Jarric

Late to the party (as ever)! So good to see you doing some writing mate. Obviously I continue to be in awe of your running and lifting achievements, but from what you've said about writing and your comment about it being part of trying to be happier I think that this could be a really important goal for you.

Wow, that's really cool looking. It amazes me how expensive these things are though - particularly when a lot of them are just wooden boards with holes routered out. Yeah, until you're climbing stuff that requires you to use tiny edges there's no real reason to train finger strength. It's not necessary for overall grip strength in the same way, so it doesn't have a lot of transference outside of rock climbing either.

Update - Week 0 Day 3 So far so good (not that we're that far yet). Monday I was off work, and Crossfit shedule was weird so I ended up going for a longer session mid-morning. We had squats, and to give some context to my numbers my working 5RM is 77.5kg (high bar), and the most I've ever squatted was 85kg (low bar). On Monday I worked up to the following heavy singles: Overhead Squat: 42.5kg (~94#) Front Squat: 77.5kg (~171#) Back Squat: 100kg (~220#) So happy to hit a 100kg squat! I've made a load of form adjustments since I started Crossfit and I finally feel like I've made a real breakthrough with it. Monday night was New Years Eve, so WW and I drank a boatload of beer, ate a ton of takeaway pizza, and watched Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War and Ant Man and the Wasp. Went to bed about 2am. Might be the best NYE I've ever had! Tuesday we slept in pretty late, unsurprisingly. I went out for my run late afternoon, felt pretty good surprisingly but I ran out of steam about 4 miles into the 6. Otherwise a chilled day mainly spent wrapping up my last challenge and 2018 road map, and writing up the new ones! Today I was back at work - it's still really busy but manageable. Before work though was Crossfit: Warmup: 3 rounds of 5 KB squat openers, 5 glute bridges and 5+5 halos Strength: Sandbag loads (think atlas stones, but sandbags instead of stones). I loaded 75kg on the lowest box (30" I think) and 62kg on the middle box (possibly 36"). Didn't get a chance to try the 48" box. WOD: 5 rounds (not timed) of 100ft farmers walks and 1+1 Turkish getups Worked the farmers walks up to 62kg each hane (124 kg or 273# total). I've never done Turkish getups before so that was a bit of a learning curve, only working at 16kg but it felt stronger every round. After work I got half a pomodoro of studying done, cooked chicken thighs and orzotto, and now I'm watching Time Team and writing this.

Woo, thank you! No need to sneak in, you're more than welcome! Good to have you dude. Ah I'd love a private climbing wall! Short of having that or being able to climb several times per week I think a hang board is a good shout. I went for this one if you're interested: https://www.problemsolver.rocks/shop/problemsolver-xl-training-hangboard mostly for a combination of finding a reasonable price on it and that it can be hung on my pullup bar as I can't put holes in the walls here. Also with the inserts it's got quite a bit of versitility in hold sizes. Thank you, good to have you! Yes sir, will do! That's a good question. A friend of mine recommend warming up, then 7 sets of 7 second hangs with 7 second rests between, then 3 minutes rest, then moving on to a smaller hold size and repeating. I've looked at a couple of bits online and they all seem to be variations on that theme, so that's what I'll be going with to start with. I'm not expecting to be able to do very much to start with, and I'm not really sure how quickly tendon strength builds, so it's all a bit of an experiment. Hi! Thanks for coming. Yeah, I've got a similar problem so I've gone for a hangboard that I can suspend from my pullup bar. I was going to buy rock rings at some point but never got round to it - they look good. Good to see you too! I get weekly e-mails I think, but they end up being too much to read in one go! I'm not entirely sure what you mean about the running plan, but thanks anyway :p

You know I thought it might! Thank you for that anyway; I was unreasonably happy when I spotted it.

Following along for running and Crossfit goodness! You're definitely not thw only one who plans your challenges whilst running, actually I plan half of my challenge updates whilst running!

...Deckard Cain? I'll give this a go. Relax Feat: finish The Long War by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

Jarric steps into the guildhall, a smile curling across his lips as he sees the gathered Rangers, old and new, excitedly anticipating the challenges of the year ahead. Pint of the black stuff, barkeep, he says, redundantly, as a glass of ebony coloured stout is already being pushed across the bar towards him. With the drink the barman also hands over a letter, with the name "Jarric" in large, elaborate letters on the front. Opening it, he finds an interesting message inside: Congratulations Jarric! You are hereby appointed "Director of Ranger Hospitality". Enjoy your new title. His smile broadening in to a wide grin, he realises there's only one thing to do in a situation like this. Standing, he turns to the room at large and in a loud voice calls out Next round's on me Rangers, get 'em while they're cold! === In all seriousness, who changed my title? @tanktimus the encourager was that you? I love it anyway!

No no no, I'm out; never enter a barfight against a monk!

Road to Oblivion - Part 1 So I've just written up my 2019 road map, and the first 4 challenges of this year will be working towards my first big and scary goal - running 4 laps of Nuclear Oblivion in May. I'm going to need to be able to gain some serious endurance to keep doing that, both in running and in general fitness for the obstacles, so my physical goals will be based around that. Nutrition - 20XP This goal is split into three parts (hence the high XP). The first one is straight eating better - my Crossfit box posted a list of weekly nutrition habits a couple of years ago which I've unearthed on Facebook, so I'll be running through those. By coincidence (or just because they start with sensible things) I already do their first 3 weekly habits, but if you want to play along at home they are: Drink 1 pint of plain water daily Eat a healthy fat with breakfast Eat cooked vegetables in the evening So I'll be starting straight at habit 4, which is: Eat a raw vegetable at lunch I'll be tackling that in week 1 of the challenge, and then adding an additional habit from their list on each subsequent week. The second part of nutrition is alcohol. Leading up to Christmas I was really stressed and not feeling great, and I attributed that to a lot of year end work stress and general Christmas/ohmyGodIhaven'tboughtanything stress. I started thinking the other week however that maybe the amount I was drinking had its part to play in this too. Well, there's only one way to find out if that is the case, and that's to stop drinking for a bit and see how I feel. The goal for this challenge will be to drink no alcohol at all. That'll start from Week 0 day 2 (because day 1 was New Year's Eve, come on!). The final part of this is to track my mood - just a short sentence each day in my bujo is fine, but I'll only know if the above is working at all if I track it. Obviously there's lots of other factors to consider, and conclusions may be hard to draw, but I want to give it a go. Running - 15XP The goal here is simple (thought not necessarily easy) - run 140 miles this challenge. That includes week zero, and is the exact amount of mileage I should hit if I get all of my runs in. The plan is to run 4 times per week - Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday & Sunday - with the long run either on Saturday or Sunday depending on when I'm climbing or doing other things. Whilst the goal is simply the mileage, I'll put the full running plan in a spoiler for info: Climbing - 10XP I want to work on my climbing and my pullups in general, as these have massive transference to OCR, and I've got two parts to this plan in order to do it: a) Continue with GTG pullups - basically I have my pullup bar in my kitchen door and do one pullup every time I want to enter the kitchen. Minimum 10 per day. This starts week 0. b) Hangboarding - I have bought a hang board with some Christmas money, which will allow me to train hanging off very small edges instead of just a bar. The plan is to do hanging sessions MWF, but never on a day adjacent to a climbing day. As I usually climb every weekend this should mean that I usually do 2 sessions per week, but it could be 1 or 3 depending on how the climbing sessions work out. This starts when the hang board arrives. Budget - 5XP This is a difficult one this month as money and spending are a bit strange after Christmas. I probably wouldn't have a goal at all except that reducing debt and saving money is one of my main goals for the year. The goal here is to simply spend mindfully for the month, and write any comments about my spending in my bujo. This starts week 0. Study - 5XP This is something I have been neglecting, but I really need to continue my qualifications for work. There is a time limit on these, and having missed the initial deadline it's going to be tricky to catch up so I need to put in the work. The goal here is to do 2 pomodoros of study (or 4 hours, if you prefer) per week. Bonus 5XP if I get my next assignment submitted before the end of the challenge. This starts week 0. Forum Cardio - Mobile Edition™ - 5XP I don't spend enough time on here and I miss catching up with people and knowing what's going on. A big reason I don't get on is that I usually only sit in front of a computer at work, and so my lunch break is the only time I have to be here. I don't always get a lunch break, and I use the time to catch up on other things as well when I do so that gives me minimal forum time. The goal therefore is to use my phone to visit the forums every day. Even if I don't post anything just being here and catching up is a start. Well I think that's everything. It's loads of XP so i could do realll well out of this challenge if I ace it. I have to dash, so anything I've missed I'm sure will come up later!

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Phase 1 Goal 1 - OCR So phase 1 of this year is all about getting ready for Nuclear Oblivion, which if I do it right will be a 50k ultra-OCR on May 19th. No surprises then that my goals really all focus around running for this phase. Currently I'm running 4 times per week, with a tempo run, and interval run, a 5k and a long run, and I'll stick with that patterns for as long as it works. This fits in well with Crossfit and climbing, which are the things that make me good at obstacles. In order for me to map out my runs and give me a bit more of a long-term game plan, I'm going to list below all of the long runs I plan doing in this phase, and where they clash with OCRs that I may well be doing instead. My other 3 runs probably won't change that much over the period, so it's the long runs that are key. I've put two dates for each one, as I may do the long run on a Saturday or a Sunday Challenge 1 5-6/01 - 7 miles 12-13/01 - 13 miles 19-20/01 - 14 miles 26-27/01 - 15 miles 2-3/02 - 16 miles Challenge 2 9-10/02 - 8 miles 16-17/02 - 15 miles 23-24/02 - 16 miles 02-03/03 - 17 miles - Nuts Challenge 09-10/03 - 18 miles Challenge 3 16-17/03 - 9 miles 23-24/03 - 17 miles 30-31/03 - 18 miles 06-07/04 - 19 miles 13-14/04 - 20 miles Challenge 4 20-21/04 - 10 miles 27-28/04 - 19 miles 04-05/05 - Deload TBC 11/05 - Rat Race Dirty Weekend 19/05 - Nuclear Oblivion I am also considering running 4 laps of Nuts Challenge. This would give me a chance at qualifying for the worlds early, and also makes me eligible for attempting 6 laps at Summer Nuts on 1st September, which is another automatic elite qualification if I can do the distance. March 3rd is my birthday and I don't know if putting myself through 4 laps of frozen hell is how I want to spend the day, on the other hand I don't want to put all of my eggs in one basket and this looks like a great plan B. It's only 7k a lap, so the distance is doable, it's just the cold that scares me. I'll have to make a decision on this at January payday. Goal 2 - Finances The goal for this phase is simple - get out of debt. This is all about spending less and getting chunks off the credit card. Every challenge should have a goal relating to this. Goal 3 - Career By the end of this phase I plan to have finished my current module for the qualification I'm working towards. I missed the deadline for a piece of coursework over Christmas, which is really unlike me and shows I've not been taking this seriously enough. There's a variety of reasons behind that, but no excuses, I need to get it done. One coursework piece has been passed, so I need to pay for a late submission of the second and get it in, and research, write and submit the third. Again every challenge should have a goal dedicated to this.

The Road to Oblivion or 2019 has got some silly big goals for me. If you've already read @Charlie_Quinn's or @jonfirestar's 2019 road maps you might be bored of seeing this, but this year I plan to qualify for the Obstacle Course Racing World Championships at Nuclear Oblivion in May, and then run them in October. Goal 1 - OCR Nuclear Oblivion is a lapped 12-14km race, and completion of 3 laps (about a marathon) automatically qualifies you for an Age Group place at the Worlds, whilst 4 laps (about 50k) qualifies you as an Elite. I'll be going for the 4 laps and the Elite qualification, which may or may not be possible, but if I fall short and only qualify Age Group I think I'll be ok with that (providing I've given my all). That's not my only goal for the year, but I have it first as I will be breaking up the year in line with it, and all of my goals will be split into similar phases. Here's the breakdown: Phase 1 - The Road to Oblivion Challenge 1 - January 7 to February 3 Challenge 2 - February 11 to March 10 Challenge 3 - March 18 to April 14 Challenge 4 - April 22 to May 19 - Oblivion takes place May 19th, giving a perfect end to this phase The focus here will be on building my mileage so that I'm actually capable of running a 50k ultra OCR. Whether I will do it in the 8.5 hour time cap is another matter, but I want to at least stand a chance of going the distance. Phase 2 - Return From Oblivion Challenge 5 - May 27 to June 23 Challenge 6 - July 1 to July 28 Challenge 7 - August 12 to September 8 Challenge 8 - September 16 to October 13 - OCRWC takes place 11th-13th October, so again this lines up perfectly Having trained for a 50k ultra, I will now be heading towards the OCRWC where the longest race is 13k. Focus for this phase will be on improving obstacle proficiency as all of the obstacles are mandatory completion, and on building speed (I am under no illusions that I can actually compete with the top athletes at the Worlds, or that I will ever get to that level, I just want to put in a showing I'm proud of). Phase 3 - Find a New Goal Challenge 9 - October 21 to November 17 Challenge 10 - November 25 to December 29 I don't know what the focus will be here. With the big goals out of the way I hope I'll be setting my sights on even bigger things, but I don't know what that is going to be yet. Goal 2 - Finances My second big goal for last year was to clear my debt and start saving. I made a sizeable dent in my credit card, but fell short of getting debt free. This is really important to me as I want to own my own home one day and have a big of financial stability, and I get really stressed about my lack of money and pointless debt. Phase 1 of this year will be all about clearing debt - I should absolutely be able to entirely clear my credit card in this time period. I'll be looking to spend less and also reduce household bills. Phases 2 & 3 will focus on building up a pot of savings - I'll explore the shape of this in more detail when I can asses where I am at the start of each phase. Goal 3 - Career My last goal for the year is to push on with my career - I'm not an overly ambitious person and I won't be looking to hop jobs or anything like that, but I really want to be better at what I do. Phase 1 will see me completing the current module of a work related qualification that I have let slide for far too long. Phases 2 & 3 will see other goals linked to work, likely more qualification based but subject to what opportunities arise. And that's it, I'll put together a post now with some more details on my phase 1 goals, and then write my challenge which will take the first steps of those goals. I plan to post copies of all of my challenge intros and wrap-ups here, so I can easily look back and see how I'm progressing on all fronts.

You've got some huge goals for this year dude, but with your consistency and dedication I have no doubt that you are going to crush them.

I'm definitely in for as much of this as possible! As a suggestion, I would say try one of those problems every time you go. Even if you fall of the first hold or only stick 1 move you'll still be learning how those routes are set and the way you need to move, and getting stronger. Obviously don't neglect the problems you normally climb though. You've got some really cool goals for this year Charlie, I look forward to seeing you achieve them.

2018 Wrap-Up So this was to be the year of the aramenté, where I visited all of the other guilds to learn new things and become more of a superhero. That didn't happen in any way, shape or form, in fact I only appear to have posted challenge wrap-ups for 4 challenges out of the 10 there are each year, only two of which weren't with the Rangers, and I know that I didn't even start two challenges (and there's a further two that I did start, but only posted the wrap-ups and not the starts in this thread). As a consequence I started the year at level 10, and hit level 11 right at the end of the last challenge. There was some good stuff in there too though, lets break it down. OCRWC Goal 1 for this year was to compete in the Obstacle Course Racing World Championships. I sort of hit this - instead of running in the main event I ran in the charity wave with some awesome Rangers and the wonderful people of Mudstacle. And that was a choice - I had run enough races to run in the main event and just needed to drop a couple of hundred dollars into tickets, but it felt a bit hollow running it when I had only qualified as a Journeyman (i.e. on number of races rather than on pace or endurance). When they announced that they would be holding the event in the UK next year as well that made the decision for me - to run in the charity wave this year and to qualify properly for the main event (at least age group if not elite) next year. I had a brilliant time working towards and doing this and got some valuable experience, so all good. Budget Goal 2 for this year was to get out of debt and start saving money. I didn't manage that, but I did wipe out around 75% of my credit card debt which is no small achievement. I was nearly in a position to clear it before a slight backslide in December, and I'm confident I can clear it in the first couple of challenge cycles this year. Which means I should have actual savings at some point next year, which would be amazing. Other Stuff A few achievements, progressions and observations from this year: At the start of the year I was signing up to HIIT classes and then oversleeping and missing them, as well as missing lots of lifting and running sessions. Since starting Crossfit a couple of months ago I have never overslept and missed a class, and whilst I'm still oversleeping for some runs I'm definitely getting better. I think this has more to do with being excited to do the exercise than anything else. In January I managed to walk across a slackline for the first time, and now I'm doing turns on it and trying silly things like sitting down on it and other fun stuff. Likewise in March I climbed my first 6A+ boulder route (font grading), and now I'm going for those most of the time and even trying harder stuff. On the last day of this year I hit a huge milestone in setting a squat 1RM of 100kg! My last record before that was at October 2017 and was 3 reps at 85kg. I've also increased my Deadlift from 115kg for 4 reps to 130 for 5 reps in that period, and it just keeps going up and up. Bench and OHP haven't changed so much, but I think they will with Crossfit. Looking at my attitude and outlook for my last two challenges compared to the first two I can see myself being much more positive about what I'm doing and what I have achieved. Looking forward now I'm going to put together a plan for 2019 later today, which will feature some very silly OCR challenges, the clearing of my debt and the advancement of my studying and career.

Wrap-up for my final challenge of the year:

Challenge Wrap-Up Run! - 5XP/15XP awarded The plan here was to run 125 miles. With my long run on Saturday coming in at over 14 miles and a quick 5k on Sunday I finished on a total of 102.35, so 81.88% completion. Other stats/thoughts: Of the 20 programmed runs for these 5 weeks I only went out for 15, so 75% I missed 1 long run, 1 Parkrun, 1 interval and 2 tempo runs (though I swapped a tempo for an interval on boxing day because I felt like it, which skews that slightly) Of the 7 weekday runs I managed (of a possible 10) I cut 3 short by 1 mile and 1 short by 2 miles, meaning I only did 3/10 full weekday runs Overall not a great showing, but I'm giving myself 5XP because I still passed 100 miles and got most of my long runs in. I need to design a better running tracker for next month, because until I added the above up for this challenge I felt like I'd been much more consistent than I actually had. Christmas and lots of gigs got in the way of this a bit, so I should be able to score much better next challenge. Pullups! - 9XP/10XP awarded Generally GTG pullups went well, and I hit 10 or more per day on 31/35 days (88.57%). The days I missed were Christmas Day which I wasn't at home for and gave myself off, and a couple of others where I was feeling particularly fatigued and wasn't spending a lot of time at home. Weekly scores: 111 pullups 102 pullups 86 pullups 85 pullups 102 pullups (includes an at-home workout on Christmas Eve with 5 sets of 5 pullups, but also includes having Christmas day off) Very happy with this, and that 5x5 workout on Christmas Eve showed me how much my pullups have come on. Will be keeping a similar goal going next time around. Eat Accountably! - 0XP/10XP awarded I gave up on this a couple of days into week 2 and never got it back. I definitely ate a lot more snacks and Christmas treats than I should have, and whilst I feel like I balanced it ok it was too much work to keep up with logging it all. Which really just shows that it was too much stuff in the first place. I think I could manage this kind of strategy going forward as there'll be far less temptation hanging around, but there's something else I want to try for now. Budget! - 0XP/10XP Failed to track, definitely didn't hit my budget, and spent lots of money. Note to self, don't book to go to loads of gigs in December when you should be buying Christmas presents instead! Overall I actually felt that this challenge went fairly well. Which is off because it quite clearly didn't in terms of my actual goals. I guess the good stuff comes down to the following: I really enjoyed Crossfit, and going to our gym's Christmas party helped me to feel more part of the community there. I hit quite a lot of runs still, at a really busy time of year. I had a breakthrough with some changes on my squat form and the weights are now flying up. I had a really nice Christmas, despite having been dreading it when it was approaching it was great when it arrived. I feel surrounded by wonderful people. I get to talk to a few crazy Rangers (and Assasins, and Multiclassers) on a regular basis, was able to drag a load of brilliant people down to my neck of the woods for a Christmas meetup and get to have fun in a D&D play by post with the others. Off the forums I have the beautiful Wonder Woman at home and a small group of great friends who support me. And that, by virtue of the fact that I was almost there anyway, gets my to level 11.

Thanks for the advice dude. I have no idea what I want my peak mileage to be to be honest! Based on running 5 week cycles I'd peak mid-April and have 2 taper weeks before RRDW and Oblivion. If I work the long runs up by 1 mile per week, and increase the block by 1 mile each cycle, I'll only be at 17 miles on my last long run and a total of 32 for that week. That doesn't seem a high enough prior to a 50k? Maybe if I increase the blocks by 2 miles each cycle, which would get me to 20 miles for my last long run and 35 in that week, would be better? Of course this is further complicated by some of my long runs being replaced by races.

Week 5 (or Christmas week as I like to call it) has been pretty good to me so far. Lots of drinking with friends and family, playing silly board games and generally having a laugh from Christmas eve to Boxing Day. Back at work yesterday and today, and then I'm off for the weekend and new year's eve and day. Exercise wise it's obviously an awkward time. I hit a home workout first thing Monday morning, 5x5 pullups which went up much easier than they ever had done (I even added a 6th rep to the final set for fun), followed by 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 for time of thrusters, decline pushups and reverse lunges which took me 9:02 to complete. I used some old dumbells I have at home which are 16# of weights on a bar of indeterminate weight so I used those, and a dining chair for the pushups. Tuesday was Christmas and I rested. Wednesday I went for a run, and only got slightly lost, getting around 5.5 miles. Yesterday evening I was back at home and managed to find a Crossfit slot that worked. We had 3 x 5 squats, where I hit 77.5kg (~170#) and after some changes to my form last week that felt really really solid so I'm excited to see this number finally going up again! We also did 3 x 300m row, which made me feel like absolute shit and like I was going to vomit - I guess that means it's a good workout! Times were 58.1", 59.5" & 59.6" in that order. This morning I ran - was slightly short on time in the end so only managed 5 of my 6 miles, being a 2 mile warmup and 3 x 0.4mi intervals with 0.6mi rests in between. The fastest interval was at 8'47" pace, which is far too slow, so I need to work on pushing myself harder and judging the pace better. Total distance for the challenge so far is 82.97 miles. I won't hit my goal of 125 miles by any stretch of the imagination this challenge, but with a bit of work I might just scrape 100 miles. Guess I've just found my new goal! Finally, a question for the runners (particularly @jonfirestar and @Xena, but also anyone with an opinion) - my long runs for this challenge have been 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 miles respectively (I missed the 12, and the 14 will be this weekend); how do I program the next 5 weeks? I was thinking of deloading, but do I just drop to 11 and do +1 mile on everything, or drop to 10 but then have week 2 at 12/13 and work up from there, or does it really matter how I do it?

But wait, is the DM the real hero all along?

Thank you Puck! It's going pretty well. In the last 24 hours I've listened to Glass Cannon podcast, watched some of the Crit Role Night Before Critmas, posted in our PbP, read campaign logs on GitP forums, and looked up abilities for my Sorcerer/Cleric. I wore my new DnD themed hoody to work today. I don't think I'm the one to provide you with that intervention . I can't wait to see the latest Crit Role though! Ah, the hero we need!

Some highlights from the second half of week 4: Wednesday evening I went to Hopalong and MGs house to give their son his birthday present. Much fun and laughter and Chinese food was had. After that I went and played some snooker and wished our team Captain a Merry Christmas Thursday morning I decided to catch up on sleep and missed my run. It felt like a good idea at the time given all of the social stuff that's going on at this time of year. At the same time I don't like missing workouts, particularly when I know my opportunity to do them will be limited over the next week. Thursday evening se had our Rise of the Runelords DnD game. We killed the big boss of this chalter in a really tense and difficult fight, and get to start the next chapter in the new year. Friday morning was Crossfit. We made loads of changes to my squat form and it feels about a million times better, so I'm hoping that I can make some progress in it now. Friday evening was our Crossfit Christmas night out. I was really nervous about this as it's a big social gathering and I'm pretty new and don't know people well. I eventually managed to force myself out of the house to go, and in the end I'm glad I did. After drinking a bit fast to start with out of nerves I had a great time and got to know the people I train with a bit better. Saturday I had Parkrun, went Christmas shopping (because I'm so well prepared), and then chilled in the evening with WW. Got my long run on Sunday, 13.5 ish miles. Legs felt like lead, maybe from Friday's squats, but I got to try out energy gels for the first time (they were a Christmas present from @jonfirestar ) and they certainly kept me going. For fhe rest of Sunday WW and I wrapped Christmas presents and chilled out in front of High Rollers DnD. It was a nice relaxing day. Week wise I hit 85 pullups, which isn't loads but it's something on a week where I've not been in much. Mileage I need to work out where I am still. And this challenge is not yet over! I'll be running it right through to New Year's Eve eve, and hopefully I'll find time between festivities and working to post about it here too!

Thank you Rho for organising this, it's been good fun. And a huge well done to everyone who took part - I've been absent from the forums a lot but it's been great to see how well everyone is doing here. Merry Christmas all!