Jon Firestar Strikes Out!

[jonfirestar]

Leaves rustled in the wind and birds called in the canopy. The group of rangers crouched silently in the undergrowth watching the caravan creep forward along the road. The four wagons moved slowly, their wheels creaking under the combined burden.  

                   

The empire guards marched in formation on either side. Ridged and upright their armour gleaming in the sunlight like so many diamonds. Not a sound passed between them except the occasional shouted command from the captain at the head of the group.

 

The guards were a distraction as were three of the four wagons. They were laden with sweet treats and treasures. They would be missed the most in the empire markets but the thing that had the attention of the rangers was the fourth wagon. Unlike the others, it wasn’t destined for the markets. It was also the reason for the heavily armed escort.

 

The wagon wasn’t brightly painted like it’s peers but instead a drab brown of scuffed wood. Any colour had long ago peeled away. There was the odd discoloured splotch that stained the old wood. Blood, vomit or some other bodily fluid, Jon reasoned. The wagon was a box of steel and wood. Completely encased but with no windows and a single door of thick wood and bound iron. It was locked tight. Inside were citizens of the empire selected for re-education. Some of those had been members of the rebellion. Some just dared voice their dissent. All got the same treatment.

 

Jon cast his eyes around his companions. Women and men of the ranger’s guild. They were a varied bunch. Big, small, large and narrow. Some built for speed, some for strength some for endurance. Some, all of the above.

 

A flash of red caught Jon’s attention. It was the man they had followed on this raid. The red was the signal. Around him came creeks as the group pulled the strings of their bows and then twangs as the arrows were loosed. The attack had begun.

 

 

---

I really struggled on my last challenge. After about week 1, I completely lost all motivation to keep going. I’m still not sure what exactly caused the switch but I was able to keep going and maintain my momentum and got through with a success on my sheet. I gradually came out of the funk by week 4 and I’m overall happy with my progress during that time.

 

So, the theme of this challenge is to strike out. To keep things moving along a little. To swap things up each week with my workouts and to keep myself accountable.

 

I’m still trying to make sure I don’t overwhelm myself like I did at the beginning of the year (and that is probably a leading cause of my issues last challenge) but I do find that I do better with more specific and active goals.

 

Food and Water

If I am honest this is where I’ve really been struggling to maintain control. I think that in part because I’ve been in a calorie deficit for the best part of a year now and part because my workouts are so much more intense it is making it hard for me to maintain. I need a little more focus and a little more discipline to make it through.

 

I use MFP but unlike most I tend to use it plan my meals rather than log what I’m eating. I plan a week in advance everything I intend on eating. I need to be much more disciplined in logging any extra calories so that I have an idea.

 

Goals:

Meal plan and stick to the plan 34

Don’t add extra calories without logging 34

Log my water intake and get at least 2 liters per day 34

 

Exercise

As of writing I have just under 8 weeks until Tough Mudder!! And I want to incorporate a few more sport specific items into my workouts.

 

Essentially, I want to add more conditioning into my strength days and some body weight stuff into my short runs. The additional stuff is going to be a little random to add a little bit of interest to my workouts. I’ve gotten into a routine of doing the same stuff over and over and I kind of don’t like doing that for long – Rangerbrain so mix it up.

 

I’ve stalked the OCR badasses out there and read a whole bunch of stuff. I need to think on how to actually implement it. So I am going to experiment this week a little if I am able.

 

Goals:

Strength workout 3 days per week – conditioning circuit 1-2 times per week

Running 3 days per week – added bodyweight training mid run 1-2 times per week.

 

On both accounts I’m only going to score against 1 added activity each week. I may adjust

 

Workout Plans:

I’ve been using the Juggernaut program for my lifting. I really like the program for the main lifts because it offers steady progress without demanding too much.

 

Monday: Squat and OHP

 

Wednesday: Deadlift

 

Friday: Benchpress

 

Running:

I’m currently aiming to hit 18 miles per week across three runs. I’ve come to the realisation that my long run on the weekend may sometimes need to take backseat to life and I’m not to beat myself up for not running 10 miles on Saturday if I have stuff to get done over the weekend because that run really takes it out of me. On those occasions I am going to aim for 10K instead because that is a run I can do without the rest demand that comes from 10 miles:

 

Tuesday: Easy 4 miles

Thursday: Speed/Hill work – I’m going to focus on actual speed work on these days with sprints and hill repeats rather than temp runs. A couple of easy miles as a warm up/cool down included.

 

Saturday:

Long steady run. Steady 10 miles or 10k depending on the circumstances.

 

It should be noted that every 4^th week in my program I go into deload and I drop back volume and intensity on both my running and my lifting for that week.

 

Domestic Rangering

 

I’m adding this here because I find that when I have it in my challenge I hit my list more often In short I have a short todo list in my journal for my domestic rangering and if I hit it I keep on top of all the things rather than playing catch up.

 

Sunday: Laundry, Kitchen

Monday: Landing

Tuesday: Kitchen

Wednesday: Laundry, trash and hall

Thursday: Bathroom

Friday: Kitchen and stairs

Saturday: Bedroom and Laundry

 

Scoring:

 

I’m going to keep up with my health bar idea: I have a total of 195 points to hit. I want to be good at least 80% of the time. This means I can drop a total of 39 points. This represents my HP, the goal is simply to keep the bar above 0 for the challenge.

 

Disclaimer: I am going to start this challenge right now but I need to point out that I have come down with a case of the plague It is a bit of a head cold right now and, if I don’t feel any worse, it shouldn’t stop me doing anything on my list. If it does get worse then I may need to make allowances for this week.

[Laghail]

Following along again!

[Mizbrek]

Following along! Hope you feel better though! Take care of yourself - can't accomplish any goals if you're flat on your back for a week.

[Muir]

Get better soon! Love the story in your OP.

[Yasha92]

Following~

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jonfirestar]

3 hours ago, Laghail said:

Following along again!

Great to have you. If I can bring myself to look at facebook again we might give that another go

 

3 hours ago, Mizbrek said:

Following along! Hope you feel better though! Take care of yourself - can't accomplish any goals if you're flat on your back for a week.

Thanks. I can be a bit of a stubborn fool when it comes to sickness! Although I am very much playing it by ear and I will drop things if I start to feel actually bad. Right now it's just a case of the sniffles but, as we all know too well, that can escalate quickly.

 

2 hours ago, Muir said:

Get better soon! Love the story in your OP.

Thanks! For both things!

 

7 minutes ago, Yasha92 said:

Following~

Good to see you back!

[Big_Show]

Following along

 

[deftona]

Here to follow! 

[Charlie_Quinn]

[jonfirestar]

12 hours ago, Big_Show said:

Following along

Great to have you here

 

2 hours ago, deftona said:

Here to follow! 

Let's rock this challenge!

 

24 minutes ago, Charlie_Quinn said:

 

Hehe thanks for putting a smile on my face this morning

 

Quick Monday update even though I wrote out my challenge after the day was basically over:

 

I had the day off work as mentioned sometime last challenge the reason I took a long weekend this week vaporized a few weeks back but I took the days anyway just to get a bit of a break and take some me time.

 

Food and Drink

Calories were high yesterday because we went out for lunch. A nice big fat hamburger mmm, added fries, which I probably could have done without but I ate them nonetheless. Dinner was very protein rich, with steak and some veggies. I did get in my water although I only made the decision to start tracking once I was actually writing out the challenge.

 

Exercise

I hit the gym at about 9am, which is significantly later than I normally go. It was surprisingly busy but I was able to get into the power rack a little after I got a warm up done.

Squat and OHP day:

 

Squats:

1x2x90kg
3x5x95kg
1x10x95kg

 

OHP

1x2x40kg
1x2x45kg
3x5x47.5kg
1x6x47.5kg

 

Assistance:

Lunge 2x3x40kg, 1x8x40kg
Face Pull 2x3x66kg 1x8x66kg
Lat Raises 2x3x10kg, 2x6x10kg
Shrugs 2x3x80kg, 1x6x80kg
Farmers Walk 3x40kg (in each hand)
Seated Press 2x3x30kg 1x10x30kg
Lat Pulldown 2x3x73kg 1x5x73kg
Cable Row 2x3x73kg 1x5x73kg
Pull up (assisted) 3x3

 

Domestic Rangering

Did clear the landing last night. I did a lot of domestic rangering yesterday because I slacked off hard over the weekend and caught up. It's this kind of behavior that this goal is designed to fix

 

 

[Jarric]

Following again man, looks like a good challenge. If you're looking to add random bodyweight stuff during your runs have you considered something like this: http://darebee.com/daredice.html?

 

Just out of interest, how long did that workout take you? That seems like a lot of things to do in one session!

[Maigs]

Following. I really struggled with motivation last challenge too but am fighting to get it back

[jonfirestar]

54 minutes ago, Jarric said:

Following again man, looks like a good challenge. If you're looking to add random bodyweight stuff during your runs have you considered something like this: http://darebee.com/daredice.html?

 

I was actually thinking about something alone these lines although I didn't know darebee had something, I intend on using the daily dare as part of it all anyway.

 

57 minutes ago, Jarric said:

Just out of interest, how long did that workout take you? That seems like a lot of things to do in one session!

 

they are very short sets and not many of them, but, yesterday not withstanding, I get into the gym at about 6:30am and get out by about 8:15am. This includes getting changed, having a shower and about 10 minutes of mobility work. So in all less than an hour and a quater to do the actual lifting. I take about 90 seconds break between sets some of the stuff I do in super-sets where appropriate.

 

I'm still experimenting a little with my assistance makeup and this exact pattern is quite new so it may change up a little.

 

 

[jonfirestar]

1 hour ago, Maigahane said:

Following. I really struggled with motivation last challenge too but am fighting to get it back

Well you were killed a little by the plague Let's all keep each other motivated!

 

[Jarric]

4 hours ago, jonfirestar said:

they are very short sets and not many of them, but, yesterday not withstanding, I get into the gym at about 6:30am and get out by about 8:15am. This includes getting changed, having a shower and about 10 minutes of mobility work. So in all less than an hour and a quater to do the actual lifting. I take about 90 seconds break between sets some of the stuff I do in super-sets where appropriate.

 

I'm still experimenting a little with my assistance makeup and this exact pattern is quite new so it may change up a little.

 

Ah, that makes sense. I only do 1 main lift and 3 assistance exercises so what you do looked like a lot more, but I do all the assistance for 4 sets of 12 so I guess that's why!

[Agnarr]

Following!

[jonfirestar]

2 hours ago, Jarric said:

Ah, that makes sense. I only do 1 main lift and 3 assistance exercises so what you do looked like a lot more, but I do all the assistance for 4 sets of 12 so I guess that's why!

Monday is also the day I double up on the main lifts with OHP and Squats, the other two days I keep it to just 1 lift. The assistance is patterned after 531, not quite how it is laid out in the Juggernaut book but something I'm experimenting with. Truth be told, I'm not entirely sure what to do with my assistance work so I'm just trying to make sure I hit all major body parts twice a week and some more minor ones (arms for example) once. I've only been doing it for a week so I'll see how it goes over the next couple of cycles.

 

22 minutes ago, Agnarr said:

Following!

 

Great to have you!

 

Week 0, Tuesday

Things were going really well today, right up to the point I found myself in the pub after work and that is when things went a little awry. I only had a couple of beers but it meant my dinner was really late and I was really hungry by the time I ate. I ended up eating a little too much.

 

Food and Drink

I ended up hitting about 3200 calories. Partly because beer and partly because of the silly things I ate when I got in and was cooking dinner   the positive for today is that I did pass up the heaps of cake, chocolate, snacks and pizza that they had a work today so, in all, I think I've not done too bad out of it. I'm mostly upset because it was going so well.

 

Exercise

Four mile run today. I hit it at a reasonable pace (for me, still pretty slow overall) at a couple of points I stopped to add my random body weight stuff. This was two sets of burpees, two sets of pushups (5 the first set, 10 the second) and the daily dare - two minutes of toe tap hops - The toe tap hops were by far the hardest thing and it did make my legs feel really heavy on the return leg.  It was fairly warm out and I'd overdressed a little for the run. When I got home I was drenched in sweat.

 

Domestic Rangering

I did clean the kitchen once i was done. Not quite as much as I'd have done if I wasn't so late home but I'll take it.

[Muir]

11 hours ago, jonfirestar said:

the positive for today is that I did pass up the heaps of cake, chocolate, snacks and pizza that they had a work today

 

That is a really good positive!

[jonfirestar]

2 hours ago, Muir said:

That is a really good positive!

Thanks, I was being a little too hard on myself last night. The beer on an empty stomach went to my head a little In all it was a great day and today is going to be even better because it's deadlift day!

[Broba Fett]

Here I was getting all excited about someone having a baseball themed challenge and then I realized...  you Brits don't really do baseball do you?

 

 

"You gotta know what a crumpet is to understand cricket!"

 

On 3/14/2017 at 5:30 AM, jonfirestar said:

 

Squats:

1x2x90kg
3x5x95kg
1x10x95kg

 

OHP

1x2x40kg
1x2x45kg
3x5x47.5kg
1x6x47.5kg

 

Assistance:

Lunge 2x3x40kg, 1x8x40kg
Face Pull 2x3x66kg 1x8x66kg
Lat Raises 2x3x10kg, 2x6x10kg
Shrugs 2x3x80kg, 1x6x80kg
Farmers Walk 3x40kg (in each hand)
Seated Press 2x3x30kg 1x10x30kg
Lat Pulldown 2x3x73kg 1x5x73kg
Cable Row 2x3x73kg 1x5x73kg
Pull up (assisted) 3x3

 

 

Jeesh.  No wonder I'm having trouble keeping up with you volume-wise.  Well done. 

[ArgSki77]

Following along!

On 3/13/2017 at 0:38 PM, jonfirestar said:

Running 3 days per week – added bodyweight training mid run 1-2 times per week.

Really like the bit of change that you made to this goal! Seems very prevalent to OCRs with the longer runs broken up by the obstacles. I feel like the bodyweight PT in the middle of your runs seems like a good precursor to that kind of work you will experience.

[jonfirestar]

3 hours ago, Broba Fett said:

Here I was getting all excited about someone having a baseball themed challenge and then I realized...  you Brits don't really do baseball do you?

hehe, I should have probably noticed that! Oh well. The problem with baseball, you see, is that there is rounders and that's why the Brits have a hard time taking it seriously.

 

Cricket makes a whole lot more sense after about 12 pints or so.

 

1 hour ago, ArgSki77 said:

Really like the bit of change that you made to this goal! Seems very prevalent to OCRs with the longer runs broken up by the obstacles. I feel like the bodyweight PT in the middle of your runs seems like a good precursor to that kind of work you will experience.

Well that's the plan. We just have to see how well I execute on it

 

Week 0, Wednesday

I got very little sleep last night because I managed, some how, to wake myself up by smacking my head against the bedside table. Really hard. I got less than 5 hours overall and have been awake since 3am. I spent the time looking up various races in the local and not so local area. Come pay day I am going to sign myself up for a couple.

 

Despite the lack of sleep I felt amazing today! It might be because it is deadlift day or it might be because I've been eating more these last few days. Who knows but I've been bustling with energy all day long, despite busting my ass at the gym first thing this morning. I'm still suffering with my minor bout of the plague but so far it has failed to produce more than a runny nose and the occasional sneezing bout.

 

Food and Drink

Dead on 2700 calories and 229g of protein today scraping in just within my targets. I hit my water goal by the time I'd left the gym because, sheesh, my workout made me sweat but I also got in plenty of water throughout the day.

 

black beans on rye toast with feta cheese and two boiled eggs

protein shake

chicken, couscous and broccoli

apple

banana

roast celeriac, beets and parsnips with salmon

protein shake

yogurt

 

Exercise

Went ham at the gym today, deadlift day and it felt great.

 

Deadlifts: 1x2x85kg (187lbs), 1x2x95kg (209lbs), 3x5x100kg (220lbs), 1x12x100kg (220lbs) - I feel like I could have gone more on the amrap but I was panting a bit by 12

Stiff Legged deadlifts 2x3x75kg (165lbs) 1x8x75kg

leg press 2x3x200kg (440lbs) 1x8x200kg (440lbs)

incline bench 2x3x40kg 1x10x40kg (88lbs)

tricep pulldowns 3x3x32kg (68lbs)

ghr 3x12

decline situps 50

dips 2x9 1x12

kettlebell swings 3x25x20kg (44lbs)

shouldering 10kg medicine ball 3x10

russian twist 10kg medicine ball 3x10

pushups 3x10

daily dare plank thingy

 

A bunch of this stuff was put into a circuit at the very end of the session that took all of 7 minutes to complete. I've come to the conclusion that I've done a good job at training my body for long slow workouts but I'm having a real hard time doing hard short workouts. This is the exact opposite to my previous incursions into the realms of fitness where I got really good at short hard sessions but couldn't go longer than 40 minutes. I see a hiit challenge in my future

 

I left the gym feeling fired up and like I had more in me and I've maintained that feeling for the rest of the day. I know the DOMS are coming tomorrow but I hope they stay away until after the run.

 

Domestic Rangering

put out the trash for collection tomorrow, did a load of laundry and cleared the hall.

[Broba Fett]

59 minutes ago, jonfirestar said:

hehe, I should have probably noticed that! Oh well. The problem with baseball, you see, is that there is rounders and that's why the Brits have a hard time taking it seriously.

 

Cricket makes a whole lot more sense after about 12 pints or so.

 

 

I have no idea what rounders are but I imagine just about anything would make more sense after 12 pints. That's about my maximum consumption over the course of an entire night.  

 

Good job killing it on deads day. 

[deftona]

9 hours ago, Broba Fett said:

 

I have no idea what rounders are

 

*major flashbacks to PE*

[jonfirestar]

10 hours ago, Broba Fett said:

I have no idea what rounders are but I imagine just about anything would make more sense after 12 pints. That's about my maximum consumption over the course of an entire night.  

 

Rounders is the precursor to baseball. It's kind of like baseball lite.. lite or softball lite. It's mostly played by kids. It's hard to talk about baseball without making an unjust comparison to rounders. Then there is also the issue with the gloves because the only way to catch half a brick (which imo is the only way you can describe a cricket ball) is with your bare hands.

 

1 hour ago, deftona said:

*major flashbacks to PE*

I know right!

 

A couple of things I should have mentioned last night. Adjustments are being made. I've got a work lunch to go to today and that is probably going to mean pizza (I know, we are classy) I am just going to try and keep it to reasonable amounts and attempt to log what I've eaten afterwards.

 

Also next Thursday, I've got a trip to Worcester for management training (it's hard to do sarcasm in writing but yaaaay). Apparently, now that I've got staff directly under me, I've got to do it. It means that I'm probably not going to be able to get my run in next Thursday because the train I need to catch is at silly o'clock in the morning. I don't know when I'm going to get back but if it isn't too late I might try and get something in that evening or not if I can't.