2 STR

The goal here will be to do my physio exercises at least once every day. I buggered up my knee earlier this year, and I've been regularly seeing a physio to try and get it sorted. We haven't had much luck so far, and if there's no improvement in the next couple of weeks I think my physio will be sending me to a specialist for scans and such. Regardless, the goal is to do as I'm told and try and get better - this includes taking it easy when I'm told to!

 

 

 

Druid - +3 CON

This is all about beer (I feel like druids would make the best brewers; it's all about fermenting stuff. Well, ok, monks definitely make the best beer, but we don't have a monk in this party).

 

Prior to lockdown, I didn't really drink at home. Then, when I could no longer go out for a beer, I started drinking at home instead, and I haven't let that go since restrictions ended. I also don't go out anywhere near as I used to, so it's not as bad as it sounds, but I've been finding myself drinking 3 or 4 days in a row and that's not good for my health - physical or mental.

 

The plan is that 6 days per week I won't drink at home. I'll still drink at home on Wednesdays, because a few beers in front of Questing Time is a genuine pleasure, and I'm happy to keep that. Drinking out of the house any other time is fine, it's just home beer we're trying to curb here. I'll be tracking beer-free days, so counting out of 6 instead of counting up.

 

 

Bard - +2 CHA, +1 SAN

Do something creative every day. Really, it's that simple. A lot of the time it might be drawing - I have so many cool drawing resources I want to play with and I rarely pick them up. Other times it might be D&D prep; we're starting a new short adventure (we being myself, WW, @DarK_RaideR, @jonfirestar and @WhiteGhost), which doesn't need a ton of prep but it does need some. Most of which is drawing maps and loading stuff up on Roll20 to be honest.

 

Creativity can be anything else - occasionally I might pick up my guitar for 5 minutes, and I might even allow singing or practising accents (though I do that stuff in the shower/car quite a lot, but maybe if it's genuine practise for something).

 

 

Sorcerer - +2 INT

I'm currently working through the final stages of a professional qualification (which is apparently about equivalent to a bachelors degree, I learned recently). I have 5 essays left to write, at 3,500 words each, the first being due in September. The others are due December or further away, but I really just want to get the whole lot done and get this over with - I've been doing qualifications in my industry since 2012 (with a bit of a break), and it would be nice to come to the culmination of that.

 

The goal is 4 hours of essay writing per week. I should get 2 hours during the working day, so it's just an hour each day on the weekend to keep this moving. The more of these I write the easier they get, so I hope I'll get through them quickly with this much effort.

 

This goal would work better with a wizard than a sorcerer, but we don't have one of those

 

 

Paladin - +1 SAN

This is about brushing my teeth, twice daily (because paladins are shiny, obviously*). I do better with this when I track it, and it's a good signifier of my mental health. I'm not sure that brushing my teeth helps my mental health, though challenge structures most probably do, but if nothing else I can pretty much tell how many good days I've had but how often I hit this.

 

Zero week

As I hadn't written this challenge for most of zero week, I just set myself two simple goals - physio and teeth. So far both are going well.

 

SHOW ME THE MONEY

I've previously tried to bet money on my goals, but that falls down at the end of the week or the end of the challenge when I don't have the cash to pay the bet. So, new plan: I've budgeted £250 per month to bet on my goals. On payday each month, I'll take that £250, plus any leftover money in my account, and bet it against my goals over the past month (using only the full weeks since last payday). For the percentage of challenge goals I hit, I get to spend that money, or put it in my savings. For the percentage I fail, I use the money to pay off my mortgage.

 

This means that the bets won't line up with challenge dates, but they will line up with me having money and that's more useful. For this challenge, weeks 0 to 3 will be in the August bet. The September bet will be weeks 4 and 5 of this challenge, plus 0 and 1 of the next one.

 

Other thoughts

In weeks 1, 3, and 4, and I have counselling appointments that I booked a few weeks back. If I can, I'll talk about those here, and if I need to I'll add a new goal to address any actions from them. I don't really know what to expect, so we'll see how it goes.

 

Right at the end of week 5 I have a race - Summer Nuts. I won't be doing much running training for it with my knee, but mercifully the two guys from work I'm running it with are doing bugger all at the moment, so it shouldn't be an issue. I just hope I can make it round without too much pain.

 

*Massive tangent - I have a sudden urge to play a paladin devoted to a god of decay, or something similar, so I can have a really gross, fungal paladin. Maybe fungal paladin would make a good subclass?

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

42 minutes ago, Jarric said:

*Massive tangent - I have a sudden urge to play a paladin devoted to a god of decay, or something similar, so I can have a really gross, fungal paladin. Maybe fungal paladin would make a good subclass?

Maaaayyyybeee.

 

Following  

[Jarric]

8 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Maaaayyyybeee.

 

Following  

 

Oh I love them both! I might have to try and draw my own now...

 

Good to have you mate.

[fearless 2.0]

hey Jarric, happy to find your thread!  

I love the betting idea, thats some smart shit you planned! 

hope the knee behaves and heals pronto. Have a wonky knee as well and can relate!

have a great challenge, dude! 

[Jarric]

3 hours ago, fearless 2.0 said:

hey Jarric, happy to find your thread!  

I love the betting idea, thats some smart shit you planned! 

hope the knee behaves and heals pronto. Have a wonky knee as well and can relate!

have a great challenge, dude! 

 

Wonky knees unite! Thanks fearless, good to see you  

[Rhovaniel]

Hey Jarric! Following of course  

 

7 hours ago, Jarric said:

Paladin - +1 SAN

This is about brushing my teeth, twice daily (because paladins are shiny, obviously*).

This made me lol. I am resisting the urge to send it to the paladin in my Monday group... 

[Sovalis]

You're well set up! Following to cheer you on! 😁

[shaar]

I love your beer goal!  I too have found myself drinking WAY too much at home and as of last month I've been actively working to put a stop to it - it's hard but worth it!

 

Here to follow and ROLL FOR INITIATIVE!

[deftona]

Always following the Chronicles of Jarric x

[Chris-Tien Jinn]

On 7/29/2022 at 8:52 AM, Jarric said:

 

I'm unnecessarily excited for the new D&D movie next year.

 

OMG ... the trailer looks awesome!!  

[Mad Hatter]

On 7/29/2022 at 4:52 PM, Jarric said:

This is about brushing my teeth, twice daily (because paladins are shiny, obviously*).

LOL. 

 

Hope you'll keep sharing your drawings! Always gives a little inspo boost.  

[Jarric]

On 7/29/2022 at 10:32 PM, Rhovaniel said:

Hey Jarric! Following of course  

 

This made me lol. I am resisting the urge to send it to the paladin in my Monday group... 

 

Hey! Don't resist the urge, just send it to them

 

 

On 7/29/2022 at 11:35 PM, Sovalis said:

You're well set up! Following to cheer you on! 😁

 

Thank you! Good to have you.

 

 

19 hours ago, shaar said:

I love your beer goal!  I too have found myself drinking WAY too much at home and as of last month I've been actively working to put a stop to it - it's hard but worth it!

 

Here to follow and ROLL FOR INITIATIVE!

 

It's surprisingly tough, isn't it? Definitely worth it though; the compound effect of a few days drinking really takes it out of me (I must be getting old!).

 

I rolled a 2 for my initiative - looks like I'm going last

 

 

16 hours ago, deftona said:

Always following the Chronicles of Jarric x

 

Always good to have you here x

 

 

16 hours ago, Chris-Tien Jinn said:

 

OMG ... the trailer looks awesome!!  

 

I KNOW! Every time I watch it I pick up new bits I love in it, I'm very excited.

 

 

14 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

LOL. 

 

Hope you'll keep sharing your drawings! Always gives a little inspo boost.  

 

Ah thank you. Yeah, I'll share stuff, that's a good idea.

[Jarric]

A quick week zero update - I was hitting my two zero week goals (brushing teeth and physio) until yesterday. Yesterday I forgot about physio until it was too late, and I didn't brush my teeth after I stayed up way too late drinking.

 

It's been a good week. I took Friday off work just to give myself a long weekend, and I got some studying done on Friday and a bunch of D&D prep yesterday.

 

Had some good workouts too - we had 'Prison Friday' at crossfit - bench press, bent over rows, chinups, dips, strict press, and dumbbell curls.  I also went climbing yesterday, but with my dodgy knee and Hopalong having hurt his finger we couldn't do much, so we went to the little gym they have at the bouldering centre and did pullups, press ups, and leg raises. My shoulders and boobs feel suitably inflated after those two days.

 

I've drunk beer twice this week, on Wednesday and yesterday, which is good enough for week zero. I tried some non-alcoholic beer on Friday night because it was on offer - it was rubbish and I still didn't feel great the following morning so I won't be repeating that experiment.

 

I'm also excited for the commonwealth games - not sure how much I'm going to catch of it, but I saw some of the weightlifting yesterday and that was cool. There's para powerlifting on Thursday; really excited for that.

[Rhovaniel]

10 hours ago, Jarric said:

I tried some non-alcoholic beer on Friday night because it was on offer - it was rubbish and I still didn't feel great the following morning so I won't be repeating that experiment.

There's experiments and then there's crazy dude... 

 

10 hours ago, Jarric said:

I'm also excited for the commonwealth games - not sure how much I'm going to catch of it, but I saw some of the weightlifting yesterday and that was cool. There's para powerlifting on Thursday; really excited for that

Me too, I'm only catching drips and drabs, but I loved the triathlon events. Flora Duffy is a huge inspiration. 

[Jarric]

1 hour ago, Rhovaniel said:

There's experiments and then there's crazy dude... 

 

Me too, I'm only catching drips and drabs, but I loved the triathlon events. Flora Duffy is a huge inspiration. 

 

Yeah, you're right, I should have know better.

 

I didn't catch much of the triathlon. Saw the end of the blind triathlon, that was cool. And watching the rugby 7s right now. Mostly it's been the weightlifting though, and I'm really hoping we have some oly lifts at crossfit this week!

[Jarric]

Challenge tracker, with some bonus doodles:

 

 

 

[Maigs]

Following along

[DarK_RaideR]

On 7/29/2022 at 4:52 PM, Jarric said:

Massive tangent - I have a sudden urge to play a paladin devoted to a god of decay, or something similar, so I can have a really gross, fungal paladin. Maybe fungal paladin would make a good subclass?

Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and saviour papa Nurgle?

 

[Jarric]

13 hours ago, Maigs said:

Following along

 

Hi! Good to have you

 

 

4 hours ago, DarK_RaideR said:

Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and saviour papa Nurgle?

 

 

Now this is what I'm talking about! 

[WhiteGhost]

On 7/29/2022 at 9:52 PM, Jarric said:

the new D&D movie next year.

I had not heard about this.  I will need to keep an eye out and try to find a way to stream it once it comes out (pretty sure it won't be playing in any local theatres here)

 

On 7/29/2022 at 9:52 PM, Jarric said:

we're starting a new short adventure

I am super stoked for this, can't wait for it to get going  

[Jarric]

6 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

I had not heard about this.  I will need to keep an eye out and try to find a way to stream it once it comes out (pretty sure it won't be playing in any local theatres here)

 

I am super stoked for this, can't wait for it to get going  

 

I'm excited for it too! It'll be good for me to run some D&D again; it's been a while.

[Jarric]

Monday - week 1 day 1

New challenge HYPE!

 

Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit first thing, and we did overhead yoke for the first time in ages. I managed 95kg (209#) for 50 ft, and did 4 reps of that. I always feel badass holding a weight heavier than me above my head and walking around. The workout was, in 5 minutes: 5 rope climbs, 50cal air bike, max distance hand walk. I didn't quite make it through the bike, which was a shame as I wanted to get some more handwalking practice in. Amazing how knackered you can feel in 5 minutes though! I did my physio when I got back.

 

Work was ok - I had to head up to town at lunch time for a meeting, so it was a bit of a broken day, but that also meant I didn't spend the whole day in front of a computer for once.

 

I should talk about my lunch. On Sunday I got 2kg of chicken thighs, and put them in the slow cooker with 10oz of short grain brown rice (yes, my cooking always mixes grams and ounces, deal with it). We're starting getting a second veg box from Oddbox (who reduce waste by selling wonky and surplus fruit and veg), branded as a salad box, every other week, so whilst the chicken was cooking I set to work chopping up everything that was in there. Coriander, carrot, cucumber, mixed leaves, tomatoes, potato, beetroot (I boiled those last two). I divided everything into 10 pots, then did the same with the chicken and rice, and now WW and I have meals for the whole week. Given that the only seasoning is a bit of salt in the rice, it's actually turned out bloody lovely so far.

 

In the evening I mostly sat on the sofa and caught up here, and with various group chats and my e-mails. I nearly didn't do any drawing, but I remembered myself right before bed and did a quick sketch of a bulbasaur plant pot that's on a shelf in the living room. Teeth were done, no beer was had.

 

I also spent a long time reading through a very technical article on how best to deal with bulking and hypertrophy, which was really fascinating. I've now got a vague plan that next challenge I will start tracking calories again and establish a baseline, the following challenge I'll go for a cut and see what I can do in 5/6 weeks, and then trying bulking a bit for the next two challenges after that. The logic here is that I don't want to cut during race season, and the best time to bulk will be the Christmas period when I'll be eating and drinking a shitload anyway. It'll also help me put on a protective layer of fat for the winter

 

[Rhovaniel]

On 8/2/2022 at 1:37 PM, Jarric said:

I should talk about my lunch. On Sunday I got 2kg of chicken thighs, and put them in the slow cooker with 10oz of short grain brown rice (yes, my cooking always mixes grams and ounces, deal with it). We're starting getting a second veg box from Oddbox (who reduce waste by selling wonky and surplus fruit and veg), branded as a salad box, every other week, so whilst the chicken was cooking I set to work chopping up everything that was in there. Coriander, carrot, cucumber, mixed leaves, tomatoes, potato, beetroot (I boiled those last two). I divided everything into 10 pots, then did the same with the chicken and rice, and now WW and I have meals for the whole week

This does sound delicious. Any more of that and we're going to need a tank style warning!

[Jarric]

Tuesday - Week 1 Day 2

Yesterday was a good day. Attempted to go for a run first thing, but my knee wasn't feeling 100% so I gave up pretty quickly and went home to do my physio and to stretch generally.

 

Had my first counselling session around lunch time. She prescribed journalling, which I'm amazed I didn't think of myself but there we are. I'm not going to make it a challenge goal, because I don't know if I'll be up to doing it every day, but I think it will help.

 

It's odd, I can sit on my own and think over things for hours, but as soon as I'm talking to someone it all goes out of my head. We had an hours session and we ended it after 25 minutes as I had nothing more to say. Still, it gave me time to write out some thoughts, and if I do write a lot of stuff I'll have more to say next time.

 

In the afternoon I had a study session, which gives me an hour and a half towards my study goal.

 

In the evening we had Pathfinder - the Greek campaign. It was a really nice session, and good to play again as it's been a couple of weeks. I did plenty of sketching in character, so very much hit the creativity goal.

 

Teeth were done, no beer. A good day all round.

[Jarric]

9 minutes ago, Rhovaniel said:

This does sound delicious. Any more of that and we're going to need a tank style warning!

 

I don't think I could ever compete with Tank's food descriptions, as much as I'd like to!