WeyrCat: Rerolling! Run. Rehydrate, Read, repeat.

[weyrcat]

Hi! I took a little over a year off of NerdFitness quests, but for very convincing reasons. I'm happy to report my senior year of undergraduate teaching went well, I graduated Magna Cum Laude, and was accepted for a competitive (and so very fun) Everglades research internship. I had some very low lows however, and that took significant amounts of mental time as well. I'm now a month into my Masters program (yep, got accepted there too) and feel like it's time to get back into the swing of things. I'm actually going to reroll a little (using the Char Generator, starting at level 2), since it's been such a long time off, and I'd realized after the first three or four challenges that I'd been scoring myself wrong. Ha!

 

Goals, then RP. 

 

Main Quest: (Medium Term) Run 13.1 in December.

Why: It's been a long (LOOONG) term goal of mine, but I keep letting it get pushed farther back. "Later, I'll have time later." Well, there's not always a later. So, now.

 

SMART1: I will complete the first 6 weeks of my Garmin's Half Marathon training plan; including running 3x weekly, cross-training 4x weekly (with one day being low impact yoga).  

XP: STA3 STR2

 

SMART2: I will return to a "cut diet", wherein I consume my 8x water a day, take my vits, and consume 3+ servings of vegetables a day. This goal is a little more flexible, as I have one day a week where I 'date' with my husband, and that tends to mean eating a little poorly. 

XP: CON4 CHA1

 

SMART3 (Life): I will spend one hour a day reading papers or books, that were not assigned as homework, pertaining to my master's degree. (Average, 7 hours per week, may be completed in chunks if necessary). I actually think I'll have the most trouble with this one. 

XP: WIS 5

 

 

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She stroked the slender scaled neck, feeling the smoothness of them. The sun shone off those amethyst colored scales ... They took to the sky with th other graduates. Streamers of purple, green, gold, and silky white, were tied around the ankles of the powerful mounts, signifying honors hard fought and won. There were so many graduates this year, and finally she was one of them. Momentarily, the sun dazzled her, but she squinted and found her again. Jewel, the weyrwoman, hovered on her queen in the center of the swirl of graduates. She would lead them out over the towns, to show them off. Jaetha stroked the dragon's neck again, but the scales had become a dark eggplant color- her fingers came away wet with blood. No, this isn't the way it happened. Something's wrong.

"Oro!" The shout came from the cloud of graduates but all eyes turned to the west. A flight of yellow dragons poured out from mountain, as if riding the sunbeams themselves. They must have been hiding behind the mountain all morning. Her eyes flew to Jewel, now between the graduates and the riders of the Oro tribe. Why today? Why? Arrows and bolts flew into the mass of graduates, not a shield or bit of scaled armor among them, not today. A bolt struck Jewel in the ribs as another tore through the velvety membrane of her huge queen. They fell, and Jaetha screamed.

Suddenly they were all on the ground. The Oro were gone, and Jewel was bleeding, but alive. Her queen, Jasmine, had rolled in the air as they fell, slowing them, spiraling them towards the lake, and plunging them into the cool springtime waters. Jewel's breaths came in ragged, gurgling gasps. No, this isn't the way it happened. She didn't die here! We were at the healers! Stop! She clutched at her mother's hand, chilled from the lake, and limp. Jasmine keened, and the sound became a wail, a trumpeting call of grief and horror and loss. Jaetha realized, she was screaming too.

She woke to the sound of a dragonet trumpeting with the dawn. Her shift was soaked with sweat, and her neck ached. The weyr had given her time to herself after the passing ceremony for her mother, but the short month-long grieving period was over. Still, her duties were light. She would have no trainees this cycle, though she had graduated top of her class that day. Instead of instructing new riders in the care of their equally young dragons, Jaetha was reviewing the training  procedures of the weyr as a whole. Jewel had been a meticulous weyrwoman and had felt most of the classes were antiquated and awkward. They had worked side by side to script a new training class for the youngest of the trainees. That work was to be continued and become Jaetha's new life's work, but the trainees would continue as usual this cycle. The rookerymaster said her grief was still upsetting the impressionable tiny beasts...and sometimes the dragons too.

Still, her own physical training had also been on pause during her period of grief, exacerbating the soft padding collected over the last cycle when most of her duties revolved around guiding young riders on the ground. Her legs were stiff and sore from yesterday's ride. They'd both been completely grounded for the first half of the grieving period, an old tradition meant to keep family members from following their loved ones into the void. She'd had to squeeze into her riding pants yesterday, and Pen had actually snuffled in protest when she mounted her. It was time to get fighting fit again. 

[weyrcat]

Runblog 9-16. First morning run of the new routine. Did my PT, and studied. Run, read, rest, repeat!

[weyrcat]