Jarric

Next challenge is up, and I'm going to the Warriors: Goals (1, 2 and 3 aimed at OCRWC, 3 & 4 aimed at Budgeting, 5 supports both and my general wellbeing):

Fighting Alongside the Warriors Hi everyone, for those of you who don't know me I'm Jarric. My plan for this year involves me visiting all of the guilds, learning what I can learn, and becoming a more well rounded Ranger and a better person. I always knew I would end up here pretty early on - I've partied with you guys a few times and the Warriors Guild is a bit of a home from home for me. The other thing my plan for the year involves is hitting two goals. 1.Run in the Obstacle Course Racing World Championship (OCRWC) in October. 2.Get out of debt. So, to goals! Prepare for Battle - 10XP Last challenge I had some issues with getting up and getting my workouts in. To combat that I am going to have a list of things to do every evening, accompanied by tick boxes in my bullet journal, to make getting up and exercising as easy as possible. That list is: Write workout plan (gym) or read workout plan (runs) Check the weather for the morning (so I know what to wear) Lay out workout clothes Check alarm is set This applies every day, so scored out of 28 Do Battle - 15XP A simple goal (if not an easy one), 7+ workouts per week. My current workout plan looks like this: Lifting M & F, Running T, T, S & S, HIIT W, Bouldering S/S. 8 workouts in all, but I'll settle for 7 in any given week to give me some flexibility (and if I have to change the order of my workouts that's fine too). Scored out of 28. This goal is another major reason I want to be with the Warriors this month. You guys inspire me to hit the gym when I read your challenges and see videos of your sets, and I'm hoping that enthusiasm will wrench me out of bed in the morning. Star Fleet Rations - 10XP Take prepared meals to work every day. This went well last time for saving me money, but there were some nutritionally poor choices, so I'm adding two caveats. 1, the food I bring must be real food - no taking leftover pizza to work. 2, I can eat free food in meetings instead, but I must eat sensibly and stop when I've had a reasonable amount. Scored out of 20. Gold Pressed Latinum - 10XP Same as last challenge and a big part of my goals for the year. Each week I will take out a cash budget of £50 for spending money, and I must stay within it. Any surplus under £10 goes into a jar which I can crack open for fitness gear when I hit level 15. Scored out of 4. Ten Forward - 5XP I am not spending enough time on here. I feel bad for not keeping up with my friends, and it's hurting my own efforts to improve myself not coming here for support. Every day therefore I will post on my own challenge (it doesn't have to be a full update, anything will do), and every day I will post on someone else's challenge (the same person doesn't count 2 days in a row, so I can't just have 1 conversation for the whole challenge!). Scored out of 28. Some other things At the end of week 3 I have my birthday and my first OCR of the season, Nuts Challenge. It's going to be cold and wet and muddy and bloody awesome, and I've roped in the wonderful @jonfirestar @Charlie_Quinn and Mr Quinn to run with me. And why the Star Trek theme (vague as it is)? Well I've started doing something so geeky I'm almost embarrassed to talk about it, even here. I've been watching Critical Role for a long time, which is a group of voice actors playing D&D live on the internet. The other day however I found myself starting to watch Shield of Tomorrow, which is a group of people playing a Star Trek TRPG live on the internet. It's a whole new level of nerdy, but I'm enjoying it so far. Wow, that was a long first post, time to go get a drink...

So challenge 1 went a bit like this: Some decent work on both of my main goals. For goal 1 I got a reasonable amount of pulling practice, I worked out the HIIT is a good potential option for me (though I didn't do enough of it). I also had times of eating OK, but I need to make my meal prep goal more specific as mentioned above. For goal 2 my actual "spending money" spending was ~£240. Budget challenge was £200 so not perfect. It's probably my best spending in a 4 week period ever though, so I'm happy, and in my family budget I have £280 for personal spending each month so I'm nicely in that. A big big part of this was the meal prep goal, so it's definitely one that I'm keeping. Next challenge coming soon!

Me too! I'm 3rd March, when's yours? Well done on this challenge - I see a couple of 100%s and a lot of high numbers in there!

Nah, sounds a bit to normal to me Oo err Firstly, that's awesome. Secondly, I wanted to share the conversation I had with WW when I put it on (bearing in mind she couldn't see the screen at the time). WW: "Why the fuck are you listening to the Super Mario theme played on a marubma?" Me: "How the fuck do you know what a marubma is?" Nice one! Is there a bit of Billy Connolly inspiration in that goatee?

I know, it was incredible! And I absolutely love that picture Mixing the time up seems to be helping a bit. Though the next stage is going from just waking up to actually getting my arse out of bed and to the gym! One thing at a time. It's funny with usernames, most of the time it's not until someone posts a video of themselves saying their own username that you realise you've been saying it wrong! The slackline is just a time thing - I was amazed at how quickly I got it once I committed to spending a few minutes on it every week. I have definitely enjoyed being with the rebels, it was great to be here. I won't promise to keep up with everyone as I'm struggling with keeping up with anyone at the moment, but I'll always drop in when I can!

You are more than welcome mate . I'm happy to be so inconsiderate as often as you like! I feel you on the getting lost thing - I get lost on my runs just about every time I try a new route. Not a fun experience, but at least it didn't take you too far out of your way. With the calorie goal, I would suggest giving yourself another 100 calories and seeing how you feel. I see your point about wanting your body to adjust, but if you go up and adjust to 2,750 it might be much easier to then re-adjust to 2,650 if you need to than going in from where you are now.

Challenge Wrap-Up 1 - Meal Prep - 15XP Result: 18/20 = 90% = 13XP This went really well by the numbers, and saved me a lot of money. I'll be continuing next challenge but with some slightly stricter ruling (leftover pizza should not count as taking food to work. Neither should gorging myself on free food at meetings. I need to remember that this is about good nutrition, not just saving money). 2 - HIIT - 10XP Result: 2/4 = 50% = 5XP I did this for the first two weeks, and then overslept the following two. Plans to combat oversleeping for my workouts will also be part of my next challenge. 3 - Hang Out - 10XP Result: 20/28 = ~71.4% = 7XP I had a rough week with this in week 3. Otherwise though I was hitting 5 or 6 pullup sessions per week, and I do feel like that's enough that I'll get some progress. Level Up Your Life - Budget - 15XP Result: 2/4 = 50% = 7XP Despite the score looking bad, I actually think this went fantastically well. In the past I've struggled to stick to an £80 budget, so the fact that I managed two weeks under £50 and the other two around £70 is not bad at all. In fact week 4 would have been within budget too, if I hadn't spend over £20 on pizza when I was too lazy to cook! This can stay for next challenge. Other bits: I've had a great time with the rebels, and in particular got some good advice on concentrating on my actual hunger rather than eating automatically (thanks @Bookish Badger) and on managing my sleeping (thanks @Bean Sidhe)! I also learned how to pronounce @Bean Sidhe correctly, which is cool! I managed to walk the slackline at my climbing gym for the first time this month. And the second time for that matter! I've joined a second Pathfinder group and they're awesome! The XP above gets me past half way to level 11

That does worry me. I have legitimately injured myself sleepwalking to turn off my alarm when it was the other side of the room, so there's always a chance I might injure my phone if I can't work the alarm code! Spoilered in case you haven't caught up yet:

Seriously, seriously well done this challenge mate. You've had a lot to contend with over the past month and yet you've hit the end running. Onward to the next one!

i know exactly what you mean! My first battle log on here (nearly 2 years ago, eep!) was entitled "Jarric's quest for productivity - against arch-villains Dr Sofa and Count Bed"! I am usually better than I was then, it's just the last couple of weeks that have been particularly challenging. Interesting thought on the alarm, I might actually give that a go. The other thing I've just thought of is changing the way I hit snooze - I think there's some apps that make you do basic maths or copy patterns before they'll turn off? CritRole: I'm very glad I got into it! I definitely owe you for that, between your game stories and introducing me to Critical Role you were probably a big part of the reason I started. And thank you, as you say any learning experience is a step forward. Yeah, definitely a good plan (and possibly a goal for my next challenge!). I laid out my clothes the last two nights and got up for my run and gym sessions just fine, so that's a good sign. On a total tangent as I know you're into rugby, do you watch European rugby at all? Women's 6 nations starts tonight and men's tomorrow, I'm really looking forward to it!

Ok, that's awesome! If you're thinking of trying CR again, they just started a new campaign last month so they're only 4 episodes in. First 3 episodes are on their YouTube channel (it's live Thursdays and goes on YouTube on Mondays). It was CR that finally got me into playing TRPGs so I'm a huge fan! Hope the shoulder feels better soon!

Stay strong dude. I hope your dad's ok.

I think I need to instil some more fear in myself. Especially as I'm in the wave after you and have promised to catch everyone up O.o

Last night I had Pathfinder (in which I mostly tailed various suspects and tried not to get caught). Got home just before 11 and did my pullups and packed up my leftover curry for today's lunch. This morning I hit snooze twice in my sleep. I was having a bizarre dream about something or other and it definitely involved turning off a fake alarm! I woke up almost immediately after hitting snooze the second time, but I knew I was cutting it fine to get to HIIT and I wasn't sure where my clothes were and didn't want to get out of bed to look. Another failure. There's a lesson to go with it though: prepare workout clothes the night before, it's a statement of intent and it's one less excuse in the morning. I shall be trying that tonight.

Tell me about it! I'm praying that OCR season gives me some much needed motivation, I seem to have left mine in 2017! Joooooiin uuuus! (I know it's probably too late and there's a good chance our wave is sold out, but it would be great to see you if you can make it ) I love running in the rain, it feels properly rangerly. Besides, I'm already wet from sweat and mud so it doesn't make a lot of difference!

That's a shame. There's always games out there though if you ever want to pick it back up. ====== Firstly, a correction to last week's stats - I finished with about £5.20 left, not 20p, so that's pretty good. Last night I totally forgot to do my pullups. I also totally forgot to do any meal prep for today, which means that I've just been to buy lunch instead *sigh*. I did however run this morning before work. 8 sets of half mile intervals, with 30" slow between each, for a total of just over 6 miles including warm-up and cool-down. First 6 intervals were in the time bracket I was going for or a little too fast, last 2 were too slow, but generally not bad overall.

Week 3 review 1 - Meal Prep - 14/20 - 93.3% so far 2 - HIIT - 2/4 - 66.7% so far 3 - Hang Out - 15/28 - 71.4% so far Level Up Your Life - Budget - Yes! Finished with about 20p left, but definitely within budget. 2/4 - 66.7% so far Overall not a great week exercise wise. I don't quite know what's happening there, but I think basically I need to stop being lazy, stop hitting snooze on my alarm and just get up and get on with it (I did not do that this morning either ). Over the weekend I did get in a run on Saturday whilst at WW's parent's house, but I backed out of it on the Sunday as the thought of doing 10 miles in an area I don't really know didn't appeal to me at all. I should have gone once I got home that evening, but we left late and it was getting dark so once again I backed out. I just need to get out and do these things - the hardest step is the first! So bonus commitment for the rest of the week, I've missed my Monday morning workout but I will hit my other 7 workouts this week! I have just had a health review at work, in which they do a body composition scan with a bioelectric impedance scale. I was assured that the equipment they use is much more accurate than the at-home versions of those scales, but I will still take it with a grain of salt. Nonetheless it gave me a body fat percentage of 17.9, a good visceral fat score, a good hydration percentage and a good bone mass score. It also gave me a metabolic age of 26 (I'm actually 28), so whilst nothing outstanding there it's still all pretty good news. The one thing that was pretty average and they recommended improving was my muscle mass, so yet another wakeup that I need to stop skipping gym sessions! It's week 4, lets make it a good one!

It was excellent! Do you still play now?

I've done two TMs and completed all of the obstacles (although I had a little shove on a couple of them!). I can't do a muscle up. Don't worry too much about that, the ultimate goal is to complete the distance so just train to do it as best you can.

Challenge wise things are stalling a bit. Bringing food to work is fine (100% barring the one day I brought the wrong tub to work!), and I might be somewhere near on budget for this week with some luck. I haven't got up to exercise this week since Monday though, which both generally sucks and also specifically sucks because it means I've failed my HIIT goal. I also haven't touched the pull-up bar since Monday - I will make sure to get some in tonight but then we're going to stay with WW's parents for the weekend so I'll have to see what I can pull together there. Generally this week has been pretty stressful and not productive enough. Next week will be better. That's not what I really want to talk about now though. What I want to talk about is how much of an absolutely amazing time I had in our first Rise of the Runelords session last night. This group is amazing and I think I'm going to have so much fun! Spoilered for size, let me introduce you to our party:

I don't know, drunk Flea sounds pretty fun to me!

Thank you for writing that review, it made for some really interesting reading. Interestingly, I agree with the authors on this point. I find that if I measure out a portion of crisps or chocolate (and then put the rest away before I start eating my portion), then once I've eaten it I am satisfied and I don't crave any more. This does of course only work when I am already in the mindset of preparing a portion size in the first place, but I do think it is doable. I certainly know that feeling. Even when I'm concentrating on it I often can't tell the difference between "hunger", "stress" and "I did a core workout yesterday" either! Any tips on that from the book, or is it simply a case of assessing your eating desires more often?

This is a super simple one from a pretty good website: http://www.startbodyweight.com/p/pull-up-progression.html Or a slightly more involved article from GMB (if anything, I would at least recommed stealing thiri "pulling prep" as a warm-up): https://gmb.io/pull-ups/

I've still got half an hour of episode two to watch, but thoughts (spoilered in case anyone hasn't seen the first two episodes of the new Critical Role campaign yet):