Jarric

Thank you dude! And I definitely support that goal; it would be great to run with you again. And C_Q's idea for a race is pretty excellent. Yeah, it was definitely good fun, and the race and the debrief in the pub after were a good way to cap off the year.

No chance! You'll be out-lifting us for a long while yet! They had 3 bags - 50kg, 75kg and 100kg, and then you could add dumbells on top to get intermediate weights (or higher weights if you're totally mad

Race Report - Nuclear Fallout 10 days ago (wow, I'm behind on writing this...). Ahem. 10 days ago I had the privilege of running Nuclear Fallout in Essex with @jonfirestar, @Rhovaniel, @Charlie_Quinn and Stu_Quinn. Whilst we ran @iatetheyeti came down to cheer us on, having been planning to run the race but not being able to after an injury at Spartan Windsor. So to start with a own a massive thanks to Yeti, as she sold me her ticket meaning that I could join the same wave as everyone else. We all thought this was going to be a pretty easy race, a nice 12k jaunt through the flat Essex countryside to be one last big race all together before the end of the race season (and the last race of the season for Jon, Charlie and Stu; Rho and I have one more next weekend). We told Yeti we'd be two and a half hours, three tops, and set off on our merry way. How wrong we were... The course started out easy enough. There were quite a few bits and obstacles we recognised to start with from the OCRWC charity wave a couple of weeks prior, and it was a fun start to the day. The first major triumph came at the monkey bars, where every single person managed to complete the set, one after the other. I know this was the first time completing a set of bars at a race for both Jon and Rho, and I'm hugely proud of both of them for achieving that. Not too far into the race we hit the death slide - a big, steep slide with a kicker at the bottom that fires you into the air before dropping you into a lake. In November. It was pretty warm for a November morning, but lake swimming in November is still not the best advised idea! Another huge shoutout is deserved here though to Charlie and Jon, who both claim not to be strong swimmers (though they looked pretty competent out there to me), but who both turned down the life vests and took the plunge anyway. Well impressed with the way both of you guys handled that! Anyway, after the slide the race began to change a bit. We stopped briefly by the fire to drink some hot squash and get moving again, but with people getting wet and cold there was a constant balancing act of staying to complete obstacles against keeping moving. This meant that several times we had to split up in order to keep people warm and safe. Personally I don't usually struggle with the cold, but after being envious of Jon and Rho all the way round the course I've now bought some neoprene socks so in future I can actually feel my feet when I run! One thing this race did give us was the chance to re-try some of the obstacles we had at OCRWC. The monkey bars, mentioned above were one. Another was a particularly tricky rig which I had a couple of goes at before and couldn't get to the end of. This time I managed, on my second attempt, to work it out and was really happy to finally get to ring that bell at the end. Here's someone making it look far easier than I did: The other obstacle worth mentioning that I got a second go at was the ninja rings (which @DarK_RaideR knows well), where you have two free rings and you have to hook them onto pegs up and over a frame. First time I did these at Nuclear Blast I couldn't get past the first ring. Second time at the OCRWC, no change. This time however I absolutely smashed it! I clearly haven't got any stronger over the course of two weeks, so it must just be technique and getting myself swinging properly and thinking right. Overall though this was a really really hard event. What we thought would be 2.5-3 hours turned out as 4:10 of gruelling slogging through mud and bogs. Of course being such a short course none of us thought to bring food or gels with us (except for Rho, well prepared you!), so by the end I think we were just totally exhausted. Basically we totally underestimated this one and it really showed on all of us by the end. And poor Yeti was left in the cold for far to long, wondering if one of us had been injured or died on course. And since this I've signed up to Nuclear Oblivion, which will be 3 or 4 laps of a very similar course, and it scares the hell out of me. In fact, I signed up because it scares the hell out of me, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Thanks! Why don't you play any more? That's good to know. I don't know where I got the impression that it would be bootcamp style, but most of the people I speak to about it outside of here thought the same thing, which is interesting.

Oh dear lord that's far too close to home! Hopefully I'm none of them, but I definitely recognise the types even after 2 weeks of Crossfit :s I do! And it is! I used to have it upstairs and I rarely used it; it's so much better having to walk past it all the time.

What do you mean it's Friday already?? Week 3 Stats after 4 days Giant's Strength - 1/3 Crossfit sessions for week Hero's Feast - 3/2 variances for week Attack of Opportunity - 38 pullups for week Prestidigitation - 40 minutes for week Pencils and Paychecks - £5.88 remaining I spent Monday and most of Tuesday at WW's parent's house in deepest darkest Essex, so I missed Crossfit and a day of pullups. It was nice to get away though - there's nothing to do there so it forced me to relax, read a book and watch some TV. Wednesday I had Crossfit, and I couldn't help feeling this one would have suited @jonfirestar: Wednesday night was snooker, where I played terribly and had several beers. Thursday morning I woke up very late (probably not a coincidence) and nearly convinced myself that it was too late to go out and run. I did eventually drag myself out though for a quick 2 miles before it was time to leave for work - not ideal but better than nothing. Yesterday evening we needed to empty the kitchen as it's being re-plastered, so I got in plenty of extra pull-ups going in and out of there! Also, I still owe you guys a race report from last weekend - don't think I've forgotten!

Oh the company was the best bit! (To be honest I inhaled the food too fast to make much judgement on the taste!) I will make sure to watch that later, when I'm not at work (given you NSFW tag)! No, I play a monk in the Zeitgeist game on Tuesdays, I'm a sorcerer in the Rise of the Runelords game on Thursdays (Sylvan Wildblooded bloodline, which grants the animal companion with an effective druid level of your sorcerer level -3, then Boon Companion as a feat to bring the companion up to my level. Weirdly that's less of a waste of a feat than almost every other feat I've taken). I can't watch that at work, so I'll watch it this evening and let you know!

How does Juggernaut end up taking less time than 531? Well done on getting straight back into things after this weekend.

Week 2 Stats Giant's Strength - 3/3 Crossfit sessions for week Hero's Feast - 5/2 variances for week Attack of Opportunity - 50 pullups for week Prestidigitation - 20 minutes for week Pencils and Paychecks - ~£11 over budget So the Crossfit goal obviously went great last week, and I'm excited to go back. Food went pretty well until the weekend. On Saturday I had an excellent pub meal with some awesome rangers after we ran Nuclear Fallout - a much needed variance and a all-round good time. That evening I was too knackered to do much so WW and I ordered pizza for dinner. Sunday I can't even remember what the first variance was, but the second was that we discovered that WW's parents had mince pies in the house, and I do love a mince pie. Pullups were down this week, partly because of Crossfit but mostly because I wasn't in the house very much all week. Stuck well to the goal though. The cleaning goal still needs replacing with something that makes more sense. I did tons of housework on Sunday, none of which counts for this goal :/. And finally the budget challenge - again this went really well, except for the rather good pub lunch on Saturday which put me over.

Great write up Rho! You did so well on what turned out to be a brutal course, particularly those monkey bars - wow! And you learnt that you can multitask when driving, though I hope it's not a skill you'll need in the future!

That Laura Bailey gif is great.

Week 2 Day 4 - Thursday Giant's Strength - N/A (2/3 for week) Hero's Feast - No variances (1/2 variances for week) Attack of Opportunity - 7 (32 pullups for week) Prestidigitation - Nothing (20 minutes for week) Pencils and Paychecks - £19.10/£50 spent Yesterday morning I hit snooze a bit and stayed in late. It may have been the late night, it may have been the beers at snooker, or those might just be excuses. Either way I at least managed to drag myself out early enough for half my run - one easy mile and two "fast" ones. They were some of the slowest fast miles I've even run between the beer, tiredness and glute DOMS, but better than staying in bed at least. Last night was D&D, our Rise of the Runelords game. We fought two Ettins (two-headed giants), which turned out to be a surprisingly easy fight, and we got loaded up with loot afterwards. I got a circlet for my snake animal companion which allows it to speak (though it's still got an intelligence of 1 so I'm not expecting much conversation!). I also got a cloak that, when I'm hit with fire damage, creates and illusion of me burning to ashes whilst I turn invisible. It'll be fun for pranks if nothing else. This morning I had Crossfit: Another really good session, unfortunately I'll miss Monday as we're going to stay with WW's parents for a couple of days. I'm really gutted that I have to wait until Wednesday to go back! Before that though I have a really cool day tomorrow, running Nuclear Fallout in Essex with @jonfirestar, @Rhovaniel, @Charlie_Quinn and Stu, and getting to see @iatetheyeti again!

Thank you! It was a fun night. Amazingly my quads came out remarkably unscathed. My glutes on the other hand were very unhappy! I know! I'm not sure if everywhere's like this (though I'm sure there's a few people here that can chime in on that question), but it was certainly not what I was expecting.

Well done on the run - I think muscle ache instead of shin pain can only be a good sign to be honest! And good on you for still getting your workout even with the achiness. Also, yay for loose jeans!

Given that I sort-of completed main goal 1 of the year I should probably put this here for posterity too: So now the main goal shifts to qualifying for and actually running in the OCRWC next year!

I may have forgotten to post this when i set up the challenge, but it's there:

Week 2 Day 3 - Wednesday Giant's Strength - Yep! (2/3 for week) Hero's Feast - No variances (1/2 variances for week) Attack of Opportunity - 6 I think? will need to double check (25? pullups for week) Prestidigitation - Nothing (20 minutes for week) Pencils and Paychecks - £15.10/£50 spent Wednesday morning I got out for Crossfit: Had a good session - again it was very chilled and actually a bit easier than I was expecting. Still, I'm sure I can make it harder and build from there and I'm definitely feeling it today. Yesterday evening was snooker. We annihilated the other team 5-0, which is always good. I had 5 beers and a late night, but all in good fun. This morning I ran and tonight I shall D&D, and I'll talk about both tomorrow.

Week 2 - Monday and Tuesday Stats Giant's Strength - 1, 0 (1/3 for week) Hero's Feast - 0, 1 (1/2 variances for week) Attack of Opportunity - 13, 6 (19 pullups for week) Prestidigitation - 20, 0 (20 minutes for week) Pencils and Paychecks - £3/£50 spent Monday was Crossfit (which i may have talked about at length). After work I got in a little prestidigitation time putting the washing away and whatnot, then we chilled in front of the TV, I cooked honey mustard pork chops with green lentils and veg for dinner, and we chilled some more. Tuesday I went out for my morning run - 5 miles easy plus 5 x 20 second sprints. My watching is being a dick so I don't have the data on it, but i know I was going faster than I should on an easy run at points. That might explain why my legs were knackered by the end of the run (though Monday's deadlifts can't have helped!). Tuesday evening was a lot of rushing about to get home, get costumed up and get out to our D&D game. WW wasn't feeling well so didn't end up coming, and being short on time and her not wanting food meant I gave up and just had a bowl of cereal for dinner. I snacked on some crisps (chips if you're American), which was an expected variance given that we were playing at someone's house instead of a game shop or pub, so not worried about that as food has otherwise been pretty good. This morning was Crossfit and tonight will be snooker, but i'll talk about both of those tomorrow.

Crossfit friends, woo! You''l fly up that pack pretty quickly I reckon - while I've got more strength I'm certain you've got more energy and conditioning. Yeah, they seem pretty competent here, and I feel like I know enough to avoid doing anything really stupid. There are definitely places that just wear you out and injure you! Have you been watching All Work No Play? Sam and Liam's thoughts on Crossfit are pretty clear! Sorry! Well you can Crossfit vicariously through me if you like. And thanks! And well, as you guys asked so nicely... Left to right: Celewyn the Half-Elf Magus/Rogue, Samuel the Half-Orc Monk (me), Toble the Gnome Druid in wild shape form as a gorilla.

Hope you and SRLF can work through this dude. You know where I am if you want to talk.

It's really cool that you're gonna have some more time for bouldering soon - sounds like an ideal way to spend the winter!

Week 1 Stats Giant's Strength - 2/2 for week, plus Crossfit induction Hero's Feast - 7/2 variances for week Attack of Opportunity - 72 pullups for week (10 more than last week) Prestidigitation - 45 minutes for week Pencils and Paychecks - £30 over budget The eating last week was going quite well, and I even avoided having rubbish in the week knowing that I was going to have a chocolatey dessert on Friday at The Captain's birthday thing. I had that desert and it was the only really good part of the meal so no regrets there (2 variances). Then on Saturday after a relatively productive day WW and I crashed and I ended up eating a sausage roll that she had because I was hungry, followed by cereal for dinner (3 variances, thought the cereal is pretty borderline as well). Then on Sunday we went over to one of our D&D friend's new house and played board games all day, resulting in many snacks, a late night and MacDonald's before bed. I've said 7 variances but I could probably put an even higher number there. Pullups were good and they're feeling pretty strong, despite some fatigue from racing, lifting and climbing. My budget was largely blown when I found out that it was a cash bar at The Captain's birthday thing - though if I'd have known that in advance I may still not have budgeted for it. ==== Tonight I'm off to a friend's house for our usual D&D night, but as it's Halloween we're dressing up as our characters! Should be good fun but it might be a late one after I get back and wash off all of the face paint, so I don't know how I'll be for Crossfit tomorrow (I'll be going, but i might be tired!).

Thank you so much guys! I was going to wrap last week up before I did a Crossfit post, but it looks like I'm talking Crossfit first! Quick sidebar, @Starpuck I had to Google "sip the Kool-Aid" to work out what you meant. And now I've learned something! Saturday So I went for my indoctrination on Saturday and it was really good. I managed to get away without a hangover from Friday night, which certainly helped, and after necessary paperwork/waivers etc. we just went through form on major lifts (Squat, Deadlift, OHP, Bench, Pushups, Pullups and Ring Dips). The trainer was really complementary on my form for all of the lifts, which was really nice to hear that I haven't been doing things wrong all this time. She made quite a lot of changes to my deadlift technique, but she said that that was more about doing it the way they teach it rather than it being "wrong" per se - apparently I deadlift like a powerlifter with a starting position very similar to the bottom of a low-bar squat, whereas they want a higher hip position that puts more load on the hamstring and less on the quads. I also tried out sumo deadlift for the first time, and other than the fact that it cut my shins to ribbons it felt pretty good. The thing i was happiest with was my pullup form, which she said was really good and made no changes to at all. The thing I was least happiest with was the ring dips - I managed a nice slow negative, but when I got to the bottom of the dip I couldn't move an inch upwards! Guess that's one that'll need more work! We finished up with a quick workout: 6' AMRAP: 3 sumo deadlifts (40kg I think?) 5 pushups 7 Wall Balls (7kg ball I think?) I managed 5 rounds - well I managed 4 and got half way through the wall balls in the time cap, so I finished the last round off. Monday Yesterday morning I had my first proper Crossfit class. I think what surprised me most was how chilled out it was. I've always hated classes/bootcamps where instructors just shout at you a load, and speaking to the trainers I was hopeful it wouldn't be like that, but beyond that it was so loosely structured which was really nice. People were wandering in and starting at different times, and moving on from their warm-up to their strength work just whenever they were ready. I guess it felt less like a "class" and more like a group training session, and I really liked that. The full class was: Warmup - 3 rounds of: Empty bar good mornings x 6 Empty bar push press x 6 Ring rows x 6 Strength - Deadlifts - Work up to a new 5RM I worked up to 110kg (~242#) for 2 x 5 with quite a few form tweaks from the trainer and trying to remember all the things we discussed on Saturday. Having just looked at my notes I did hit 115kg for 6 reps the other week, but I'd forgotten that and with so many form changes going on I didn't want to push any higher yet anyway. So my official 5RM there is now 110kg. Workout - "Jackie" - for time: 1,000m row 50 Thrusters (20kg/44# bar) 30 pullups I scaled the pullups to elevated ring rows otherwise I would have been there all week (particularly having never tried kipping), and managed to complete that in 13:15. There were 6 of us in the class and 3 rowers, so 3 started off together and then 3 started 5 minutes later. I was the second slowest in the class with that time, and the slowest not doing it Rx, and being in the second group I was also the last to finish! Not a great result but i was gassed afterwards and don't felt I could have pushed any harder, so I just need to trust that I will get conditioned to this kind of thing.

Week 1 Day 4 - Thursday Giant's Strength - N/A - 1/2 for week Hero's Feast - All good - 1/2 variances for week Attack of Opportunity - 15 pullups = 42 pullups for week Prestidigitation - 45 minutes cleaning - 45 minutes for week Pencils and Paychecks - £9/£50 remaining I've already mentioned my short morning run yesterday due to hitting snooze too much. Yesterday evening was a pretty chilled one; I did a load of washing and some tidying when I got in, and ordered some clothes because I can touch the pavement through the soles of my shoes and that's just not ideal. WW made sweet potato curry and we chilled in front of Critical Role for the rest of the evening. No money spent yesterday. This morning I got up quite late and made up a quick bodyweight workout as I don't have a gym membership until I start Crossfit tomorrow (eep!). I did decline pushups supersetted with split squats for 3x8, and then pullups supersetted with box pistol squats (which I'm not sure are a thing?) for 2 x 5 before I ran out of time. Then I showered and rushed out of the house to get to my dentist appointment, which isn't actually until next week! I only found that out when I got there though... Tonight I'm out for a friend's birthday, and I've just found out it's a cash bar so that will do my budget for the week! Still should be a fun night though. Wish my luck for my Crossfit indoctrination tomorrow!

Thanks Sal!