Jarric

Well done on giving up the work stuff. It's never easy to step away from an opportunity, but you made the right decision for your health and for your family. I'm constantly amazed by how you cope with all the things you have going on, even without the extra work stress.

That sounds like a really fun game! Don't worry too much about how it all fits together, just remember all of the clues they found and come to a conclusion retrospectively. Then pretend to your players that it worked out how you planned it all along

Ok, this week in general I've been pretty poor on my challenge goals. I've been in the office for 3 days, which makes a surprising amount of difference for the time I have available (particularly doing stuff in my lunch break). I've also spent a ton of time working on my D&D game for some of the lovely European nerds here. @iatetheyeti is joining us for next session, and it's been really cool designing their character with them. That campaign is also at a bit of a crossroads at the moment, so I've been putting a lot of time into working out how it transitions from one adventure to the next. All fun stuff, but it's taken up a lot of my brain space. One thing that has meant is I haven't put time into foam rolling, hangboarding, or stretching. I've had time to do these things, but I haven't done them. I'm running out of week to get stuff done too, so it's far from ideal. What that isn't an excuse for is the fact that I've eaten like an arsehole this week. I don't know why, whether it's a stress reaction or just boredom, but I've eaten way too much crap. I've also stopped tracking calories, so this goal will be a fail this week as I can't put a number on it. Drawing continues to be good. I did miss yesterday's Inktober prompt, but I'm already at 2 drawing sessions for the week so I'll easily get my 3. Teeth continues to be spot on - a perfect record in what is otherwise not a great start to the week. Crossfit has been ok. Monday was squats - topped out at 95kg (~199#) x 3 that didn't feel too heavy, and followed that with thrusters and chest to bar. Tuesday was deadlifts, but I tweaked my back so did a load of mobility stuff instead. Wednesday I went for a run instead of Crossfit; got a nice 10k/6 miles in.

Week 4 round-up Slightly late but here we are: Catapult/Dodge: Average calories 2,589. Wasn't going too badly until Saturday. Saturday was a 15 mile run, which requires a fair amount of calories anyway, and then playing D&D and watching D&D, which feels like it requires a lot of calories! No damage taken but no damage dealt. Green flame blade: 7/7 for teeth brushing - 2 damage dealt again, plus bardic inspiration from @DarK_RaideR for 3 damage total. This is still going really well. Also got complemented on my brushing from my dentist, so the results match the effort. Greataxe: 0/2 hangboarding sessions last week. I need to re-think how this fits in my week. True Strike: Split stretches were done! +1 damage to the green flame blade attack. I think I did this fairly early in the week, can't actually remember? Thunderwave: 7/3 drawing sessions, so 1 damage dealt. Inktober's really given me some incentive to get drawing, which I like! Absorb elements: 2/3 foam rolling sessions complete, so I take 1 damage. Scheduling what days I was going to this worked in the week, but I didn't make time for it on my busy weekend. Damage done to Mindwitness: 5 Guglug current hp: 7/9 In total that puts the mindwitness on 17/75hp - it's gonna be a close one!

Week 4 round-up Slightly late but here we are: Catapult/Dodge: Average calories 2,589. Wasn't going too badly until Saturday. Saturday was a 15 mile run, which requires a fair amount of calories anyway, and then playing D&D and watching D&D, which feels like it requires a lot of calories! No damage taken but no damage dealt. Green flame blade: 7/7 for teeth brushing - 2 damage dealt again, plus bardic inspiration from @DarK_RaideR, for 3 damage total. This is still going really well. Also got complemented on my brushing from my dentist, so the results match the effort. Greataxe: 0/2 hangboarding sessions last week. I need to re-think how this fits in my week. True Strike: Split stretches were done! +1 damage to the green flame blade attack. I think I did this fairly early in the week, can't actually remember? Thunderwave: 7/3 drawing sessions, so 1 damage dealt. Inktober's really given me some incentive to get drawing, which I like! Absorb elements: 2/3 foam rolling sessions complete, so I take 1 damage. Scheduling what days I was going to this worked in the week, but I didn't make time for it on my busy weekend. Damage done to Mindwitness: 5 Guglug current hp: 7/9

Thanks man!

Good speech man, I need to hear that today.

Very short update: I'm not dead, just been very busy! Last week I hit most goals apart from hangboarding (le shock!) and calories, as I went way, way over on Saturday. Spent all weekend playing and watching D&D, when I wasn't out running anyway, it was great! Had a dentist appointment on Monday and he had plenty of positive stuff to say about my teeth so it seems the new brushing routine is working. Will aim to do a proper round up of last week and this week soon.

Thank you . This Inktober has been a fun thing to focus on. They really are! Both groups have been running a long time, so we're really comfortable together which helps.

This is so, so well said! Really beautifully put. I am so sorry that you've been attacked because of your gender and sexuality, no-one should have to go through that. And whilst it should go without saying, I think it's worth saying anyway, I agree with Tank. We will always welcome you for who you are.

Thursday - Week 4 Day 4 Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit was far too many things: Strict press - build to a heavy 8 5 rounds of 3 hang muscle snatch, 5 wall climbs, 10 roll outs 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 reps of rear delt flies, face pulls, chinups Strict press I built to 37.5kg (~82.5#) x 8. I used 30kg for the muscle snatch, but the wall climbs were murder and I only got to 2.5 rounds before the last bit. The last bit was quite fun though; I like that format. To be fair I might also have got more done if I wasn't feeling knackered; I think I need a rest day! Work was good. WW had a day off so we got to watch some Dragony Aunt together at lunch time. After work WW cooked pan fried salmon with bombay potatoes, we watched the rest of Dragony Aunt, and it was time for D&D. D&D (Pathfinder) was good. It was out Mummy's Mask game, and we figured out who was responsible for setting us up to be framed for murder, had the person who was murdered reincarnated so they could prove our innocence, and set out to find the bastards who framed us. Other than that we just spent a very large amount of time chatting and shopping - we had 2 new players join the party last week so there's a lot of roleplaying going on of us getting to know each other which is really fun. Next session we start a hex crawl searching for a needle in a haystack pyramid in a desert. Drawing got done between lunchtime and the evening: Teeth were done. Calories were low for a high calorie day (cancelling out the high low calorie day on Wednesday) at 2,691. Not much else to report really!

Awesome, thank you man! And great song choice too.

Hope you have a great free day! You've been doing a lot of physical stuff recently, so make sure to enjoy some rest!

Wednesday - Week 4 Day 3 Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit was banded deadlifts, which are weird things I've never tried before. They were followed by a 10 minute AMRAP of 4 weighted pullups, 6 box jumps, 8 ball slams. I added 12kg (~26.4#) to my pullups (so +16.7% on my bodyweight), did the box jumps at 24" (602.4mm) (would have gone higher, but I was sharing a box), and used a 20kg ball on the ball slams. Finished 4 rounds and 8 reps, and I'm pretty happy with that given how much I loaded up the pullups. That didn't take very long, so I used the extra time in class to do some foam rolling and try and get myself back on track with that. Also did my split stretches when I got home, so that's one goal crossed off for the week. Work was good - had a conference in the morning and felt more productive in the afternoon. Lunch was leftover pasta bake from somewhen (Monday maybe?). After work I went straight off to play snooker with Hopalong. It feels a bit bizarre having to wear a mask for the 20 yard walk from the front door to the snooker table, but not having to wear it to play. Regardless I had a fun evening of, to be honest, quite low quality snooker. It's usually more about catching up with Hopalong anyway. Got home pretty late, and WW had baked a camembert, which we had with red onion chutney, bread, carrots, celery, and orange bell pepper. It was a great dinner, and thoroughly useful as something quick and easy. WW also bought me a Belgian bun, which was very lovely of her but also kind of annoying as I didn't have the calories for it but didn't feel I could leave it to go stale. So I ate it, and I'll get those calories back somewhere later in the week. After that we watched bake-off and I finished up the Inktober prompt, on which I was far too ambitious about what I could achieve with this medium in this time: Ended up going to bed quite late after that at about 11pm. Teeth were done. Calories were approximately 1 Belgian bun over at 2,600.

Functional fitness at its finest!

I'm not an expert, but I wouldn't worry about this - we've never cut out cat's claws. Bear in mind that adult cats can retract their claws, so when Soji gets a bit bigger it probably won't be an issue any more. You'll still need to train her not to scratch stuff, but that will come. ETA: and train her to scratch things you do want her to scratch, like scratching posts, which will also help keep her claws getting too long.

That's horrific, watching the police attack a crowd like that for no apparent reason. Great new about the Golden Dawn though.

As long as your form's good you won't hurt yourself on deadlifts man, so try not to worry about them. Take them seriously, but don't let them scare you.

Tuesday - Week 4 Day 2 Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit was squats, and was supposed to be 7x3. I did triples at 80kg, 82.5kg, 85kg, 87.5kg, 90kg, and 92.5kg (about 176#, 182#, 187#, 193#, 198#, 204#), but ran out of time for a final set. That was a real shame, as I'm sure I could have hit 95kg (~209#). Then we had a 10' EMOM, with 10 toes to bar on every even minute and 6 front squats every odd minute. I was really pleased I actually got all 50 toes to bar over the 10 minutes. We didn't have enough racks for front squats, so as I had the clean the bar to my shoulders I kept the weight to a manageable 50kg (~110#). Work was tough. I was still just really tired; I think I'm still recovering from the weekend. I didn't complete any goals between work and D&D as a result, though I did do my Inktober drawing at lunch time. I also ended up taking far too long cooking dinner (though I did make some rather loverly lamb albondigas with cous cous, so that was good!). D&D (Pathfinder) was fun. Spoilers for Rise of the Runelords: After D&D teeth were done and it was straight to bed. Calories were spot on at 2,295.

I threw away my 'nice to do' list in the end; it was just stressing me out watching the list get longer and longer and it wasn't getting done any quicker than if the list didn't exist! I'll probably pick it up again one day, but if I don't I guess those things weren't that important?

Good on you for updating at all, given how busy you've been! Also, iagreewithtank™

They certainly did! My face is very grateful to my hands that they managed to catch me too! That sounds like a fun dinner. I should probably go and see this place when it's not a race one day, it's probably really interesting. Actually, because I was already soaked to the skin in the rain it didn't feel too bad. Not that it wasn't cold, just it wasn't colder in the water than on land! I got freezing quickly at the end when I stopped though.

Hey @Maigs, hope the packing and moving stuff is going well?

Hey @doctorake, how's the challenge going?

Hey man, how's the challenge going? I just boil a ton of eggs at the weekend. It's not very interesting, but it is very easy.