Jarric

2017 Road Map So I've spent the last few days trying to think about what I really want to get out of 2017, and where I want to be this time next year. There's loads of stuff that I'd love to try on day, but I've paired it down to my three top priorities for 2017. 1 - Work/Life Balance My job moved towards the end of 2016, and I'm not facing a ~2 hour commute each way. I've been giving it my best but it's not something I feel I can deal with long term, so I need to find a solution to this. That might be by pushing for different hours or working from home a couple of days a week, or it may have to mean getting a new job. I just need to keep looking at my options so that I can find a way of getting more of my life back. 2 - OCRs I really want to get out running a lot of OCRs this year; I did my first race in October 2016 and instantly new I wanted to keep this up. My ideal would be to do 5/6 over the course of the year. This also means lots of training. My current plan is to focus on Starting Strength for the first challenge of 2017 and get as strong as I can. After that I'm going to have to introduce some more running training again for the "race" bit of OCRs! As the year goes on I'll adapt my training based on whatever I think will give me the best training for upcoming races. This could include all sorts of things aside from lifting and running; obstacle specific training, parkour, bouldering, yoga, gymnastics. Basically I just want to see where this journey takes me. 3 - Savings Currently I'm in a bit of credit card debt (though a lot less than I was in last year). With what I earn there's no reason for me not to clear this and to start saving some cash up. I'm not going to set a target figure at this stage, but I don't want to be living in rented houses forever so I need to get saving if I ever want to get a place of my own. I'm looking at needing something like £30k for a deposit, and that's not going to happen over night, so no reason not to start now. How this works Every challenge when I set my goals I should be mindful of these three overarching goals for 2017. I'll be adding copies of my challenge results here and how they link into my overall goals. I expect goal 2 will probably get a lot more love on here than the others, being fitness related, but I may well have the odd challenge goal that link to 1 and 3. I'll be looking at them constantly in the background whether or not they make challenge goals though.

Index Index 2017 Road Map Goals

Mr Positivity - 17/28 - This went pretty well up until Christmas week, and then I was having such a good time I didn't feel a need to do it. Which isn't really the point, but I won't beat myself up too much about it. I feel it's a good thing to keep doing though, so this will be coming back next challenge in some form. 0XP awarded. Mr Strong - 8/12 - Missed one session early on in the challenge, and then all 3 on Christmas week. This is mostly down to poor planning on my part, and I'm not happy about it. Need to be more mindful of this and plan my workouts better for the future. 0XP awarded. Mr Sleepy - 14/28 - It might have actually been higher than this, but I failed to track it Christmas week, so another fail here. 0XP awarded. Mr Writer - 28/28 - Perfect! Mostly by virtue of the fact that I allowed points for writing about the days, not on the days, but I'll take it. I did not however report failures of to-dos on here, or complete all of my monthly to-dos. Hopefully this will get more useful as I get more used to checking it and abiding by it. For now 5XP awarded. Final Thoughts - 5XP for an entire challenge must surely be my worst one yet! Nonetheless, I don't feel like I've actually gone backwards this month, which over Christmas feels like an achievement in itself. Now I'm off to put together a 2017 roadmap, and then finally get round to setting up my new challenge!

So I totally dropped off the boards for the end of this challenge. Nothing bad, just got distracted with Christmas and whatnot and I'm only just now making time to wrap this bad boy up. Here's what I did over the end of the challenge: Christmas Day was much fun, and included much food and much beer. Got some lovely presents and generally had a nice, chilled time. Boxing day I went out for a run in the morning, then more eating/drinking/chilling. Tue W4D2 - More chilling, and went out to see Passengers. Really good film, but quite dark and chilling in places. Wed W4D3 - Drove home and went out in the evening for a friend's birthday meal. Thu W4D4 - Went and played snooker in the day, then Rogue One in the evening! Great film, really enjoyed it, though I seemed to be less effected by the end than the people around me. Fri W4D5 - Went Bouldering, then did loads of domestic rangering to try and recover the house from Christmas. New year's eve - Parkrun in the morning. Meant to go to the gym later (having missed my sessions all damn week!), but I failed to plan and didn't realise everywhere was shutting at about 1pm! Stayed in for the evening and brought in the new year with a bottle of wine, loads of takeaway pizza, plenty of beer and series 1 of A Touch of Frost. New year's day - had Christmas dinner with my family (we had spent actual Christmas with Mrs family this year). Other than that a lazy day. I'll tot up all my points in a separate post - I think I've probably failed all of my goals but I'll double check anyway.

Twisty crunches (oo, that sounds like a snack ) done with EC. According to Mrs I apparently look like I was writhing in pain.

I am planning to do one, just actually need to type it up today. And type up my 2017 road map. And wrap up my last challenge actually! Your breakfasts and brunch sound amazing! Very envious right now.

Weird things done with EC. @Katrin Josephina Morag I did it the same way as you as that's what the picture showed, though I'm not 100% convinced it's right! Was fine for me until I tried to stand up at the end and my calves failed me!

I definitely thought I was following you already! Here now anyway! Hope you have fun at your party tonight mate.

Very shaky O-hold done with EC.

Following! How's week zero going so far?

I like a lot of Metallica (though I'll concede that there a lot of filler in their too), but of all the versions of Whiskey in the Jar I would probably put their version at the bottom. The Thin Lizzy version on the other hand I really like.

Dude this challenge looks amazing, I am so up for following Wolf Wilson! (and of course Wade Willes-son). Also you reminded me, I got the Jeff Lemire - Green Arrow compilation for Christmas. It's great so far so thanks for the recommendation man!

That's actually seriously cool! Not fair, first albums are supposed to be embarrassing! aaaaand you ruined it

Ah, well I'm glad I could help then! And thank you for reminding me what a good idea it was! I will get a new challenge up. Gonna take some time over the weekend to round off the last challenge, write up a road map for 2017, and post a new challenge. Or at least that's the plan! That's a really nice way of doing things, I like that. If you're seeing results and feeling healthy I think you're best sticking to the way you're doing things, rather than over complicating it and getting into the nitty gritty of macros.

So sorry I'm late, pint of the black stuff as always barkeep. Please return to cute cat pictures now, thank you.

Wow, you really are a quick reader. I don't know if I've ever finished one book in a day!

Just wanted to second this. The volunteers who run it tend to be the kind of people you can imagine on a village day committee, it's all rather twee and quaint. But it's good fun and a really supportive environment to run with other people.

That's seriously impressive - I think if I only stopped to sleep and read continuously the rest of the time I still wouldn't get through them in a month! Did you have time to enjoy them still?

May 28th Might be tricky for me. The Ireland dates look good - it's a bit in the middle of nowhere to do anything other than the race by the look at things, but then we'd be in the beautiful Irish countryside so that's not too bad.

Happy Nerdiversary!

Seriously? Fair enough, what a weird thing to have in common! I was definitely not too cool to like them at the time; the second album I ever bought was their debut (my first was Aquarium by Aqua, which may be even more embarrassing!).

There's so much wrong with this choice, but nostalgia's a funny thing:

Side thrusts done with EC. Really wore me out though.

I came to your challenge hungry again, when will I learn?? Congrats on ROTM man, I can't think of anyone more deserving.

There's a lot of dot grid journals on Amazon if you're stuck for one. Mine is a Rhodia one (which I bought because it was cheap) and it works well for me, actually feels pretty solid. Now go work out! You'll be warm once you're a couple of minutes in so the weather doesn't matter. Go!