[Sovalis]

That sounds super tasty! And I am with Deftona, cheese gets measured with your heart. As does garlic and vanilla…

[Jarric]

17 hours ago, Sovalis said:

That sounds super tasty! And I am with Deftona, cheese gets measured with your heart. As does garlic and vanilla…

 

Vanilla? I don't usually cook with vanilla, but isn't it a bit strong not to measure? (Weirdly though, I'm with you on garlic, which I guess is considered a strong flavour.)

[Jarric]

Tuesday - week 3 day 2

Yesterday was a good day. I went for my couch to 5k run in the morning - we're now up to 25 minutes of solid running. The rest of the programme is very slowly increasing that - a week of 25 minute runs, a week of about 28 minutes I think, and then a week of 30s. I'm hoping that will be slow enough that my hips stop punishing me. I got up too late to do much afterwards, but I managed a 7 minute yoga video.

 

Work was ok - working from home allowed me to plow through some of the mountain of work.

 

In the evening WW made a chicken and tomato pasta, and then we went to play Pathfinder.

 

Having nearly all been killed by a sentient cloud of blood last session, we had a nap and bimbled around the keep we're currently exploring. We found an amphora with 8 women painted on it and a space for a 9th, and wondered if the 9th had come alive and become the sentient blood cloud. The vase had also been filled with blood at some point in history, which was suspicious. It was overall a very chilled exploration session, apart from a short encounter with 3 bleeding skeletons which our barbarian absolutely annihilated.

 

Calories were low - I'm determined to eat more today and get this back on track. No studying done, but languages and teeth were sorted. 3/5 for the day.

[Sovalis]

I really love your RPG updates. Please keep us posted about those in the future, too! 

 

Vanilla can be strong, but I always find I can at least double what I'm doing to no ill effect, at least in North American baking. I don't have too much experience with other food ways to know if it would be too much in other circumstances. 

[Jarric]

On 12/21/2022 at 7:36 PM, Sovalis said:

I really love your RPG updates. Please keep us posted about those in the future, too! 

 

Vanilla can be strong, but I always find I can at least double what I'm doing to no ill effect, at least in North American baking. I don't have too much experience with other food ways to know if it would be too much in other circumstances. 

 

Thank you! I shall continue to do so. 

 

That's interesting. I'm not really a baker, and I thought it would have more of an effect. Consider me corrected.

[Jarric]

Wednesday - week 3 day 3

Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit was a fun one - we had 45 seconds to do 5 front squats and then max distance air bike. Then, after a rest, 45 seconds for 4 front squats and max air bike. Then again for 3, 2, and 1. I didn't really get enough time to warm up and my knee was giving me issues so I started too light, but after a couple of sets and some foam rolling I got into my stride. Result was 60kg x 5, 62.5kg x 4, 70kg x 3, 77.5kg x 2, and 82.5kg x 1 on the front squats, and 313m, 357m, 376m, 377m, and 459m respectively on the bike.

 

Work was busy, as we hurtle towards the end of the year at breakneck speed.

 

When I got home from work I was shattered. I sat on the sofa, which was a mistake, because there was no way in hell I was getting back up after that. Rather than cooking I ordered some pizza. It was really good, and would have been alright if I'd have planned to have it. The problem was that I'd spent all day working really hard to eat enough, so the pizza put me massively over. Better than under though. Probably.

 

I managed some Dutch before bed, but no French. Teeth were done. No studying. 1.5/4.

[Jarric]

Week 3 wrap-up

It was a good week. I don't remember what I did on Thursday, which suggests that I didn't do anything. I did get in a couch to 5k run I believe.

 

Friday I had a long chat with my manager about my workload. I'm now less optimistic that things are going to improve in the short term, but also I think I can do more to make that happen by talking to people other than my manager. That was all quite stressful, but work was a half day, so I went to the pub with a few colleagues and got pissed. That was really nice, and because we started at lunch time and I had to go home to cook dinner I ended up finishing at a sensible time and not feeling too rough on Saturday.

 

On Saturday I had a short lie in, and then we went out to deliver some Christmas food hampers for a charity, which was quite a nice way to spend a morning. The rest of the day was mostly spent wrapping and delivering Christmas presents, but I did get out for my 3rd run of the week. I also cooked a turnip and apple, cheesy pasta bake, which was... interesting? 

 

Sunday was Christmas day. WW got me an ottoman for Christmas (wow that's a middle-class, middle-aged sentence!), which I can keep my art stuff in so it's more accessible when I'm sat on the sofa. Maybe (hopefully) it'll mean I find more energy for art. She also got me some classic novels - Mark Shelley's Frankenstein, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and other tales and fables by Robert Louis Stevenson. If I get to read them all I can make myself feel a bit more intelligent - failing that I'll put them on a bookshelf behind me to look more intelligent in Zoom meetings.

 

The rest of Christmas was good - I spent the day at my parents eating a massive roast goose meal and drinking a lot of wine and dark beer. I had been a bit nervous about it for various reasons, but there were no arguments and no drama, and I actually had a lovely relaxing day.

 

Today isn't technically part of this challenge, but I wanted to quickly mention my morning workout. My gym is closed, but I managed to get a free 3-day pass for the Pure Gym round the corner so that I could take part in squatmas. I've never done squatmas before, but it felt fitting this year somehow that now Willy isn't here to badger me to do it I should actually do the workout. I managed my 50 reps at 50% bodyweight (I went for 40kg, which is more like 53% of the 11 stone 12 I weighed in at this morning). I did them all in one set, which was a pleasant surprise, and so after a rest I decided to do something heavier. 60kg (almost 80% of body weight) for 10 reps, 70kg (93%) for 8 reps, and finally 80kg (106%) for 5. I followed that with some rotator cuff exercises, delt flies, tricep extensions, and bicep curls.

 

The lich

1/3 - I managed to do a little yoga on Tuesday after my run, but very much got up too late on Thursday and just plain forgot on Saturday.

 

The muscle

2/7 - I managed to track every day, which was good, but most days I made no effort to hit the right calorie numbers. I finished at 23,078 kcal against a target of 20,944 (about 3,297 per day, against 2,992 per day target), and I gained 1 lb, which seems to be about right. Protein was weirdly 149g/day average, which is 1g off target, albeit I had a couple of days that were lower than I would like.

 

The documancer

0/7 - fuck it, work's busy, I'll start again in January.

 

The translator

4.5/7 - again, I've been busy and I haven't given this the attention it needs. I managed Dutch most days, thanks to Duolingo shouting at me, but French has slipped.

 

The face

6.5/7 - very happy with this; given the break in routine of the last few days this is a pretty great result.

[Jarric]

Challenge wrap-up

 

On 12/2/2022 at 7:11 PM, Jarric said:

The lich +3 STR

 

This challenge I'll be working on Literal Immortality. Literal Immortality is a GMB programme that I purchased a month or so ago, and I've not had much luck at making time to actually do it. I want to give it a proper chance, and want to not have wasted my money, so the plan is to do this 3 times per week, after I run. Exemption for Tuesday, week 1, as I have to be up at arse o'clock to go to a meeting.

 

Score: 1/8 = no stat increase.

 

This just didn't happen. The point was to get up in time to do both my morning run and Literal Immortality, but that never happened. I'm going to have to have a think about how I fit this in, or whether I just drop it for a little while. Right now the running, and hip stretches and training to stop me injuring myself running, are really the priority.

 

 

On 12/2/2022 at 7:11 PM, Jarric said:

 

The muscle +2 CON

 

Having spent last challenge cutting, I'm now on a slow-ish bulk. The aim is to increase my body weight by 0.25% each week (about 0.4lbs at the moment). In order to do that I will set my target calories for the week, and divide by 8 to give myself a daily target plus a floating 8th day for beer/snacks/whatever.

 

I don't have a way of weighing myself that precisely, so the plan is that if I lose weight in a given week I'll up my calorie target, and if I don't gain at least 1lb for 3 consecutive weigh-ins I'll also increase my calorie target. My weight increase goal will also technically increase over time, as it's a percentage of my body weight, although realistically because it's such a small percentage it'll always be pretty similar.

 

ETA: the other part of this goal, which I forgot, is to write down how many grams of protein I eat every day. The plan is to eat at least 150g, which I think should be fairly straightforward as long as I get in a protein shake every day. No requirement to actually hit that, but writing it down so that I know I'm intentionally monitoring it.

 

6/21 = +1 CON

 

Week 2 of this challenge was particularly difficult, and I stopped tracking altogether. The other two weeks I tracked but was fairly unsuccessful at hitting my calorie goal. The surprise here really is that I didn't gain a lot of weight - I was planning to bulk over Christmas because I thought that would just naturally happen, but I've actually lost 1lb since week 0 of this challenge. As it turns out, bulking might be harder than I thought, and I might actually have to plan for it better.

 

 

On 12/2/2022 at 7:11 PM, Jarric said:

The documancer +3 INT

 

I submitted my essay during zero week! Which is good news, as it was due in by 6th December and I was getting dangerously close to that. I now have 2 more essays to do, and then I get some new letters after my name and can take a break from study for a bit. The goal, then, is to work on my next essay every day. Some days I should be able to do an hour, other days it might be 10 minutes of edits and that's fine. I found last challenge that little and often was definitely the way forward, as it kept it in my mind and my brain could passively work on it between times.

 

1/21 = no stat increase

 

I did bugger all on this all challenge. Work was busy, I was stressed about work and about life in general, and I did not make time for it. Quite obviously this will come back as a goal, because I need to get these essays written! Hopefully this unintentional break will do me good?

 

On 12/2/2022 at 7:11 PM, Jarric said:

 

The translator +2 INT

 

I've been working on Dutch and French, and both are going pretty well so I'm going to keep doing it. Dutch will be Duolingo. French can be Duolingo, Language Transfer, or the Duolingo podcast. Or something else really, now I think of it, but I will work on both every day.

 

15/21 = +1 INT

 

I'm plodding along ok with this.. French has slipped a little, but I'm still finding it interesting and that's good. Dutch meanwhile is fascinatingly similar to English, so I'm really enjoying that.

 

 

On 12/2/2022 at 7:11 PM, Jarric said:

 

The face +2 SAN

 

Brush my teeth, twice per day, interdental brush in the evenings. This went absurdly well last challenge, and I'm going to stick to it for a few more challenges until I'm absolutely certain this is a proper habit.

 

20/21 = +2 SAN

 

I still don't understand why this is working so well, and I'm loathe to believe that this is a solid habit in case I slip up, but even on really low days where I really didn't want to do anything I managed to do this. Slip ups were not buying new interdental brushes in time, and missing a morning workout, and therefore a morning shower, on a weekend.

 

Overall this challenge has been a tricky one. I've been dealing with some quite negative feelings, some bad anxiety, and some stressful situations both in and out of work. Week 2 was a particularly low point, and I do feel a lot better now than I did then. Given that, and the inevitable disruption of this Christmas period, I'm not actually too concerned with how I did this time round. I've got a few days now to reflect and rest before the first challenge of 2023.

[Jarric]

2022 wrap-up

 

Well, it's that time of year, and with no more challenges to go my final stats are as follows:

 

Level 17 Wood Elf Ranger

STR: 12  -  CON: 10  -  CHA: 3  -  SAN: 7  -  INT: 11

 

Before I talk about each stat, it's probably worth recapping on what they mean:

 

Spoiler

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.

 

Edit - October 2022: I've booked my 2023 goal! In September next year I'll be running Man vs Mountain, which is a 22 mile run through the mountains of Snowdonia in Wales. The plan between now and then is to very slowly ramp up my mileage between now and then, and train with the guys I'm running the race with every couple of weeks.

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

Strength: 12

I think this went fairly well. I don't feel a lot stronger than I did at the start of this year, but that's probably because I injured my knee around March time and spent a lot more time rehabbing than I did progressing. Still, I am in better shape than I was for most of the year, and that's good.

 

I did run Rat Race Dirty Weekend, though I had to cut it short because of my knee issues, but it was still an excellent weekend. I also ran the Spartan European Championships and the Super and Sprint that weekend, and I even got to run one of those with @Rhovaniel which was wonderful to do again. I've got stuff booked for next year too, and running is progressing slowly but surely towards that.

 

On reflection, one thing that has really improved this year is my climbing. I can see it, and friends have commented on it as well. Maybe that's a good reason to focus more on this next year too. 

 

Constitution: 10

I've started tracking calories again, and very easily lost about 8lbs. The plan is now to do some bulking, which has been weirdly more difficult that I expected over Christmas. I might need a proper plan, beyond 'eat more'.

 

Alcohol-wise I've been pretty conscious of what I'm drinking and not going too overboard. It's not been a challenge goal directly all year, but with some difficult times throughout the year I've kept an eye on how I use alcohol (generally successfully I think).

 

Charisma: 3

Clearly I haven't given this one as much attention as other goals this year. Or, maybe I haven't weighted my goals towards creativity throughout the year, so I haven't missed the goals so much as not set them. Either way this is something I want to focus on more next year.

 

Sanity: 7

This has been quite needed this year. Most of the points have been from managing to brush my teeth, which I feel like I've finally started to crack. I think next year I need to focus on some of the other elements of this goal. Possibly work/life balance should be included in here, because that's certainly been a challenge for me.

 

Intelligence: 11

This has been ok. I'm not quite as far through my professional studies as I would like, but I'm still on track to complete them early next year. Following that I'll be taking another qualification, but I might have a few months break first until life is less exhausting. Then again, I might be better off keeping momentum and getting straight on with it? I'm really not sure.

 

Languages are going pretty well too. I'm finding Dutch really interesting, and the way I'm thinking about languages is changing a bit. I love those little moments when you realise that something you take totally for granted in English isn't automatically a construction in another language, or learn a cool bit of etymology that brings together a whole load of interesting history.

 

I don't really have an overarching closing statement for this year. I'm looking forward to planning for next year though,