Jarric

Hope you have a great weekend and feel better. Wish I could make it! Next year!

I sure there's a joke here, but it's not cumming to me... Weight is a lie, inches don't matter, how much stronger have you got? How much better is you hockey game? How good do you feel in your own body? (I know it's not that simple, but it should be!)

Well done on this week, and sorry the beer is punishing you! I'm glad your husband is looking at getting help and hope it works out for him. I know it can be weird when you support a loved one but ultimately they need to see a professional despite your support. It's an odd thing but sometimes a complete stranger can provide something that the closest family just can't. Also wanted to thank you again for the Lasso of Truth on my thread, I really needed that

#justrangerthings #rangerbrain #allthethings So, Amsterdam is a pretty cheap flight from here, I could probably make that. I'll have to talk to Mrs, but if this is a thing I'm definitely interested.

Just looked it up, apparently there's two! Going on my Christmas list .

Sorry, just catching up, so lots of things! When I had long hair I had exactly the same feeling. I'm fairly sure I cried at the hairdresser more than once. As you say, with shorter hair you'll probably want to go back in a couple of weeks! Oh thank goodness, that's good news Outside is good! Also, if it's that important and that easy then make it a priority! It can be something straightforward to scratch off the to-do list. Well done you! Aww. Awwwwwwwwww. Seriously, just, awwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!

...sounds messy. Seriously though, thank you very much, I hope it works!

Went out to see a band with my Dad tonight; slightly Brahms* now. But I've just realised something, the nicotine stains have gone from my fingers. I didn't notice at all, and I meant to take a picture when I quit, but its weird to see my fingers not a horrid shade of sticky brown! *I've learnt some new cockney rhyming slang today: Brahms and Liszt = Pissed

Excellent choices! Halestorm covered Out To Get Me? I must find this! Happy to help Also, I was out seeing a band tonight and came up with some more: Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song Motorhead - Ace of Spades (or anything by Motorhead, they're basically all the same song ) Dio - Holy Diver (or, to be fair, the Killswitch Engage version) Drowning Pool - Bodies If you've heard the above a million times (as I have) try this excellent parody. It's by a band called Psychostick, from their album "Space Vampires VS Zombie Dinosaurs in 3d"

It's really good; I've never played D&D but I can see how it would be particularly good with famous actors and comedians! And I will! Don't usually end up with many pictures so I might just take one myself too Thank you! Here's to both of us smashing week 3! ----- Side note, I've spent half an hour trying to post this reply because my phone's playing silly buggers. Resorted to my work phone in the end!

Nice job using your rage to crush your workouts, that's awesome! Bloody dog people, honestly! Off the top of my head: • Slipknot - Before I Forget • Rage Against The Machine - Killing in the Name Of • Machine Head - Bulldozer • Metallica - Battery

Cheers, thanks for the support guys. Starting to feel better now, planning to get back on track for week 3 at least. ----- So I never got round to wrapping up week 1. Here we go: Week 1 Final Stats Move: 5/7 Track: 6/6 Brush: 4.5/6 Sleep: -68pts (didn't track the weekend) Budget: Finished in budget by £1.25 Freedom: 15 days smoke free Ranger Mini: 2.55/2.50km swam Daily Dare: MTWTFSS I gave myself a free pass on tracking calories on Sunday as I couldn't wear my Fitbit round the course so the data would have been meaningless anyway. I aso gave myself a free pass on teeth brushing (I might have done it, but I didn't make a note either way!). Reasonably happy otherwise, doesn't look excellent on paper but I was ready for the OCR when it came around so who cares about the rest? ----- And now an update for this week. Thurs W1D4 Move: 1/7 Track: Given up for this week Brush: 1.5/7 Sleep: Nonsence. Complete, utter, total nonsence. Budget: £21.58 remaining Freedom: 18 days smoke free Ranger Mini: haven't even worked out what to do yet Daily Dare: MTWTFSS Monday I laid in bed most of the day, and binged watched all of Harmon Quest (I can't remember who on here recommended that show, but thank you, it's awesome!). Evening was snooker, I was very tired and very ill and lost badly. Tuesday I had to go back to work, still not feeling well at all. At the end of the day I found out that my job role may be changing and I may have to commute a lot further to work soon, which is a cause of much stress at the moment and has put me into a downward spiral all week. The worst thing is that I won't even get any real details for another month, so I'm generally sort of worried but there's not a lot I can do to actually plan for it. I didn't sleep much at all that night, through a combination of stress and a hacking cough. Wednesday Worked, went to snooker in the evening. Somehow won my match, despite getting hideously drunk (I cope with stress in a totally mature, non-self-destructive way clearly). Thursday Had badminton after work, for my first bit of exercise this week (!). Felt like I'd been hit round the head though as my sinuses were blocked. Lasted about 40 minutes, then sacked it off to go to the pub and talk through job stuff with my work mate. Challenge wise I haven't slept well through stress/illness/drink, which means I haven't been getting up in the mornings to exercise, which means a very sedentary week. I also haven't felt up to the daily dares or worked out what to do for the Ranger mini, so really no activity. I'm not prepping food so I'm spending silly money on lunch at work every day, meaning the budget will probably be insufficient. Haven't bothered to brush, haven't bothered to track calories. Basically the not smoking is going well because it involves me not doing something rather than doing something (don't get me wrong, I'm still extremely happy I'm not smoking), and that's about it. And now I'm going to stop feeling sorry for myself. Tonight I'm going to try and get some of the mud out of my running shoes, and tomorrow I'm going to go to Parkrun and show off my Warrior Run t-shirt. Climbing will hopefully happy on Sunday, and then I can launch into week 3 and get on with my new workout plan! TL;DR - Week 1 was ok, week 2 was shite, week 3 will be better

Sounds like a really solid plan, and good fun too!

That sounds really interesting, and I like the idea of breaking yourself down into a party of heroes to level up, rather than a set of stats for one hero. It would be cool to watch your heroes grow over the challenges. A boring word of caution - that idea is going to be a lot of work. So if you think you're going to enjoy it or you think it will help focus you on your goals then go for it, but don't do it for our benefit. We will be here following your challenge and supporting you whether or not you decide to run a fictional narrative with it.

Sounds like you had an awesome day . And I love the finished cat pic!

Really sorry to hear about your friend. That's awesome, let the ass kicking commence!

Aww, thank you . I've never seen it either.

Sorry it's taken me so long to catch up with you! Glad you had a good OCR, and really liked your video (and thank you for the mention, that made me smile this morning ). Also, climbing totally counts as strength training! Loads of back work, triceps, forearms, you can count that...

Well done on week 1! Sounds like a really busy weekend!

Thank you man! Thank you, I needed that lasso of truth! DO IT! Thank you, it was really great! Cheers man! ----- Sorry I've been a bit rubbish at updating the challenge and at keeping up with all your threads. I've got a horrible cold and I've had some major news which it spinning me out a bit (can't talk about it right now, but hopefully next week). Will try and catch up with you all really soon, but my updates may be sporadic at best for the next few days.

Certainly did man! It mostly tasted of mud unfortunately, but I was very grateful for it. Thank you! Cheers Wolfman, more to follow tomorrow hopefully

Race Report Warrior Run on Sunday was awesome. Got there pretty early; about 08:30 to run the 10:00 wave. There was myself, my friend Ems, her brother Cam and her mother Carol. Nice weather, a cold but clear morning, we registered and milled around trying to stay warm, attaching timing chips and race numbers, psyching ourselves up etc. etc.. A short warm up (which was pretty much just dancing to Livin' on a Prayer) and we lined up at the start. Well, they didn't mess about with starting us off. We were immediately running down a steep bank (about 10 foot down and just off vertical) into a muddy stream to get ourselves nice and wet and muddy from the off. A couple of little ditches to jump in and out of, and a couple of hay bails to vault and we were running round into the main obstacle village. It was probably this early that it became apparent I was going to have a major choice to make. Cam was already shooting off ahead of everyone, Carol was slowly pulling away, and Ems was dropping behind. So do I hang back with Ems and stick out the race with her, or try and push for a decent time? (I should mention here that Ems completed a marathon this year, she's a good runner just not very fast). I actually though back to @Charlie_Quinn's advice to remember to enjoy myself, and decided to hang back with Ems, not push myself too hard early on and make sure we both had a fun day. It was also about this point that we were lapped by the first starters from the first wave. They only started half an hour before us, so must have been going seriously fast on their first split to catch us here. In the main obstacle village we had a tyre carry and a few walls to jump. I managed to clear every wall for the whole day without a leg up, which I'm very happy about. For the early part of the race I was able to just jump and muscle up on them, and then swing over once my arms were locked. By the end I was kicking off the sides and using a heel hook to get over, which was great but utterly destroyed my left calf from repeatedly slamming it on the tops of walls. After a small time in the village we were out for the running section, which was probably the least interesting bit. It was broken up by a few walls and other things to climb over (nothing was labelled and I have no idea what any of it was called!). We also had to move some logs up a hill - I'm certain that we were just doing some farmer's work for him at that point! The course then went down into a river which took us through a tunnel under the dual carriageway, which was a little unpleasant for me and I think quite scary for Ems. This was followed by a water inlet pipe that we had to crawl up, which was just big enough to crawl through on hands and knees. Then the river got deep as it went through the woods. You can see from my picture above that the mud went up to nipple height on me as I waded through it (I'm 5'10"/1.75m - I'd hate to be shorter at that point!). It was hilarious, I felt like I was mad for doing it but I couldn't help laughing as I tried to keep my head above water. Out of the woods we wound our way back to the village, cheering at people who were on their way into the woods looking far too clean and climbing a few more small obstacles. On our second lap we also stopped on the bridge over the dual carriageway to wave at the traffic going underneath, a few of them waived back . Back into the main obstacle village on of the first things we were faced with were hang tough rings, except instead of rings these were tiny tyres! Official photos aren't up for this year yet, so here's one from last year to give you an idea: These things were right bastards! Something about the way you have to grip them absolutely destroyed my fingers. On the first run I got to the end, but didn't actually grab the final one (most of the obstacles didn't have a clear finish line as such which was a bit odd), second lap I gave up before half way as my fingers were shot by then. At this point I can't remember what order any of the obstacles came in as the whole village just blurs together. It was actually quite a cool way to do things because it meant that the spectators could see a lot of the events all at once (and take photos, which I might have managed to upload by the end of tomorrow!). Here are some of the things we had anyway: Monkey Bars - on an incline for about 6 bars and then back down to the original height. First attempt I tried to skip bars and didn't get past the first one, so I tried again bringing my hands together on each bar and worked my way through. This was the only obstacle that had a punishment for failure - 10 press-ups. As I tried to get across and watched people doing the 10 press-ups I mused that the press-ups would have been much easier! Second time I flew through it a lot faster, and on the decline actually did manage to skip the bars. I may have let our a roar when I finished it second time! Tyre Wall (pictured below, once again not from this year) - this was the only obstacle I felt that I really might hurt myself falling off of, and was actually quite scared at the top. It didn't occur to me until after the second time I completed it that I didn't have to just step in the tyres, I could stand between them too which would have made every step much shorted and the whole process vastly easier! Slip and slide (pictured in my last post) which was hilarious fun A tyre flip with big tractor tyres, and a smaller tyre drag on a rope up a hill, and then run the tyre back down Some really narrow pipes. You couldn't get your hands down in them at all to get any grip, which in the shorter ones was fine as you could grab the far end and pull yourself all the way through. In the longer ones there were ropes - which would have been great if I'd realised that before I got halfway up the first time! A great overhang wall thing, which I managed both times. Something like this, but about 2ft higher so that you had to stand on a band on the wall before you could reach the top: Loads of other walls, climbing frames, pipes, things to swing across, just all sorts of stuff. The lap finished with a couple of walls leaning towards you (those definitely needed a leg hooked over), then down to the split where you could take another lap or head for the finish. On the first lap we briefly joked about stopping and heading on to the pub, but of course we carried on for lap 2! At the end that split turned out not to be quite the end however. Back into a bit of muddy river/swamp, up through another pipe which was half full of mud and really felt like a cruel joke by how tired I was at this point. Then a couple of other bits, including scrambling through a skip full of freezing cold water (in case we dared to warm up at any point). Finally the last two obstacles. The first was the tallest wall of the run, standing at about 8ft high I had to jump to reach the top, then scramble my legs up until I could get one over (there was also an option to stand on a baton to start, which I ignored in favour of the harder finish). It took me two or three attempts, but I got there. Finally the warped wall, which was a beast. I will try and upload a picture of at some point. Anyway, I took a few minutes to steel myself and then, determined to get up without any help, I sprinted towards the wall and up the curve, leapt for the top, curled my fingers over the edge and... slipped. I slid all the way back down the wall, contributing in a major way to the scrapes on my arms and legs. By this point I was really on my last legs, and with wet hands I knew I wasn't going to manage it. I opted to go up the side of the wall which had a couple of feet of rope hanging from the top of it instead, pulled my way up and staggered down the other side to the finish. I waited and watched Ems get dragged over the warped wall too, and a mate handed over a well deserved beer to me. She finished, we got our picture taken, and I went to get some dry clothes on before I got hypothermia. I'm really glad I hung back with Ems, completed the whole course with her and completed pretty much every single obstacle. I got my time and place today and was a bit disappointed (117th place out of 129 for that distance (14km) at 03:34:38) but overall a fantastic day was had!

Hey man, thanks for giving us a rap up on the story. Take care of yourself and heal up quickly, and hope to see you on here soon even if it's just for a chat.

Thanks dude! Thank you! Well that's terrifying. I heard of Weil's disease but, eurgh! Anyway, I think I am infected with the OCR bug (and hopefully not the other thing)! Not too bad thanks, a few cuts and bruises but well worth it! Glad your friend's ok man, that's some nasty stuff! Don't worry, I don't scare that easily! Aww, stop it, you're making me blush... Glad you like the accent anyway Thank you guys. Sorry, I'm going to start on a race report now but it'll probably take me a while. In the meantime, a couple of photos from the race... Me and Ems going down the water slide together: Post race beer:

Warrior run done! Absolutely knackered so will give a proper update later, but just wanted to say that it was bloody amazing! Such a good time, definitely going to do it again! Welcome to the mad house man, good to have you!