Jarric

Last night was snooker, which means quite a lot of sitting around watching other people play whilst waiting for your frame. The bench seats were low and crappy and my legs and hips were killing me by the time I got to play. I have several theories on what might be going on with them, not least that I have a cold and everything aches so I might just be being a wimp, but I'll keep monitoring it. Work have agreed to get me a new office chair at least, though it won't arrive for another 3 weeks. I did win my snooker match, which was nice, and as a team we won 3-2. I had some of the food at snooker, but left the pizza alone so no variances there. It was a long long night though, I got home at 10 to midnight which did not set me up well for today. Also got in 12 pullups. This morning I hit snooze a few times, I can't work out if I needed that or I was just using my late night last night as an excuse, but either way I was up half an hour late. The running plan was for 5 miles plus 5 sprints, which I cut to 3 miles plus 5 sprints given the shortage of time. It went like this (showing paces for each section): Mile 1: 10:23 Mile 2: 10:37 Mile 3: 10:08 20s sprint: 09:13 forgot I was supposed to sprint and missed it 2m rest: 11:51 20s sprint: 7:05 2m rest: 11:24 20s sprint: 7:01 2m rest: 10:18 20s sprint: 05:36 2m rest: 10:52 20s sprint: 07:19 With a bit of a walk home that came to 4.1 miles. Tonight I'm heading up to London for a gig (seeing New Roses supported by The Departed). It'll be a late one, so I need to be fairly sensible drink wise to make sure I get up for Crossfit tomorrow.

Depends on your frame of reference (no pun intended), a 5 ball break is pretty hard to achieve for most people. One of the leagues I play in registers any break over 30 for the high break prize at the end of the year, and out of 40-50 players across the whole season there's usually only 2-3 registered breaks, so I'm not playing at a particularly high level either. You should definitely do some running on the downs if you get the chance. If I were doing the whole South Downs Way though I'd do it as a 5 day hike . In that case I think I might stick without the hill sessions (though I will look at different interval sessions) - I'll just make sure to get some time going across or over the downs and otherwise stick to my normal hilly routes. As you say Oblivion is pretty much flat, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Jarric stumbles into the bar, sopping wet and shivering. "Bloody Starks, always right in the end..." he mutters as he takes off his wet cloak and heads towards the bar. A smile creeps across his face as he sees the influx of dark beer across the guildhall's tables. "Pint of the black stuff, barkeep," he says, redundantly, as he raises the beer that's been waiting for him to the gathered rangers and takes a long, slow sip.

Bravo!

...so that was on a treadmill, right? I promise to stretch - it's easy to remember when you hurt! I'll have to do a run over the downs sometime soon so we can compare with the Chilterns! And what I'm hearing there is that my Parkrun counts as hill repeats so I don't need a separate hill session...? (It is indeed a lapped course up and down one hill) Oo, a fellow snooker fan? Do you play?

I love that you're tracking your goals with smileys - simple but I like it.

Welcome back man! You have had one hell of a busy year, good on you for keeping going.

Dude, I found you! Mainly because you told me exactly where you'd be. Glad to see you, and it wouldn't be a D_R challenge if I understood any of the references from the challenge theme Another fun fact - Good Omens is my all time favourite book! I must re-read it soon...

I got so excited saying hi to everyone I nearly forgot to update. Last night I had my first variance for the challenge - at D&D we brought some chocolate fingers for everyone, and I had at least my fair share of those. So one variance reported for the challenge. I need to put together a bujo tracker for this challenge and log that there too, don't let me forget! Pullups were done - I wasn't in enough to hit 10 from GTG so I had to get the last couple before bed. This morning I had Crossfit: Warmup was bear crawls, crab walks and broad jumps Strength work was deadlifts - I hit 122.5kg (~245#) for 5 reps; that's a new absolute max as well as a new 5RM, and it felt pretty heavy The WOD was 75 seconds max distance row; I got 357m I actually the heaviest deadlift and the best distance row in the class, but that has more to do with who turned up this morning than my ability (it's certainly not the norm). I have also had another variance this morning - a rather excellent mince pie at work as a morning snack. I don't know why but I've been insanely hungry the last couple of days; trying to fill that gap at the moment with more fruit rather than more junk. In other news, my legs have been niggling yesterday and today - I'm a little worried but hopefully it's nothing. I'll keep monitoring closely. Tonight is snooker, tomorrow morning is another 6 miles for my running total!

Cheers for the advice man. I've moved the tempo run to Tuesday this challenge because I find it easier to get up on Tuesdays than Thursdays, and I want to find out if that's because of the day of the week or because I'm looking forward to getting up and doing 5 easy miles and a couple of sprints more than I'm looking forward to a tempo workout. I will have to have a think about how I fit intervals/hill repeats into my training going forward (though I suppose there's not immediate rush I certainly do need to get faster over distance). Hello fellow lunatic . Actually I'm pretty blessed with hills around here. Just for fun, here's some elevation profiles from my watch. My last long run: Yesterday's morning run: My last Parkrun (does this count as hill repeats? ) I've actually never seen the video this comes from - that needs to change! Also, hi! You could totally get to a similar level of running if you keep at it (and if you really want to spend a few hours a week doing it). Just keep slow and keep going. Dude! Good to see you! Glad you're back around these parts; I'll be looking up your challenge soon. Great to have you Yeti

Wow... where did you even find... you know what, I'm not sure I want to know O.o

Woo, so glad you're back dude - looks like a great challenge to get back swinging. Or get back into the swing of it - that works to!

I always train pullups and never chinups, and I think because of that I find them both about the same difficulty. I'd allow machine assisted - it's basically the same movement. Also hi, I'm in for this!

W1D1 - Monday I had crossfit in the morning yesterday, we did bench and then were working on muscle-up progressions. I can't do muscle ups, but I'm starting to think that if I can get dips down I might be able to get to them pretty quickly - it was a fun session. I did miss a few of my GTG pullups immediately afterwards, given that amongst other things crossfit involved 5 sets of max-rep pullups, but I still ended up with 12 for the day. In the evening I wrote this challenge! Other than that I cooked a chilli-type-thing and mostly watched TV and chilled. This morning I went out for my run - the plan was 1 mile warmup, 4 miles fast, 1 mile cooldown. Actual splits were: 1: 10:46 2: 10:10 3: 9:32 ** 4: 9:43 5: 9:54 6: 10:23 It's probably worth pointing out that miles 2 and 5 are mostly off-road, and the others are mostly on-road. I'm pretty happy with that though, I was worried I was going too slowly at the time but that's not too bad. My new shows felt ok too; a little bit of rubbing on the ball of my foot which I hope will stop as they break in, and a bit of slipping at the heal which I hope I can stop with some better lacing. Tonight is D&D night, which should be good

Cheers dude. With the 5k if it's Saturday it'll be Parkrun, which is hard to run slow when it's a big group event but I can at least give myself permission not to push for a PR every week! If I'm 5king Sunday after a long run Saturday and bouldering Sunday morning I'm certain it will be a slow one though! So for the intervals, two questions. Firstly, how do you structure hill repeats - do you literally run up the same hill and walk back down it over and over again? And what kind of times/distances do you have for work and rest? Secondly for longer intervals, would you suggest still starting with a few slow miles as I am at the moment, followed by 1-2 miles of intervals, or would you go straight intervals from the start? Oo, does this mean there's a new Mr_Willes challenge. *goes searching* *runs back* HOLY SHIT THERE'S A NEW MR_WILLES CHALLENGE!

Jarric Runs the Year Out Ok, I'm writing this on mobile, because it's more important to have a challenge then for it to be well presented. A couple of weeks aho I signed up to Nuclear Oblivion, a 12km lapped obstacle course in just about half a year's time. If I can complete 3 laps in 8.5 hours I'd qualify as an age group competitor for the obstacle course racing world championships. If I complete 4 laps I qualify as a pro. Unsurprisingly, therefore, I need to get running! I'll be running this challenge for 5 weeks, to take me right up to 30th December. Run! - 15XP What it says on the tin really. The plan is to run 125 miles over the course of this challenge. I'd really like some advice from everyone as to how this stacks up as a plan, but here's what I'm thinking to start: Tuesdays: 1: 1 mile slow, 4 miles fast, 1 mile slow 2: 5 mins slow, 4 x fast miles with 2m slow breaks, 5 mins slow 3: 1 mile slow, 4 miles fast, 1 mile slow 4: 1/2 mile slow, fast mile, slow mile, fast mile, slow mile, fast mile, 1/2 mile slow 5: Christmas Day (maybe Parkrun (5k)) Thursdays: 5 miles slow, 5 x 20sec intervals with 2min rest Weekend: 5k on whatever day I do bouldering, long run on the other day. Long runs will be 10, 11, 12, 13 & 14 miles respectively. The 12 mile run will be done as 6 miles steady, 4 miles fast, 2 miles steady Pullups! - 10XP Last challenge I had a goal of GTG pullups using my pullup bar on the kitchen door every time I wanted to enter the kitchen. The goal is the same this time, except I must hit a minimum of 10 pullups every day. I'll also be doing front lever pullups as much as I can. I trialed this in zero week and hit 87 pullups for the week, which seems respectable. Eat Accountably! - 10XP I know what real food is, so mostly that is what I shall eat. It is Christmas time though, so I'll also have parties and meals ojt and that kind of stuff. There's no limit on variances this time, because I don't think that will work this month, but every variance I eat I need to list jn my journal and post about here. If it's not worth posting about it's not worth eating. Budget! - 10XP Extra XP for this one as it's Christmas - stick to my £50 weekly budget. This is going to be really tough but I want to make an honest attempt at it. Well I think that's about it - I'm sure I'll think of plenty of stuff I forgot about tomorrow, but I need to run in the morning (and I get to try out my new running shoes), so I need to get to bed!

Challenge Wrap-Up This is well and truly overdue, but for posterity: Week 4 Stats Giant's Strength - 3/3 Crossfit sessions for week Hero's Feast - 7/2 variances for week Attack of Opportunity - 66 pullups for week Prestidigitation - Nope Pencils and Paychecks - mega over budget Challenge Scores Giant's Strength - 12/13 workouts completed - 15XP awarded This was actually really easy. I missed one workout because I was away for a few days, but I was excited to go to Crossfit so it was no challenge to keep turning up. It's still interesting me and I'm learning new things, so so far so good. Will probably leave this out next challenge in favour of a running goal. Hero's Feast - 26/10 variances - 0XP awarded So this one looks pretty bad on paper, and to be honest my eating hasn't really been good enough. That said without this challenge I would have gone far further off the rails at work and at home, so it served a purpose despite being a flop numbers wise. Next challenge there's no way on earth that I'll be able to stick to a set number of variances in the face of Christmas parties and the like, so i'll have to re-think how this one works, but in principle I think I would be best keeping something similar. Attack of Opportunity - 320 pullups over the course of this challenge - 10XP awarded This again was reasonably easy, and I'm still not convinced whether GTG is the best way to train. That said I doubt I would have done any standalone pull-up training in absence of this, so it's likely better than nothing. I'll be keeping a modified version of this going forward. Prestidigitation - 2 hours cleaning logged - 0XP awarded The way that I phrased this challenge turned out, like all the best plans, to not survive contact with the enemy. I could do with a tidier house, but I'm not sure how to do that for now (though I'm now sure that this is not the way!). Pencils and Paychecks - 1 week in budget, 2 over but tracked, 2 not tracked - 0XP awarded Much like the heroes' feast goal this looks terrible on paper, but in practice it was much better than the situation would have been had I not had a challenge in place. This will be coming back in some form for the next challenge. Other Stuff I ran in the OCR World Championships charity wave, which was awesome fun. I ran Nuclear fallout, which was fun but really fucking hard. I ran Muscle Acre, which was an nice chilled race to end the season on. I conquered new obstacles and learned some new technique and failed some new obstacles too. I also signed up to Nuclear Oblivion, because I'm mad and definitely need an ultra-marathon OCR to scare the hell out of me for the next 6 months! Basically, I've been able to do a lot of cool stuff this challenge, and that's pretty cool. I updated as much as I felt I could, which still wasn't really enough. And my gif game was weak, so that needs improvement! Overall I'm reasonably happy with this challenge, and I'm looking forward to getting the next one underway.

Oh I was up - my phone's always on silent so your message wouldn't have changed that - it was the knowledge that you would be messaging me to keep me accountable that meant I didn't turn off the alarm and go back to sleep. I don't know about badass, but I do think it's important that one doesn't give up on their commitments just because they've poisoned themselves. I didn't realise that my reputation had grown to "produce and run with a hangover" :p . Probably not the proudest legacy for me, but ah well.

I didn't realise how far behind I was updating on this week. Guess that's the story of this challenge. Aaaaanyway: Week 4 Stats after 6 days Giant's Strength - 3/3 Crossfit sessions for week Hero's Feast - 6/2 variances for week Attack of Opportunity - 50 pullups for week Prestidigitation - Nope Pencils and Paychecks - mega over budget Wednesday: I've talked about that Crossfit session, and I played some snooker in the evening but stopped early and went home for an early night, because... Thursday: Had to get up at 05:30 (urgh) to get in my run before heading off to London for a conference. @jonfirestarhhelped me out with some accountability and messaged me to shame me out of bed (thanks for that dude, I expect I would have slept in otherwise). Thursday evening was D&D, which was really good fun but I was so tired by that point I wasn't really able to give it my all. Friday: I had Crossfit in the morning: On Friday evening I was out at a gig in London, which was really good fun but to be honest if it wasn't booked I probably would have opted to go home and sleep instead! I got home at 01:30 after a few beers and a long train journey. Saturday: I got up for Parkrun with a bit of a hangover, but I got round in about 28 minutes which was ok. Did some housework in the day but it wasn't very late before I was knackered and just chilled out, gave up on cleaning and cooking dinner and vegged in front of the TV. I wasn't very happy with having to do that, but I think it was needed after this week!

Well it'll all depend on money, but that sounds pretty cool to me mate.

^I love this, I find I say it to people a lot. Looking forward to hearing how your bodyweight training goes man! And now if you'll excuse me I need to cook some bacon, because I foolishly ventured into this thread before eating.

I hope your hip and back feel better soon - I wish I had some advice but as you say it's so hard to know what will help and what will exacerbate some things

You've got a point mate, we really should come out and see you for a change. I'll have to pursuade WW she wants a holiday in Sparta around that time! I hate to tell you this, but it wasn't slow fall that did it - slow fall only operates if you're adjacent to a wall and this was a gantryway suspended in free air. I do have Boots of the Cat though, which give you minimum damage from all falls (1 per 10ft falled instead of 1d6 per 10ft) and mean you always land on your feet.

Week 3 Stats what do you mean that was ages ago?? Giant's Strength - 2/3 Crossfit sessions for week - missed one as I was in Essex, but otherwise going strong Hero's Feast - 5/2 variances for week - despite the poor score, I am eating better at work and home than I would be without the goal. Still not good enough, but better at least. Attack of Opportunity - 68 pullups for week - finished strong here Prestidigitation - 40 minutes for week - this goal is not really working Pencils and Paychecks - very very over budget Week 4 Stats after 2 days Giant's Strength - 1/3 Crossfit sessions for week Hero's Feast - 2/2 variances for week Attack of Opportunity - 15 pullups for week Prestidigitation - Nope Pencils and Paychecks - About £44 remaining I'm not going to recap everything that's happened since I last updated properly last Friday. But here's a couple of things I do want to talk about: Crossfit this morning: D&D last night: