Jarric

Tuesday W4D2 continued Badminton last night was quite good fun. I mean, I was rubbish and couldn't keep up at all, and managed to fall on my arse from standing still for no apparent reason, but weirdly I enjoyed it more than usual. Makes no sense but never mind . Food choices were less than stellar yesterday; macaroni cheese for dinner, washed down with a lager, followed by jelly and ice cream. Did get some fruit shopping done, and boiled some eggs for breakfasts for the rest of the week, so looking positive going forward. Also got some Duolingo done, though I left it too late to do much in the way of catching up. 55XP completed anyway. Smoked 8/8, teeth done, up to bed at 11. W4 stats Poison Resistance: 2/7 Grinding: Gym 0/2, Badminton 1 Swim 1/3 Learn a New Skill: Duolingo: 55/350XP, Articles Read: 0/1 Full Health: Teeth 4/14, Sonic & Floss 2/7 Bedtime 2/7 Save Your Progress: Here I am Wednesday W4D3 Got up nice and early today, but had a bit of a dodgy stomach which regrettably slowed me down. Maybe it's the choice of dinner last night that's let me down, though I wouldn't usually expect an effect from any one-off meal like that generally. Anyway, short swim and I felt rubbish, so I decided to do sprints and have plenty of rest between. 200m breast warm-up and then 50m freestyle sprints in times (in seconds) of: 50, 54, 53, 52, 52, 51. Total swim time excluding rests was 09:32, which is rubbish really, but it got me moving anyway. Tonight dinner at a mates (no idea what) then off to snooker. Summer singles tournament starts tonight so wish me luck .

Thank you very much Evicious, queen of motivational pictures! Tried these out last night, they really helped, thank you! Palms facing up one was tough though.

Sounds like a great weekend. Good job on the climbing!

Sounds like you had an awesome weekend! Also, great drunk cooking

That was reasonably awful. Done with EC. Congrats @mom2sjm on the Gold!

I may have to bid a fond farewell to my skin if I tried that!

Glad to hear you can get out and walking, that's great news!

So addictive! I kept thinking "I'll sit down for five minutes, give my arms a rest", and three seconds later I'd be up another wall! How on earth do you stretch your forearms?

I sometimes shoulder press my cat. He doesn't seem to mind...

Monday W4D1 continued I was tired, I hurt, and I was a bit worried about injuring myself. Not sure if I made the right decision taking a rest or if I should have pushed on through it, but a decision was made anyway. I could have used the time I did have at home more productively, instead I came on here for a bit and then just vegged in front of the TV mostly. Did wash some clothes, bring some stuff in off the line, and do my daily dare. Did not do any Duolingo; I really need to get back into the swing of that and push through for a good final week. Cooked a (slightly improvised) beef chilli for Mrs and myself when she got home, then I went off to play snooker with a mate. Beat him 3-0 in the first match, but he took me 2-1 in the second. No a work day so just counted smokes - 14 had. I think if I had said I would limit to 8 on "weekdays", rather than "workdays", I would have been fine with the limit. Because I could have more though I did, so that's a lesson for next challenge. By the time I got home I was absolutely shattered, so obviously I decided to have a leftover beer from the weekend and stay up for my full allowed hour. Up to bed, foolishly, at 00:30. W4 stats Poison Resistance: 1/7 Grinding: Gym 0/2, Badminton 0 Swim 0/3 Learn a New Skill: Duolingo: 0/350XP, Articles Read: 0/1 Full Health: Teeth 2/14, Sonic & Floss 1/7 Bedtime 1/7 Save Your Progress: Here I am Tuesday W4D2 Well, the DOMS are strong with this one! Forearms were killing me this morning, though I think Mrs was worse as she could barely get out of bed. Hasn't put me off bouldering in the slightest though . Got up for a swim, not fast but good to get going for the day. It was: Breaststroke: 400m warm-up Front Crawl: Ladder with 20s rests - 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 200, 150 ran out of time Total: 1,500m Have badminton tonight, which will be ok as long as I can keep a grip on the racquet. Then hopefully a chilled evening .

Way to go on the long walk, 12 miles is a decent hike, especially on the terrain you were on! Hope the weather improves for your run today, it's bloody awful down south at the moment!

Oh, that sucks. In that case get some music on in there and have a private dance party while stuck in traffic

Glad it's all back in one piece then . The drive will be good to check it's all running properly anyway, even if the weather's grim!

Good job on doing to workout anyway though! How is the car?

Well done on weeks two and three (even if they didn't technically fit the challenge wording)! One of my first diet goals, long before I joined NF, was simply "no drinking alcohol that I don't want". I realised that drinking at home, alone, to unwind after work was not something I actually enjoyed, I'd just got stuck in a silly habit.

Plank jumps done, no EC. Far too tired from the weekend to contemplate doing them all in 1 set!

Awesome job with your PRs, those are some big numbers Tank!

It's an interesting idea, and a variety of exercises might be beneficial if you are interested in functional strength. The trouble with randomising intensity though would be that you could end up running high intensity workouts together and risk injury, or conversely running all low intensity workouts together and losing progress. You could on the other hand randomise your week, if you have the flexibility to do it. Say you want two intense lifting sessions, one intense cardio and two light cardio each week or whatever, then roll a dice for what day you do what, and draw a random exercise from a list of the exercise type you wanted to do. Ultimately I think you'd be making a lot of work for yourself, but if you enjoy the variety and the planning then it could be good to try. Can't really see how randomising food would work though. You could have a set number of variance meals or days and take them at random times, but ultimately when a social event comes up that you'd want to use a variance on you'd miss out on that, and then you'd just be eating badly for the sake of it when those meals do come up.

Hadn't thought of that. It's a good point though, it would be good to get to the stage where healthy food choices are an automatic reaction, rather than needing to be a conscious decision.

Congrats on a great week 3

Sunday W3D7 So yesterday was awesome. Like, seriously, bouldering is amazing. I climbed loads of blue and white and black and purple routes, and fell off lots and lots of grey routes! My hands hurt, my forearms hurt, my back hurts, my neck hurts (not sure if that one's entirely climbing related), and I've skinned my right shin falling off a wall. And I really really really want to go again! A few other people we went with want to do it again as well, so we're looking at doing this every other week now. Can't wait! Mrs even wants to do it again, so hopefully it's a good step in getting her into some fitness. After climbing went for a barbeque at a mate's house (the whole day was his birthday thing). Much beer was had and much much meat (also cheese, bread, potato salad, bulgur wheat, pasta). Had a really lovely evening with some close friends and some new friends, just an awesome day all round. Smoked 16 (drinking outside again...), home at 23:25, up to bed around 00:15. W3 stats Poison Resistance: 7/7 Grinding: Gym 2/2, Badminton 1 Swim 3/3 Learn a New Skill: Duolingo: 35/350XP, Articles Read: 0/1 Full Health: Teeth 14/14, Sonic & Floss 7/7 Bedtime 7/7 Save Your Progress: Here I am Monday W4D1 Can't believe it's finally week 4! Weighed and measured myself today - 10st9, body fat 11.8%! Deliberately measuring myself at the leanest point of the day, but still if that's in any way accurate it's a very good number! I've got a bit of a dilemma now though. Here's how week 4's shaping up so far: Monday - ??? day, snooker evening Tuesday - swim, work, badminton Wednesday - swim, work, snooker Thursday - dentist, work, badminton Friday - swim, work, jam session with old friend Saturday - gym, run karaoke in the evening Sunday - ???, work bar in evening Now in theory I should go to the gym today, otherwise I'm either short a session or I have to do consecutive days Saturday and Sunday. And it's a bank holiday here, so I don't have to go to work, so it makes sense to spend the time in the gym. But I also feel like having a rest day after bouldering; I'm particularly worried about my grip strength and damaging my hands/forearms. So I don't know what to do really; will try not to spend the whole day procrastinating on that decision!

Absolutely! And it's only because I'm getting fitter that I could jump/dance around like an idiot for an hour without needing a break . I think that's what fitness is about for me, being able to do what I want to do without my body getting in the way.

Glad you had such an awesome weekend! Deem's looking cool; can't wait to see the finished project!

Double fail for this week, sorry team Iron Man! Mega busy (but awesome) weekend so couldn't do it then, and failed to make time in the week for walking/hiking as well. Bonus goal I actually just failed by forgetting to do it. The three days I did do were ok, so may re-visit this some time in the future. For my stamina goal, one swim of 2k+ this week. Just need to wake up early enough, or might do it on my day off today...

Missed kicks yesterday; was out most of the day and forgot about it. Raised legs done, no EC. Longest set was 1:00, and that was tough enough! Neck and back seemed to cop for it the worst for some reason.