Ytterbium's 5th challenge: Scouting as a scout, how novel

[ytterbium]

It's later than I intended, so I'll just put in a bit of a placeholder here. I'm also watching American Ninja Warrior online and there are so many people involved that I'd like to punch.

 

This is kind of an exciting challenge, since the Warrior Dash -- my first obstacle course race -- is taking place in it. So it's the culmination of a lot. It's also a bit weird, since that event is going to be next weekend -- i.e., day 6 of the challenge. So a big part of my challenge goal will be done early.

 

I'm in the hunt for hobbies. Is there anything I should try? I'm welcoming suggestions. No idea too absurd to consider. Frankly, the randomer the better. (Although I make no promises about anything... resources are finite, after all, and I'm not super-fond of putting my butt over my head.)

 

More to come.

[18ck]

Mm, I'm in a similar boat (mines the end of week 2) so I made a pre-race set of activities and a post-race set.

So how are you feeling about your state of readiness?

[Shukar]

I like the idea of a pre/post split to deal with that, good to have a plan instead of just winging it after the event right?

[Kailer]

My husband has a somewhat absurd hobby - he likes painting those little Warhammer 40K figures for the tabletop game even though he doesn't play. It keeps him busy for hours! My absurd hobby is trivia!!

 

Good luck with your Warrior Dash!

[ytterbium]

Mm, I'm in a similar boat (mines the end of week 2) so I made a pre-race set of activities and a post-race set.

So how are you feeling about your state of readiness?

 

In a way, over-prepared. Obviously, not really, but: I'm not at all worried about the running part (which was my biggest concern, but I've done training runs up to 5 miles, which is well past what's needed) and I don't think the obstacles are going to be more than I can handle. My goal was basically finishing in good form, and I've felt like that was pretty much in hand a while back. It's not timed, so there's not really a stretch goal to aim at. That's cool, though; I'm looking at this as a test to see if the obstacle course racing is a thing that I want to be doing more of, rather than necessarily an endpoint.

[ytterbium]

OK, time to define some goals.

 

#1: Warrior Dash. My first obstacle course race, and it's happening June 14. That's 1 week from today. That's been a goal since, I think, my very first challenge. My goal is to finish in good form: running the full thing and completing all obstacles. Timewise, my original thinking was 45 minutes as a goal, but it looks like that will be pretty informal -- the race isn't timed, although heats do go 15 minutes apart. As I mentioned in my last post (and I'm really hoping I don't completely eff it up and look like an ass), I think that's pretty well within my abilities: I've done plenty of 3-mile runs in training, which is the length of the race, and even gone up to 5 miles, and I don't think the obstacles are anything I can't do based on what I looked up online. Given how long I've been working toward it, though, I don't feel weird about giving it full credit in the goals. This will be worth 2 STA, 2 DEX, and 1 STR. A=Run full race, do all obstacles, time under 45 minutes. B=Run full race, do all obstacles, time over 45 minutes. C=Skip one obstacle or walk one time. D=Skip 2 obstacles or walk twice.

 

#2: Exploration. I've been in a rut for a while; a lot of the things that I once loved have fallen by the wayside for one reason or another, leaving life problematically empty. In an effort to improve this situation, I'm going to try stuff. The goal will be to try at least 6 new things—activities that involve doing something and ideally talking to someone—that may evolve into hobbies or a career or something like that. This will be worth 2 CHA. 6 things will be worth full points; 5 points will be worth half. I will, however, give credit for things that I commit to during the challenge but that don't happen yet, since some of these will likely be classes that have some lead time.

 

#3: Be the bard. (Yeah, I know, invariably the least useful class there is.): I'm planning to do the 50/90 songwriting challenge this year. Well, not really; that kind of speed isn't going to be good for me right now. I'm going to be aiming for a 15/90 challenge—15 songs in 90 days, or roughly one song a week. It doesn't start until July 4, but I'd like to do some up-warming. So my goal will be producing 6 songs over this challenge. Worth 1 WIS and 1 CHA. A=6 songs, B=5 songs, C=4 songs, D=3 songs.

 

#4: Strongly, endurancely workout maneuvers. This is a 2-parter: I'm going to try to build both push-up and pull-up endurance. Current records are 3 pull-ups and 35 push-ups (although I haven't done the whole as-many-reps-as-possible test in a while for push-ups since my first challenge.) I think, although this is subject to reconsideration over the next couple days, that my goals will be 50 consecutive push-ups and 6 consecutive pull-ups. Total of 2 STR and 2 STA up for grabs for this one; I'll define how points get distributed soon.

 

#5: Soda minimization. Pop is my morning caffeine jolt, so I'd like to try to reduce that. While the weather's nice, I'll try to break that habit with a bit of light exercise instead. In other words, wake up and go for a quick walk to wake up, rather than going straight for caffeine. This is kind of an experiment; I'm willing to accept it even if I go for the pop immediately after the walk, but I want to give this approach a try. 2 CON. A= Success 35 times. B=Success 33 times. C=Success 31 times. D= Success 29 times.

[Dizz]

Silly hobby ideas: Contact juggling, 3 ball juggling, poi, hooping, buugeng.  Google each for more info or PM me.   These fall under Flow Arts. They require practice and patience, but if you stick with it, you will fall in love.

 

I've been a contact juggler since 2007.  It's considered the hardest to learn, but I think the most rewarding.

[Nightside]

My husband has a somewhat absurd hobby - he likes painting those little Warhammer 40K figures for the tabletop game even though he doesn't play. It keeps him busy for hours! My absurd hobby is trivia!!

 

Good luck with your Warrior Dash!

Nothing wrong with 40k I will have you know lol, I have a huge collection in the basement that my 23 year old son abandoned when he was about 13. God knows how much time I spent making models of ruins and blown up buildings for him along with a huge gaming board that took up half the basement.

[ytterbium]

So, I just ran 5K in 26:45, according to my phone. (Actually, it could have been 26:35 or 26:25; I don't really remember, since I went a bit beyond that, but I know that the number Zombies, Run said started with 26 and ended in 5.)

 

For comparison, the 5K I ran last fall I did in 28:17. I'm at least tentatively planning on doing the same one again this year. (I don't exactly like the idea of dropping cash to run the same paths that I do regularly, but it's a fundraiser for the museum where I volunteer, so the combination of that, the official time, and the free post-race banana make it worth it. The two tickets to Medieval Times are a nice idea, but since that's way out in the burbs in a not-easy-to-reach-without-a-car place, they didn't wind up having any value for me.) The stretch goal that I haven't vocalized to anyone else yet is 26:00. Not sure if that's actually in reach—I don't think I'm going to be focusing on running as much for the rest of the year—but it's not ludicrous.

 

In other news... I did my first two job applications in a couple months today. I'm not exactly thrilled about picking up that 4-year exercise in futility and humiliation again, but it is necessary to do. Today, at least, I was able to ignore some of the less pleasant memories and just do the things, so that's nice.

 

Songwriting: I've started on song #1, in that I've picked a subject and title and gotten a bit of chorus written. I'd meant for these songs to be the intersection of science and comedy, so naturally I picked a really rather depressing and kind of horrifying topic for the first one. So it's not going to be funny, and I'm okay with that.

 

Exploration: Pottery classes are a possibility. Not a good one, though, because it would cost $255 to make a bunch of pots that I have no interest in possessing.

 

I haven't done any work explicitly on the push-up or pull-up challenges, and frankly probably won't until next week. I'm into taper mode for the Warrior Dash.

[Kailer]

That is fast, no ifs ands or buts! You're going to kill that Warrior Dash.

Your explanation of pottery class made me laugh. Do you know anyone who likes homemade Christmas gifts? Lol

[Erick the Red]

I agree that spending money to make something you don't want seems a little off.

Find anything interesting on meetup.com?

Maybe call up your local SCA branch and see if there is an interesting activity coming up?

[Erick the Red]

I hope that the race goes smoothly tomorrow.  You seem like you are well prepared.  Don't forget the sunscreen.

 

Let us know how it goes getting the mud off afterwards.  There are usually stations with water spraying, but these have always been mobbed in my experience.

[18ck]

I hope you're enjoying some rest and pasta before the big day. Good luck tomorrow. You'll smash it. Absolutely. Smash. It.

[ytterbium]

Less than ideal pre-race day... highly stressful due to work and some clients who hated what I did, but didn't want to let me know what was wrong with it. Yahoo. But I did a gentle warm-up run... a total of 3K running, but alternating running and walking each kilometer. Got everything (I hope) I need prepared, and about to go to bed so as to pick up the rental car early and do the drive down, as I've described to friends, "an hour down some highway, I'll figure it out then."

[ytterbium]

Home from the Warrior Dash. I had fun. But it was also pretty disappointing.

 

It was supposed to be an Event—a day that I trained for for a long time that would serve as a good milestone of how far I'd come and a good indicator of what I can do. And instead, it was a pretty mild workout with some somewhat unusual equipment and some very long mandatory rest periods.

 

From what I've pieced together from what I heard from other people who have experience, Red Frog (the company that puts on the Warrior Dash) really biffed it, with a lot of logistical issues. From my standpoint, I can (sort of) accept the long lines at the obstacles (although I also sort of can't; people who did it last year told me they didn't have that problem, and while I think they had more sign-ups this year, I think that should have triggered someone to think that they should have also added capacity). What bugged me more was the lack of capacity on the runs on the course—there were plenty of places where the course was fenced in to only the width of a few people, which created huge bottlenecks, even though we were just running through a field where there should have been plenty more room.

 

There were other bottlenecks due to the course going through the woods on very narrow paths that, today at least, were wet clay that had absolutely no traction. There was one official obstacle where we had to climb a muddy slope, but the only difference between that and about 3 other places on the course was that it had a rope we could use to help us up. There were also downhills where you really could only safely get down by sliding.

 

The obstacles were generally pretty fun. Nothing was physically too difficult, although there were a lot of things to climb over where the 'over' part was the real challenge, because the foothold was well below the top and there wasn't a good place to put your hands. I didn't complete one of this type of obstacle—it was an extremely bottlenecked one, and particularly treacherous because it was taller than the others, and the other side was a ladder down with the first foothold also well below the peak. I didn't think I could get my legs over and keep enough control to hit that foothold on the way down and not kick a neighbor in the face, so I got out of the way.  That one kind of annoys me, though. I think the general concept really contributed to the bottlenecks, since the tops of climbs were slow for everyone. (I'm frankly surprised there weren't a lot of falls and injuries; happily I didn't see any, but they were places without huge margins for error.)
 

I'm going to give myself a B for that part of the challenge. While I didn't hit the letter of my grading scale, I'm pretty confident that without the kind of artificial factors that I've mentioned, I would have. I just really wish I'd have had some chance to.

[18ck]

I think it's red frog who should settle for a B. You were ready for the race, they weren't.

I'm sorry it was a let-down for you though. After the effort you put in, you deserve a big finale.

[ytterbium]

Okay, moping done. (At least, until the next sack of crap flies into life... but enough about that.) Time for focusing on the rest of the challenge and beyond.

 

I tested push-ups today--21. That's way down from what I have done in the past, but I think it's kind of artificially low, given that I haven't done any push-ups-for-quantity work lately and that I ate my feelings over the weekend and as a result am today basically an anvil. So my strength & endurance goals for the challenge will be:

Push-ups: A:50 B:45 C:40 D:35

Pull-ups: A:6 B:5 C:4 (I'm currently at 3)

 

Exploration-wise: I just emailed for info about both an ultimate frisbee pick-up game and a running group.  So there is at least a bit of progress there.

[The Borg Queen]

My husband has a somewhat absurd hobby - he likes painting those little Warhammer 40K figures for the tabletop game even though he doesn't play. It keeps him busy for hours! My absurd hobby is trivia!!

 

Good luck with your Warrior Dash!

Everyone in the military does this! It's a thing. Lol

[The Borg Queen]

Ytt, I'm sorry your race was not what you had expected. Live and learn, I guess... sounds like you had a fun time, anyway.

 

Knitting is a pretty great hobby. It's also useful, especially if you ever need things like hats, mittens, dish towels, or holiday gifts

[Erick the Red]

I'm sorry to hear the race was less fun than it could have been.

 

Good job reaching out to folks for the ultimate and running groups.  Those sound like the ycould be fun.

[KillerGriller]

I had a similar experience in the Tough Mudder I did last year.  Chalk it up to experience and keep moving forward

[ytterbium]

The past few days have actually been okay, kind of surprisingly. Things that should have been simple weren't... the ultimate group didn't get back to me, and neither did the running group. The ultimate group is practically in my backyard, though, so I dropped by today -- didn't play because it was at the end of a run, but I got the official info so I'll probably join either Saturday or next Wednesday.

 

I also went to the library to examine a copy of the Sunday want ads to see if there were any job categories that were available that I could do that I haven't been checking. So, naturally, they didn't have it. Apparently, the newspaper can't quite manage to find that branch... Of course, it didn't matter; I tried another branch and they did have it, but (perhaps not surprisingly) the classified section is now microscopic.

 

I have started applying for jobs again, depressing as the process is. I'd like to smack the person who developed the template for modern job-application websites--they make the process so much worse for people who have to use them.

 

Song #1 of this challenge is almost done... I've finished the lyrics and most of what I'll charitably call the accompaniment. Hopefully I'll knock the rest out tomorrow and record a quick demo.

 

 

This is me this weekend. I like the way it looks like I've decided to give up and just let myself burn to death. Also, since I was wearing bad pants that absorbed about 84% of the ponds I trod through, it's pretty lucky that you're not seeing my dangly bits.

[Kailer]

You look straight-up badass! Way to go!

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

[Erick the Red]

Stay strong on the job search!  With all the other progress you have made this year, the new and rewarding job will be coming too.

[Kailer]

Hey Ytterbium! While I was down in the L1 forum I met Nianne and I thought you guys would really get along because you’re both working on your Warrior Dash skills this challenge. When you get a few minutes you should go catch up on this thread by clicking here and saying some encouraging words! Remember, it really means a lot to the newer rebels when we take time to check in on them