Jarric

His Dark Materials trilogy is definitely a good shout, they're quite full on but great books. I'd also recommend some of the Terry Pratchett books designed for kids; particularly Johnny and the Bomb, Johnny and the Dead and Only You Can Save Mankind.

Tuesday - W1D2 Soda: 15XP Beer Blanket (weekly): 4/10, 15XP T-shield (daily): 4/4, 10XP Run in the morning was goodish, despite the late night on Monday. Totalled 5.15 miles including the cool down walk at the end. Monday's squats did take their toll though, my quads ached at first but by the end my whole thighs felt like big, wet soggy ( @deftona ) lumps of wood. Drank a ton of water over the course of the day - maybe 1 and a half pints after my run, 4 litres (!) during work on top of my 4 cups of tea, and at least a couple of pints of squash in the evening! I seem to be really busy at the moment doing mundane things - last night I went to the supermarket and then spent a while helping WW set up her Pathfinder character, and it just ate up the time I wanted to spend on here. I will find that time somewhere though!

Thank you! It seems to be starting well I knew I could trust you to make it weirder man

I shall report back my findings. I suspect that they may involve me sleeping on a sofa.

Nice. There are some circumstances in which I wouldn't feel right using the word soggy though

Monday - W1D1 Soda: 15XP Beer Blanket (weekly): 4/10, 15XP T-shield (daily): 4/4, 10XP I cannot figure out how to make the above clearer/more sensible looking, but I hope that makes sense? In many ways yesterday was not an ideal day to start a challenge. I had a client meeting in the middle of the day so I wouldn't be entirely in control of where I was/what I was doing around that time, and I was on reserve to play snooker waiting to hear if someone else was dropping out so I couldn't plan my evening either. On the other hand it might be good to start a challenge on a disruptive day, as that's when my motivation for my goals in strongest. Hit the gym first thing for squats, top set was 70kg for 7 sets of 3 (well, the AMRAP set at the end was 5). That took a loooong time, I barely got half my assistance stuff done as a result! Work went ok; I managed to have my 4 teas and no more. I was called in for snooker in the evening, and Hopalong had already agreed last week (before I'd posted this challenge) that he would drive to this one if I was playing so I could have a drink. I kept it sensible and ended up having 4 beers in about as many hours and had a really pleasant evening. Adds a bit of planning required for the rest of the week as I've front-loaded my beer intake, but shouldn't present a problem to hit.

As an artist (and having seen your instagram) I'm sure you could do a better job of it . And thank you Yeah, seeing me with a beer isn't that likely to change any time soon! Particularly post-event beer! What, you mean you don't find that hot? Glad to have you here Wolfman. Awwwwwwwww... *ahem* *manly voice* Hi, good to see you. Hii! Thank you, to be honest I don't know how I got through challenges before I started bullet journaling, it's the only way I can keep track now!

Thanks dude, you're right, we got this! New challenge is up:

Madness if often the right thing to do! Sounds like an awesome adventure to me. Good luck for this challenge man; I'm certain you won't need it.

Haha, I was about to defend myself but no, it is a pretty amazing thought! ====== In other news, I have a challenge tracker:

Plan for week 1: Monday - Lifting (squat day), work, evening is currently up in the air Tuesday - Running (4 miles plus 4 sprints), work, relaxing evening in Wednesday - Lifting (OHP day), work, snooker - this will be a drinking evening Thursday - Running (3 fast miles, about 5 miles total), work, seeing IT with my mum in the evening Friday - Lifting (deadlift day), work, BIL coming over in the evening so will probably have dinner together and maybe a beer or two Saturday - I'm volunteering as a marshal at Tough Mudder all day, which BIL is running, so probably no run for me. Will probably go out for dinner afterwards, may drink depending on Sunday Sunday - I get a very cheap TM ticket for volunteer marshalling, so as long as Saturday isn't too draining I might just run a Tough Mudder on Sunday!

Jarric Gets Wet ...just do whatever you want with that title. Whatever you can think of. Really. I was talking about this a bit last challenge, and I've decided it's high time I addressed my fluid intake, both in terms of caffeine and alcohol. These are both things that I have far too much of, and are limiting me in reaching my fitness goals. At the same time I'm spending far too much money on these things, which is damaging my debt-repaying goals. Soda - 15XP I have developed a habit of buying a diet coke on the way to work every morning, and then going to get another one at lunch. It can't be good for me to be drinking a litre or more of the stuff every day, and it's costing me at least £2 per day. That's £730 a year I'm wasting. A maximum of 15XP is available for this goal, and every time I drink any soda I take 1 XP damage. Beer - 15XP I drink a lot less now that I did at one point, and that's good. I still have a beer belly though, and I still waste too many mornings feeling rough. I'm very good at still hitting the gym or going for a run with a hangover, but it's no longer a quality workout when I do. Money wise I shudder to think and I'm not sure where I'd start calculating what I spend each year, but based on what I spend on soda it's gotta be a 4 figure sum. A maximum of 15XP is available for this goal. As defence I have a beer blanket (see what I did there) which can take 10 points of damage before I take XP damage. I get a new beer blanket each week, so I can drink 10 beers or equivalent per week. I feel that opinion may be divided on whether 10 beers per week is far too much or far too little, but it's a sensible goal for me that I know I can hit. It was about the NHS maximum guideline at one point, although they've dropped that by a third in the last couple of years. Tea -10XP What I don't want to come out of this challenge is that I swap soda for another source of caffeine and don't actually drink less. For that reason I'm limiting my tea intake as well. A maximum of 10XP is available for this goal. As a defence I have a tower shield, or t shield for short (I was really struggling for a pun here) which can take 4 points of damage before I take XP damage. I get a new t shield each day, but I can only use it before 4pm, so I get 4 cups of tea per day. Again, is 4 cups a lot or not? I drink the diet cokes plus about 6 cups of tea per day currently, so it's definitely less! Well I think that's all! I will make sure to do a better job of updating and being around for this challenge.

Challenge Wrap I've disappeared a bit for the past week, sorry about that. The point of this challenge was to stay here and stay accountable, and that lasted until the end of the challenge and no further At the same time I've inadvertently had a rest week. The party last Saturday was fantastic, and it meant I missed my run but that was ok. After a wonderful day of drinking weird drinks, dancing, singing and talking the toot, I ended up going to bed around 4am (in a tent). Needless to say Sunday was a bit of a write off as I recovered on the sofa. From there I slept in every day last week, and thereby missed every workout I would usually do. Before this week I was on a streak of something like 35 days of exercise, so it's a little frustrating that I got derailed so easily. I do wonder if I've been missing workouts because I've not had the accountability of being here, or if I've avoided updating because I'm embarrassed about the workouts I've missed. This weekend has been a bit lot better. Yesterday I got up and went to Parkrun (albeit a pretty slow one), and then in the afternoon got out for bouldering. It was Hopalong's first time climbing in about a year, and he spurred me on the push myself really hard which was cool. Today we've done some domestic rangering, and then I went out and got in my long run - 7 miles at a fairly steady pace. Anyway, I'm here now and about to start writing a new challenge. In the meantime I did get a few XP from this challenge: Updates: 25/28 = 8XP Bujo updates: 21/28 = 7XP

Really late on this, but if you're looking for just straight 5k runs it'd be worth looking into Parkrun. They're every Saturday all over the country, they're timed 5k runs and they're free to enter. It's a nice way to get some running training as part of an event and get an "official" 5k time.

Congratulations on the new cub Wolfman! So happy for you, you're such a cool dad and now you'll have another cool kid in the family.

Thanks for the heads up. It does, in fact, look really hideous, and yet somehow that makes me want to do it more. Now that I know the average time for a 7k lap is 2 hours I think I agree with you on that!

Your write up is great, I'm glad you guys had such a good time! Also glad that it sounds like you're getting hooked on OCRs . Winter Nuts looks awesome, but it is also on my birthday. In some ways it'd be a great way to spend a birthday though, and it's so so close to me I might just do it. Some thinking is needed! For Wolf run the Sussex one is again mega close to me, but I could equally make it over for the Warwickshire one if I book a hotel. Definitely both possibilities. I am going to have to find a second job to fund my OCR habit at this rate though!

Yeah, it's good for getting good at things, but bad for functioning as a normal person! ====== Very quick update for the sake of goal hitting as I'm at a party. I've had an excellent day setting up for and then enjoying this party. It's a festival thing so lots of barbeque, lots of drinking and chatting and hopefully a bit of music later. Feeling a bit over socialised at the moment catching up with people I've not seen for a while and I've been drinking since 2 (it half 6 as I write this) so it's a long day. Really happy to be here if a bit overwhelmed. I hope everyone else is having a great weekend Updates: 25/28 Bujo updates: 21/28

Updates: 24/28 Bujo updates: 21/28 I realise I didn't update yesterday. I maaay have got sucked down a rabbit hole of looking at equipment for my Pathfinder character and done that all evening (because of the setting, our DM said "you have 8,450 gp, you can have anything you want with it - far too much choice!). In all seriousness I do have a tendency to get sucked into things slightly obsessively, and given that it would have taken literally 10 minutes to post here and update my bujo that's something I may need to address one day. Anyway, I ran yesterday morning and lifted today, so my workout streak is going strong - I think I'm on 30-35 consecutive days, which is pretty cool. This morning was bench, 50kg for 7 sets of 3, and I felt much stronger than I have the past couple of weeks which is good. This weekend MG is having a birthday party that starts tonight, we're camping there, runs all day tomorrow, camping again and finishing at some point on Sunday. I will make time to post on here however, providing my phone is up to it, and I will update my bujo regardless.

Congratulations! You both look amazing in your wedding photos, and glad you're having a good time

And now you say it, I can absolutely imagine you playing a wrestler in a high fantasy campaign, and grappling with dragons or hydra or kracken

Updates: 23/28 Bujo updates: 21/28 Last day of deload week today, and it was deadlifts. I hit snooze on the alarm so I got there late, and I still wasn't feeling at 100% so I was a little slow, but I got in the main part of the workout anyway. WW went out after work, so I came home and spent most of the evening rolling up my Pathfinder character - suitability complicated having never played before and trying to set up a level 4 character, but somehow satisfying. By the time I picked WW up I really didn't feel like cooking so we ended up with McDonald's for dinner

Oh I'm so envious that you get to watch it live! It's on at silly o'clock in the morning here . It's a fantastic episode though, so damn tense! The next one's great too, though I won't spoil it for you, but if you know what happens in 103 I'm sure you can have a guess.

Well I've signed up, so please do come and join me! I'm sure it would be his ideal weekend in Brighton. You can relax afterwards on the beach. In November. It'll be fine Seriously though, come join, the race will be fun . That Muddy Mo Run looks good. Must. Resist. Temptation. To. Spend. All. Money. On. Races! I find this really tough - I start out with the best of intentions but find myself trying to push for a better time at the end! Just keep on telling the voice you're sticking to your plan and what it thinks doesn't matter

Thank you! Once it's sorted I'll try and give a full character description, but it should be a fun one ::D . It was definitely a good first game. You're getting there with Critical Role then? I'm on episode 103 now so really nearly there now! It's a huge time sink but so worth it.