Jarric

Looking forward to this

I've had a poor start to this week with my hip rebab exercises and stretching, so for the rest of this week I'm going to recommit to that and focus on getting 100%, even when I'm tired.

Hope all's well dude, not long now til baby Tank!

Last night did indeed mean pizza again, so 1/2 variances for the week done. Snooker was a fun night out, but by the time I got back it was late and I didn't feel like doing my rehab exercises. Which is no good, and I should do them anyway, but there it is. Still 5/10 for the day as I did the stretches with my morning yoga. This morning was back to Crossfit. We're starting a new strength cycle, with the idea of setting a 5 rep weight on our main lifts and then adding 2.5kg each week until we are hitting new maxes. Today was deadlift, and I worked up to 120kg x 5. Thought about going heavier (my current 5RM is 127.5kg), but I didn't want to push it and I know it'll only be a few weeks before I've got a new 5RM. Tonight is D&D, and we finally get to fight a mermaid with the help of a flying hat. Or something. Will let you all know what happens. The rest of the plan for this evening is gammon for dinner, which is currently sat in the slow cooker for the day with some water and honey, and I'll do some potato wedges in the oven and some baked beans to go with it - easy stuff to do quickly between work and D&D. That should give me time to do at least some of my exercises before I go out too.

^I use this gif far too much

It's been a while since my last update, but here's what happened at the end of week 4: We've been organising a play-by-post D&D game with some really cool rangers, so I maaay have spent my free time obsessing over/designing/statting out my new modron cleric rather than being on here. On Sunday I ran Nuts Challenge, and had an amazing time. I'll do a proper report at some point, but the main thing to say is that the whole day went almost exactly to plan. I finished the 21k course in 4 hours, 36 minutes plus change. Provisional results put me 4th in my age group for that distance which would qualify me of the OCR World Championships! Just waiting on the official results, which I think are released tomorrow night. *fingers crossed*. Exercise-wise things have been good. Did my yoga on Friday morning, ran a Parkrun on Saturday and set some new Strava records (which I really shouldn't have done as I should have been saving myself for Nuts, but nevermind), and Yoga again this morning. Food - had my second variance (a lovely hunk of gingerbread) on Saturday because I wanted it. On Sunday WW made rhubarb and pear crumble, and we decided to celebrate the race with a bottle of pink wine with our roast dinner. That puts me at 4/2 variances for the week, but my only real regret is that the pink wine really wasn't very good. My physio contacted me about my hip issues, and I've basically asked if we can hold off doing anything for another 8 weeks so I can concentrate on getting through race season before I mess with stuff. Waiting on a reply on that. Stats Running: 19.41/19 miles = Natural 20! Rehab: 55/70 exercises = 15 - not a bad score, could have done better mid-week. Food: 4/2 variances = 12 damage - not ideal, but not fatal either Tonight I have snooker, which probably means pizza again. I don't mind that, but it's a shame to spend a variance on the first day of the week. Tomorrow is back to Crossfit and business as usual. Plan for the week will be 18 miles (2 x 6 mile training runs, and another 6 miles at Nuclear Blast), 70/70 for rehab, and stick to those 2 variances!

Had fun playing snooker yesterday evening, and it was good to catch up with Hopalong. As I guessed he cooked pizza for dinner, so that's one variance for the week. Not a problem though, that kind of stuff is why I have variances. I did not do my rehab exercises when I got home from snooker. I should have done it straight away, but instead I caught up on my e-mails and on a couple of conversations on here first, and that lead to me staring at my phone for half an hour before giving up and going to bed. (Pretty ironic given the conversations in the guildhall recently, I should really learn my own lessons!) This morning I did a half hour "yoga for climbers" video from Yoga with Adrienne. It was really good, I might do the same one again tomorrow. I also had enough time afterwards to do my 5 rehab stretches, which takes a bit of pressure off of this evening as I only have to do the exercises and rolling. This evening is D&D, I think we're going with a giant to kill some other giants. Knowing this campaign though, we might equally be going strawberry picking to feed some imprisoned goblins.

This challenge was all about letting things go, right? Try to relax, and don't panic about everything at once

Ok, I retract my previous comment, you can definitely get a good workout at your husband's gym with just the dumbells, let alone anything else.

Mid-Week (already?) Update Monday finished well, did all of my rehab stuff and no variances. Tuesday (yesterday) was back to work. I got up and did a 30 minute yoga video before getting ready, which was nice. It was actually a bit basic for me overall, but I'm not exactly trying to push hard this week. Work was good, if busy, and in the evening WW chilled out in front of Critical Role (oh my god there's so much happening right now!). Stayed up a little late to watch the end of it, as it was a longer than usual episode. WW made chorizo risotto for dinner, which was excellent, and I prepped boiled eggs so I have breakfasts for the rest of the week (I forgot to do this at the weekend, so yesterday I had leftover roast chicken wings instead). No variances and 10/10 for rehab exercises again. Today I got up and ran about 3 miles. I say about because I watch dies half way round; I'll call it 3 as a conservative estimate, I know the route is a little over that. Tonight I may end up having a variance as I'm eating at a friend's house and I don't know what he'll be cooking, and then I'm going for a couple of hours of snooker. I didn't get a chance to do any stretching after my run this morning, so I'll have to do everything this evening which might make me late to bed. Ironically, having decided to take the week off Crossfit to make sure I'm rested for Nuts, my shoulder and forearms are really stiff from gardening at the weekend! Also, my hip was pretty bad on the run today. I'm hoping this is all just taper tantrums, and that I'm just manifesting my nerves about the race for no real reason.

That's awesome! Nice one Kestrel. I see where you're coming from, things can definitely be managed - I turn off notifications tones/vibration for a lot of apps myself, so that I only see these things when I go looking for them. Counter point though - if someone actually rings you you have no way of knowing why until you answer the call, and then that call has already interrupted your day. If you want to be completely not bothered by your phone then you do have to be unavailable, or to put it a better way, if you want to remain available for calls there's always a chance that someone will call you. It doesn't mean that your phone can't be physically on your person of course, so that you can turn it on if you need help in an emergency. My comment on how likely you are to be called in an emergency was more that it depends on your personal circumstances. If you have young teenagers, for example, they may go off on their own without adult supervision and need you at a moments notice. If you live somewhere rural a person is less likely to find help witjout a phone than if you live in a city. For me, at 30 years old with no dependents it's pretty unlikely that I'll be called for a genuine emergency where my presence will actually make a difference.

To be fair, it depends on how long you're turning it off for; it's perfectly acceptable to be unavailable for a few hours. Also depends how likely you are to be called about an emergency I suppose.

I don't know if that's just introvertion - being free from social media and from people being able to contact you 24/7 can be a really good thing at times.

Unless it is good? Looking at your pullups and lifting it may well be gainz I fully endorse keeping things simple and just doing what you need to do; that's a sound plan. #dotgridmasterrace

GoodDoug is wise, get yourself to do 10 minutes of work and you'll feel better for it. Good on you for getting a hike in though, how was it? I know it wiped you out, but did you enjoy it? If you wanna talk about stuff, you know where I am, get in touch.

If you go option 1, sounds like you should give the public gym a go - a "meh" gym is good enough if it has the equipment you need and you can get on that equipment. For option 2, there's no reason you have to go light just because you're doing bodyweight work. If you find some good progressions you can still be working on things that challenge you in a rep range of 5-8 reps, it's just about finding that challenging progression. startbodyweight.com has some really good stuff, as does GMB. If you're less likely to work out at home is there somewhere you can go to do bodyweight stuff before going home? A room at work maybe? Your husband's gym if there's enough floor space for bodyweight stuff? A public park?

It's been a good weekend. Saturday I worked overtime in the morning; there were only two of us there so it was pretty chilled out. My BIL was down of the weekend, so I spent a lot of time watching him and WW play Super Mario Bros 3 on the SNES. We got out in the afternoon to watch the England v Ireland rugby match down the pub; shame the match itself was a total shambles. In the evening we went to a Thai restaurant and had some really nice curry. I drank quite a bit over the day and we got to bed late after I sat up and playing Super Mario Bros with BIL. Sunday we went out for brunch; I had an amazing beef brisket hash with a fried egg, WW had a Full English and BIL had eggs royale. BIL had to leave fairly early, but that gave us a chance to go to the pub to see a friend who I used to work with who's been down for the weekend. We got back after that and watched High Rollers live, High Rollers Decent live and then watched some High Rollers on YouTube. Again I drank quite a bit and again I was late to bed after we sat up in front of the TV. I also bought cigarettes, not ideal. I missed both my runs and didn't do my rehab stuff all weekend, so challenge wise it was trash, but it's been relaxing at least and really nice to see people. Week Two Scores Running: 6.13/20 = 6 - not a good roll! Rehab: 54/70 = 15 - that's a bit better; a consistent week saved me from a bad weekend here Food: 2/2 variances = no damage ===== Plan for this week is 19 miles, 13 of which will be at Nuts on Sunday as I deload into that. Definitely need 70/70 for rehab to make sure I'm in the best possible shape, and I'll be aiming to get 3 yoga sessions in too Tues, Thurs, Fri. Today is a bank holiday here, so we're having a day of getting stuff done. So far today we've cut our hedge, mowed the lawn, weeded the front and back gardens a bit, hoovered the house, I've cleaned my running shoes for next weekend, and I've finally booked my hotel for New York. Got a chicken roasting in the oven, and I think now we're gonna chill in front of the TV watching some nerdy ass voice actors playing dungeons and dragons (and before that maybe some nerdy ass nerds playing dungeons and dragons).

Hey Puck, how's it going? Has your tracking less things plan worked well?

This happens to me so much, I have to fight myself to go to things and then I always end up enjoying them. Glad you've had a good weekend with Xiaofan, sounds like the company did you some good too.

This week I have tried drawing for the first time in absolutely ages. Might try and get one more sketch in before the week is out.

Well in that case you've done a great job of replicating it!

Thank you, o mighty Mistress of Puns! I have to admit I spend a lot of time on r/DMDadJokes to make players groan when I cast that spell I mean Jon basically re-wrote my running plan for me . And I'm glad you enjoy it, because I enjoy not having to write my own programming! Yeah, that's fair. I'm not too worried about what state I'm in going into Blast or Tough Mudder, but Nuts and OCRWC are important and I want to put my best foot forward for them.

That map looks amazing! Is that inspired by anything in particular? (It reminds me a little of a village in Lost Mine of Phandelver). Hope things get a little less crazy for you!

Yesterday I spent most of my lunch break at work nerding out about my running plan with @jonfirestar, so I ended up without time for an update. Got 10/10 for rehab on both Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday was a little trickier as I had D&D in the evening, so I got a couple of stretched done after Crossfit in the morning, some exercises done whilst cooking dinner in the evening, and the last two stretches done late when I got home. Food has been good and no variances. Had a brilliant mackerel linguini that WW cooked from our recipe box on Wednesday, and slow cooked gammon during the day on Thursday which I made some sweet potato fries to go with. Lunches haven't been so good; we didn't organise anything yesterday or today so it's been sandwiches from Greggs . I wouldn't normally call a chicken and bacon sandwich a variance, but I did think twice about it as it's almost fast food. Crossfit has been good. Thursday was Bench (failed a new 5RM attempt at 65kg), followed by a WOD of chest to bar, heavy thrusters and burpees over bar. It was much harder than it looked. This morning was a very short and nasty WOD of 100ft sandbag carries and 100m rowing (we're British, gotta mix those units of measurement), followed by paused deadlifts which were equally horrible. I've been thinking about the plan for next week, and I'm not going to Crossfit. I want to be as fresh as possible to run Nuts the following weekend, because there is actually a remote chance of qualification for the OCR World Championships. Next week will be getting up a little later and doing a lot of yoga videos I think. Anyway, on to the really important stuff. Last night's D&D session (mild spoilers for Rise of the Runelords adventure path):

Spoliers! You're not wrong though.