Broba Fett crawls out of the Sarlacc.

[Jarric]

 

 

 

Girlfriend noticed something was up after the second and talked me down quite  a bit.  I went back in and finished the last circuit completely.

 

 

Late catching up with your thread, sorry! Just wanted to say that this is why you are going to keep smashing through your goals. You were having a bad time but you got back up and pushed through it, and you've got great support behind you to help you do it too.

 

[Broba Fett]

Hey guys. Wanted to check in and tell you I'm not dead and I haven't given up. Things are going really well. I neglected to let yall know I'm on vacation until Thursday. I shall write a detailed catch-up post when I'm back in front of a computer later on the week. Hope you all are doing well.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[RedStone]

 

Hey guys. Wanted to check in and tell you I'm not dead and I haven't given up. Things are going really well. I neglected to let yall know I'm on vacation until Thursday. I shall write a detailed catch-up post when I'm back in front of a computer later on the week. Hope you all are doing well.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

 

Things going well and being busy busy sounds good!! Have an awesome holiday!

[Jord]

I'm glad to hear you are not dead!

 

[Broba Fett]

Also, I'm engaged now. [emoji16] So that's a thing. That was the surprise I had in mind for the gf today on our 1 year. More explanation later.

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[Emerald_Dragonfly]

Congratulations! 

[RedStone]

 

Also, I'm engaged now. So that's a thing. That was the surprise I had in mind for the gf today on our 1 year. More explanation later.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

!!!!!!!!!!

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Congrats man!

[WorldSparrow]

[Jarric]

Congratulations on the engagement dude!

[Broba Fett]

On 4/26/2016 at 1:19 PM, Emerald_Dragonfly said:

Congratulations! 

 

On 4/26/2016 at 1:24 PM, ~RedStone~ said:

!!!!!!!!!!

 

On 4/26/2016 at 3:39 PM, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Congrats man!

 

On 4/27/2016 at 6:28 PM, WorldSparrow said:

 

23 hours ago, Jarric said:

Congratulations on the engagement dude!

Thanks all.  Working on a big catch-up post while I watch the NFL Draft as of...... now!

[Broba Fett]

Ok, so we'll do a little bullet point for each day.   Let's see, last day I posted was a week ago, 4/21.  Gonna be lot's of smileys.

 

Friday 4/22 - First day of vacation.  Had to get up at 0400 to drive up to the farm.  Cousin had to load several horses and take them to the county 4-H so he could give a presentation to every 5th grade class in the county regarding various equine things.  I somehow got talked into grilling chicken and steaks for all the 50-odd voluteers giving various presentations and managed to pull it off in about an hour with a little two burner grill.   Ate well all day and worked off some serious calories.

 

4/23 - Girlfriend and I got the yard/patio cleaned up and garage door fixed.  She is hoping to clear it out over the next month, do a garage sale, etc.  There's an awesome work bench/storage area for me to set up my tools/forge.  Should make my nerdy hobbies in smith/woodworking much easier.  THEN, we went to the local strongman show to cheer on our new gym-mates and coach.  Coach took 1st overall in 225lb class, several other members placed.  There must have been at least 10 members competing.  It was an awesome experience and cemented my decision to compete sometime soon.

 

4/24 - Strongman day at the gym.  I told my coach i want to participate in this show in July.  He said he thought that was very doable and that he might be able to get a group of people together to go up and compete together.  I love that his gym has made Strongman into a team effort.  They all support each other, it's pretty awesome.  I got to work on Axle Clean and Press (125 for reps this first time, working on form) and Yoke (got up to 390 at just under a jog before we had to leave) and left feeling like i can actually compete in July.

 

4/25 - Spent the whole day preparing for/freaking out about my big secret surprise proposal on Tuesday.  Went to class monday night.  For our skills portion Coach decided to let us work on jerks from the rack.  He told us to start at around half of our clean and jerk max and since my only experience with this was the axle press from the day before, I started with just 75lbs.  Coach came over and had me try it with proper form and the bar actually left my hands at the top of my push!  Need to put some serious weight on it the next time I'm practicing it and see what I'm capable of.  My show has axle clean and press for reps at 185 so we shall see where I'm at.  Got completely through the conditioning workout with just a little scaling.  Was pleasantly suprised to see I was capable of some serious height on jumping pullups and that i can now do all the parts of a burpee except for the pushup.

 

4/26 -  1 year to the day since the girlfriend and I met so I took her to relive that first date.  We packed a picnic and hiked 4.8 miles (me with the picnic and other things in a backpack, a good intro to rucking methinks).  When we got to the spot where she and I had our first kiss I got on one knee and proposed.  Made her a ring out of redwood on the lathe, had my photographer sister take candid photos, the works.  I already had a cabin/dinner/champagne reserved so we spent the afternoon/evening celebrating with no allowed guilt about what we were eating and drinking.

 

4/27 - We were both very sore from our hike and celebrations so we spent the day recuperating and getting back on track.  

 

Today - I'm making my monthly business trip to Cedar Rapids.  Typing this out from my hotel room after enjoying a delicious steak with a side of seared ahi tuna on the company dime and texting my girlf... excuse me, fiance about guest lists and venues.  Life is good.  

 

Half a day of work tomorrow, a 4 hour drive home, and then we are planning on attending squat class tomorrow night.  Hoping to get some critique on my form to ease my fear of hurting my back again.  Speaking of, lots of back/sciatic soreness today.  not sure if its due to the yoke sunday, the hike tuesday, or various beds being used through the week.  Probably some combination of all of the above.  Hopefully it will feel better in the morning.

 

There we go.  All caught up.  I'm off to catch up on all of your threads.

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Sounds like a great vacation!

[Jord]

The whole entire catch up post made me smile. Your lady is a lucky lady. It sounds like everything went off without a problem. I'm impressed how well you've been keeping up with workouts and everything leading up to the proposal, many men would be a mess!  

 

I hope the squat class is helpful, i can't wait to get some advice from a trainer/coach. My squats are definitely my weakest link. 

[Broba Fett]

Oh!  Forgot to mention.  Sometime in that week I got all the dirt moved into the planter box, as well as every plastic planter the fiance owns.  So we are good to go there!

[Why not?]

That's a great week! Belated congratulations!

[WorldSparrow]

Great update brother! I really like how you made the ring yourself. Did she have an idea what you were planning or did you surprise her?

[Broba Fett]

Thanks everyone for the congrats.

 

15 hours ago, WorldSparrow said:

Great update brother! I really like how you made the ring yourself. Did she have an idea what you were planning or did you surprise her?

 

She had no idea.  I brought her to the spot where we had our first kiss and said "i decided awhile ago that if I ever decided to ask you to marry me I'd bring you back here."  Then got on one knee and asked "will you?"

 

She actually replied with "will I what?"  and was very confused until I pulled out the ring.

 

The ring was very nice and she loved it... until it broke.  Then a bad time was had by all.  I'm making her another one and a few spares on monday.  Then I'll be saving up to get her one made of precious metal.  It turns out wood, while pretty and original, is not a popular ring material for a reason.

[Broba Fett]

Class last night was pretty awesome.

 

There was one other person besides the fiance and I and she was newer as well.  Apparently people like to do things at 630 on a friday night.  I'm jealous that I normally can't go at that time.

 

So we had a 3:1 ratio of member to coach and got plenty of attention.  Since all of us were new, Coach scrapped the WOD and had us work on skills.

 

Started with Cleans.  A few minutes on form with just the bar and then he had me do 30 of them at 95lbs.  I worked out an issue with me catching the bar on my shoulders by leaning back instead of squatting.  Took 5-6ish sets to get all 30 in but I felt much more comfortable with the movement at the end.

 

Then squats.  I told him about my back injury squatting so he started me out low and we worked on 3 rep sets, working on form.  He capped me off at 160lbs and showed me some movements to work on my mobility, specifically getting and keeping my arms in tight behind me on the bar. 

 

Ran a half mile in ~6.5mins and that was that. 

 

First work day back in my home office today, D&D tonight (half-orc/half-elf hair metal skald-bard ftw!), future daughter-in-law's first communion tomorrow.  Getting back into the swing of things.

[Stronkey Kong]

Dude! All the winning!

 

Congratulations!

[WorldSparrow]

15 hours ago, Broba Fett said:

 

The ring was very nice and she loved it... until it broke.  Then a bad time was had by all.  I'm making her another one and a few spares on monday.  Then I'll be saving up to get her one made of precious metal.  It turns out wood, while pretty and original, is not a popular ring material for a reason.

 

Haha, yeah that makes sense. 

[Broba Fett]

Alright, finally back in front of my home office desk so I can write a decent wrap-up.

 

Challenge went completely differently than I thought it would, with the reward I was trying to earn (checking out the strongman gym) becoming an integral part of my working out.  Still, here's how I did on my goals:

 

1.  Lift three times per week, 2 exceptions:  Passed!  I think I had two weeks that only had two workout sessions.  And most of the ones I had were much more intense than I first thought they'd be at the beginning of the month.

2.  Eat better portions:  Passed!  Not only did I eat much better portions, I switched myself to a Paleo plus dairy diet for 80% of the week!  Only day I didn't worry about portions was the night of our engagement, because engagement.

3. Make better beverage choices, 2 exceptions:  Passed!  Had two nights when I drank outside of the set parameters.  Engagement night and a Friday night when I was off the next day. 

 

Life goal:  Build a planter box:  Passed!  Built, filled with dirt, and has our first plants transplanted as of last week.

 

I feel pretty damn good about things.  Not only did I do all of the above but I also joined a strongman/crossfit gym, tried my first strongman events (and did pretty damn well at them), lost 18lbs and an inch off my waist, and got freaking engaged!  All wins coming out of this one.

 

Not sure what I'm going to do for the next challenge quite yet but will get a thread up soon and update in here. 

 

Now off to see how the rest of you finished up.

[Jord]

So much winning!

[Broba Fett]

New Challenge.

 

Will have a recap of last night's workout (was a tough one) up over there later on this evening.

[Jarric]

Finally caught up with your challenge man, awesome job! Glad you had such a great month!