Jarric

Thursday - week 5 day 4 Yesterday was a good day. After a lateish night watching Questing Time on Wednesday and waking up groggy and confused, I decided on an extra 25 minutes in bed. I still felt pretty out of it, but I dragged myself up and procrastinated a bit before going for a run. That felt rubbish to start with, but in the end I got into the groove and got my 5 miles done. I failed to hit my goal time for starting work, and when I did start work I realised the the USB adapter for my laptop was broken. After about 15 minutes of panicking I realised I didn't need the adapter, but that wasn't a great start to the day. Work was otherwise ok, but I was hot and tired and struggling by the end. Happily we had a very chilled out evening - I made a chicken and mango salad from a recipe box, we watched the Sewing Bee semi final, and then watched some CR before I got an early night and slept the sleep of the dead. Another almost perfect day, with the only goal missed the timekeeping one again.

Hey shaar!! Thank you ? . I really enjoy crossfit but it definitely tires me out too Summer is a tough time to be sitting at a computer browsing forums; I've been hopeless at keeping up with thia challenge cycle. Not that I'm not always hopeless at keeping up, but at least I can blame summer now!

Wednesday - week 5 day 3 Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit in the morning was leg day - 100ft yoke carry and then squats. I felt pretty terrible - hips hurt, knees hurt, calves hurt, so I took it fairly easy and did a bunch of foam rolling. Still hit 185kg (408lbs) on the 100ft yoke carry and 90kg (198lbs) for 3 on squats. Work was a bit less stressful, though still really busy. I failed again to get in on time for my 08:35 goal, though I at least was there in time for my 08:45 official start time. In the evening WW cooked burgers from a recipe box, we had a few beers from our beer tasing box, and we watched Questing Time. It was an absolutely hilarious episode, and I had a thoroughly lovely evening. I was already over on calories after dinner - for some reason our recipe box this week has one recipe that it almost 800kcal and one that's less than 300kcal - so by the time I had the beers I was 746kcal over for the day. That leaves me with 1,492kcal in the buffer for the rest of the week. All goals hit except timekeeping again. I'm getting a little bit frustrated with speaking Dutch. Usually I manage all of the pronunciation lessons on Duolingo just fine, but any number I have to say above 19 it won't recognise. I can't work out what I'm doing wrong, and Duolingo can't provide any guidance, so I'm just failing and speaking exercise with large numbers in it for some reason.

Tuesday - week 5 day 2 Tuesday was a good day. Crossfit was a 10-minute AMRAP of 10 dumbbell hang power clean and press (waaay too many adjectives there), and 5 chest to bar. Then we had sets of 8-12 reps on bench press and our choice of row variation (I went supinated barbell row). The first bit was hard, the second bit was fun. Also had a dentist appointment first thing, which went really well - I was in and out in 5 minutes. Apparently brushing your teeth regularly and properly actually works, who knew? As I couldn't be on time for work I made the chronologist goal to be at the dentist by 08:25, and then I went and failed anyway. I was barely on time for my 08:30 appointment though. Work was busy and stressful. In the evening I went and played Pathfinder, despite being an absolute zombie by that point. We had been tasked with retrieving water from a spring blessed by Aeries, which was guarded by a water dragon who was a son of Aeries, and we ended last session just as he decided that he would very much like to kill us. It was a very tense fight, with the wizard going down twice (and, with how death rules work in 2e, he would have been permanently dead if he'd gone down again). Unfortunately I spent most of the combat chasing the dragon around the map rather than getting into melee, but I did at least heal up the wizard each time he dropped. In the end we were victorious, with the barbarian's surprise leopard leaping from his overalls to deliver the killing blow. We collected the water, which we need to end the curse on another dragon who has been turned into some kind of sandstorm creature. That dragon is also a son of Aeries. Oh, and did I mention that to cure him we need to stab him through the heart with a weapon with a magic item made from that water attached to it? So it looks like next session will be dragon fight mk. II. Got home late, did my languages, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. His all of my goals other than timekeeping, and finished under budget on calories at 2,160 for the day.

Last night I saw something mentioning Sly Flourish's Lightning 5e. I've just looked it up and it might be another useful option for you if the kids want something closer to standard 5e rules, as it's a simplified 5e system: https://slyflourish_content.s3.amazonaws.com/lightning_5e.pdf

Compared to every other level, Diamond is surprisingly hard to get in and stay in. I've been stuck in Obsidian for a while. That One Shot in the Dark game sounds great actually - will be interested to hear how it goes.

Awesome job on the thesis Rho, that's a mega amount of work and I'm thoroughly impressed!

Monday - week 5 day 1 Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit was sandbag loads, and I worked up to 85kg (187#) loaded on to a 5' (152cm) box, and 100kg (220#) loaded on to a 3'4" (102cm) box. We also had an opportunity to have a go at atlas stones, but given that the smallest stone was 110kg, and I took 3 attempts to get the 100kg sandbag off the ground, I didn't bother even trying it. That was followed by some single leg deadlifts, single arm deadlifts, and calf raises. I'd woken up really not feeling like doing anything, and I did take it fairly easy during the latter part of the session, but I still had a good time. Got to work nice and early, and spent the day catching up after my week off. I also indulged in a triple chocolate cookie, as someone brought in a ton of treats for us. I left roughly on time though, as I'd agreed to go running with a colleague again, and we got a nice 10k (6.2 miles) over the hills in the sunshine with a relatively cool breeze. In the evening WW cooked chicken with mushrooms, onions, potatoes, and a cheese and mustard sauce, which was lovely. We ate that and chilled in front of Critical Role. Both languages were done, shakes were had, teeth were done - 100% goals for the day. I want to briefly talk about weight a bit more, while I puzzle this out myself. The numbers so far don't make for great reading: Date Target Actual Change Actual kg 26/06/2023 180 180 81.64663 03/07/2023 178.65 180 0 81.64663 10/07/2023 177.310125 180 0 81.64663 17/07/2023 175.9802991 182 2 82.55381 In order to get back on track I'd need to lose 5.5# (2.5kg) this week, which obviously won't happen, but I'm ok with chasing that. I'm surprised at the jump this week - I know that I've been fairly conservative with calorie cutting and that maybe I need to be a bit more decisive, but I can't see any reason for that particular fluctuation. Usually after a boozy weekend I found that my weight's dropped on a Monday, so I don't think it's what I ate. There's also a possibility that it's the creatine causing me to retain water, which in a way is good because it implies that the creatine is working (if my muscles were already saturated with creatine before I started taking it I wouldn't be storing the extra creatine, and therefore wouldn't be putting on water weight either). if it is the effect of the creatine, that should be coming to an end in the next week or so, so in 2 weeks time I should see the weight start to move down. Ironically my friend at work who I ran with said I looked like I'd slimmed down a bit, and I had to tell him that I'm the heaviest I've ever been. I'm not particularly concerned by that; I'm quite possibly the strongest I've ever been in my life too, just a bit perplexed that my weight isn't doing what I expected it to. Yesterday I ate 128kcal from my buffer, thanks to the triple chocolate cookie but mitigated by skipping my evening glass of milk. That leaves me with 2,238kcal in my buffer for the week. It might be that I have to reduce my regular meals soon, so that a single cookie doesn't put me into the buffer, but I'd rather not be compromising on real food in favour of snacks if I can avoid it.

not that. I don't think what we call squash in the UK is very common in North America, but it's similar to cordial. You have a fruit-flavoured concentrate, which you mix with water to make your drink. For example, I'm drinking apple and blackcurrant squash whilst writing this, and we finished off a bottle of lemon squash last night. It's really common over here - I've just gone onto a random online supermarket and they stock 93 different varieties of squash (I'm guessing that includes the same drink in different sized bottles, and the same flavour sold by different brands). We do also call certain types of gourd 'squash', but given the context it's rarely ambiguous.

Week 4 wrap-up The decisionist: 7/7 The muscle: 5/7 De vertaler: 7/7 Le traducteur: 6/7 The face: 4/7 The chronologist: 0/1 It's been a good week. On Wednesday we had a slightly more productive day and managed to tidy up the house a bit, then drove up to WW's parents' late evening to spend a couple of days there. Thursday was a chill day of sightseeing, and Friday morning was the same before we drove to our caravan park for Friday night. We discovered that the caravan came with access to Netflix, which we don't have, so we took the opportunity to watch Wednesday. We enjoyed it so much that we watched the whole bloody series, staying up until about 1.30am and having a few beers while we were at it. On Saturday I got up (a bit later than initially planned), and went for a run around the island we were staying on. After getting a bit lost and almost stuck in the mud at the start, I managed to get in a half marathon in a very leisurely 2'40" ish. I was surprised I wasn't feeling more run down and managed to get through it. In the evening we went to a wedding and had a wonderful time catching up with old friends, drinking, and having fun. I didn't quite manage to hit 5,000 calories, but between running gels, recovery food, and wedding beer I had a good go! Sunday we packed up and drove home, and had a fairly chilled evening with both of us feeling a little tired and emotional. It was a nice, chilled day again, though my nice clean house is still full of stuff I need to unpack. Calories ended up way over target this week despite my best efforts early in the week, and I've gained 2lbs (almost 1kg). The plan to turn this around is: • Target for the week is 18,928kcal (2,704 per day) • I'll use my 8 days a week method, i.e. each day I'll actually aim for 2,366kcal, and have a 2,366kcal buffer for the week for extras. Every day I need to write down how much of the buffer I've used and how much is left, so that I keep track of it. • Track more diligently, including drinks (a few couple of tea and a couple of glasses of squash don't count for much, but they do add up. I feel like the rest went fairly well, given that I was on holiday. Although I didn't get all of my shakes in, I did get creatine every day, and I sort of feel like it might be having an effect in the gym. Very hard to tell if that's true or just my perception unfortunately.

Absolutely love this series, so can very much support this recommendation. Think I'm up to date woth the main series; currently working my way through the novellas. The October Man, so far, is very good and a refreshing change of setting from the main series.

Monday and Tuesday - week 4, days 1 and 2 Monday was a good day. Crossfit was 5 rounds for time of 100m run, 3 front squats, 5 burpees over bar. Something fucky was going on with my forearm and I was getting pins and needles in my palm in a front rack position, so I ended up trying zercher squats for the first time instead of front squats. After the WOD we did back squats - everything felt pretty heavy but I managed 100kg (220#) x 3, 90kg x 5, and 80kg x 7. Work was mega busy as it's my only working day this week, and I was desperately trying to get stuff done before time off. I finished on time as I'd said I would go running with a colleague straight after work. We had a nice run through the hills, for a total of 6 miles, which was really fun. I made a chicken curry for dinner, with our leftover roast chicken from Sunday. And then I logged into work at 9pm to finish stuff off. It wasn't ideal, but I think having a few hours break was probably preferable to working straight through, and I would have done just as many hours either way. Somehow I got most of my goals, and calories were pretty low at 2,316. The only thing I didn't manage was to get into work by 08:35, which is ironic given that I knew how much work I had to do. Tuesday was a good day. Got up at normal time for crossfit, which was heavy farmers picks and farmers walks (I worked up to 164kg/361#), and then 1 minutes intervals of throwing deadballs over my shoulder and skiing. I did a tiny bit if DIY in the morning, and then we spent the rest of the day on the sofa watching CR and playing on my phone. I've got a bit of text neck this morning, so it probably wasn't a great idea, but it was relaxing at least. I also felt a bit guilty for doing nothing - even if I'd done some drawing or gone to play Skyrim or something I probably would have felt more productive sonehow. Still, I did hit 100% of my goals, so that's pretty cool. Calories were low again at 2,293 - building up a nice buffer for the wedding at the end of the week.

Just watching ep 54 right now... And thank you! I'd definitely be more effective at either running or climbing if I didn't do both back to back, but it's good training for obstacle course racing.

I find using a kettlebell a bit easier, laying your calf on the handle. The handle is a lot narrower than a foam roller, so you need to put in less downward force to achieve the same pressure. You can also use a dumbbell, though you probably want a fairly big one to have enough space for your leg and for your foot not to rest on the floor. I had a friend who did this and found it really worked for her. First she reduced the drop from her normal shoes down to zero drop (I think she went through a couple of intermediate drops first), and then she started lowering the cushioning once she was used to the drop.

Friday - Sunday - Week 3, days 5-7 It's been a good weekend. Also an odd weekend. In one respect it's been very active - I had a charity volleyball tournament Friday night, ran and climbed Saturday morning, and went for a long run Sunday morning. On the other had I've spent a hige amount of time glued to the sofa, staring at my phone, actively resisting getting anything done. And when I say anything, I mean like eating and drinking, putting closthes in the washing machine, sitting at my computer to play games or prep D&D. I don't know why everything suddenly seems like so much effort, but it's something to watch. Friday was a good day. The volleyball tournament was loads of fun, despite the fact that I'm apparently hopeless at the game, and that was followed by rather a lot of beer and good times with colleagues. WW came to spectate too, and so she got to meet more of the people I work with, which was nice. On Saturday I arrived at bouldering to find that MG was going for a run, so I went out with her and another acquaintance there. It was really cool to go running with some people, but they were fast, it was hot, and I'd got to bed at 1am the night before. So a hard run, but a good one, and followed by a fairly decent climbing session. The rest of the day was spent doing bugger all. I went out late for my run on Sunday. Not intentionally, just struggled to get myself organised and out of the house. The run itself was good though 13 miles (20.8km) in about 2:35 with a decent bit of elevation thrown in there. I would have been late for D&D, but we had to call it off anyway, so I spent the reast of the day on the sofa. We did watch s3e51 of Critical Role, and without spoilers I can at least say ? I didn't study any languages on Friday as I got back after midnight, and I didn't hit my goal working time on the 2 days since I set up that goal, so stats for the week are: The decisionist: 7/7 The muscle: 7/7 De vertaler: 6/7 Le traducteur: 6/7 The face: 7/7 The chronologist: 0/2 I ate 20,457kcal last week, against a target of 20,300 (2,922 per day against 2,900 per day), so almost spot on. I haven't lost any weight, which may be the creatine or may be because I'm eating too much - either way I'll drop this week's target to 19,600 (2,800 per day). I have a wedding at the weekend which will be pretty heavy, so must save calories for that earlier in the week. Here's the weight spreadsheet so far, which isn't very exciting: Date Target Actual Change Actual kg 26/06/2023 180 180 81,6466266 03/07/2023 178,65 180 0 81,6466266 10/07/2023 177,310125 180 0 I think the creatine may be starting to work. It's very hard to tell, but I feel like I'm not fatiguing as quickly at near maximal weights. Further study required.

I can't speak to some of the specific exercises mentioned, but a lot of physiotherapy exercises are prescribed as very low intensity and in the 20-30+ rep range, and they seem to work. I don't really understand the science behind that, but I wonder if part of it is the nature of trying to train the neuromuscular connection of activating the correct muscles, rather than actually build buscle size. Funnily enough, I read your first comment and thought, 'I have the same experience, only with glute activation'

Thursday - week 3 day 4 Yesterday was a good day. The decisionist - calories counted. I was starving in the afternoon and snacked a bit, and a bit more after dinner. It appears that I was starving due to small meals though, because I only ate 2,344kcal for the whole day. That brings my average after 4 days bang on target at 2,900 per day (near enough), so all I have to do is maintain that average for the week. The muscle - both shakes and creatine had. having got to bed at 1am after the event on Wednesday night it was hard waking up to my alarm at 05:50. I set another alarm for 25 minutes later and had a nap before getting up When I got up I got my run done - an extremely slow 5 miles (particularly the last mile, which took 11'45" rather than my normal 9'30"-10'30" pace) De vertaler - Dutch done before bed. I went in for an early night, which was much needed after the lack of sleep the night before. Le traducteur - French done first thing, before work. The face - teeth done. The chronologist - failed to get to my desk before 08:35, but I wasn't actually late for work at least. I need to figure out how to be less distracted in the mornings so that I get moving on time, and I'm not sure how to do that. It was a pretty slow day given how tired I was, and I ended up working late in absence of the ability to work quickly. In the evening WW agreed to cook, so I did the washing up, vegged on the sofa, and got the aforementioned early night.

It's gorgeous isn't it? So far so mediocre on that front . Still, can't hit the goal without having the goal, so at least I have something to work on.

I think the best way is to ask. Is everyone enjoying the game so far? Is there anything they would change? Is there anything they would like more of? Anything they would like less of? There's a few ways you could do it. You could start the session with a quick check in with everyone, or do a quick wrap up at the end of the session. Alternatively you could message everyone, either in a group chat or individually. If you're messaging everyone individually I would make it clear that you're sending everyone the same message, and that you're happy to keep feedback anonymous, so that no-one feels singled out. It can be scary to ask for feedback, particularly if you're putting a lot of work into something and you want people to like it, but the only way to know what people think is to ask them. And the only way to make the game fun for everyone is to know what everyone finds fun.

Wednesday - week 3 day 3 The decisionist - calories counted, as best as I could. I was at a big black tie event in the evening for work, so I had to make best guesses on the absolutely delicious food. We had little soufflés to start, and then roast beef with a load of lovely little trimmings for a main. I even grabbed myself a tiny chocolate mousse for desert. Also, quite a lot of red wine, all free poured by the waiters so no measurements. I made the day 4,126kcal, which makes me really glad for the low calorie days Monday and Tuesday. The muscle - both shakes and creatine had. I cycled to the gym yesterday morning, where we had to do a heavy 100ft (30m) farmers' walk in sub 60 seconds. I managed 184kg (405#) in 27 seconds. That might be the first time I've broken 400# on a farmers' walk? Very happy anyway, and stopping there was definitely the right choice because my form on the last pick was pretty dodgy. De vertaler - Dutch done before work Le traducteur - French done on the train back from town. No headphones, so it was just a couple of text lessons, but that still counts. The face - teeth done. The chronologist - goal starts Thursday, but the reason I decided to add it was that I was late on Wednesday.

Sometimes, when an adventuring party face a challenge that requires a special set of skills, they need to add to their number. For the rest of this challenge, I'm going to be pulling in... The chronologist [+1 SAN] Get to work (either physically in the office, or sat at my desk at home) by 08:35 on work days. This is an additional goal, which I'll be running for the rest of the challenge. I've been late for work a couple of times recently, and I really need to nip that in the bud before it becomes something that I become known for. I start work at 08:45, so the goal of being ready 10 minutes early allows me to get sorted, log in, and actually be working by that time. I started this today (Thursday) and, spoiler alert, I failed on day one ?

That's an amazing Ezren - very cool! DeviantArt?

Week 3, days 1 and 2 The decisionist - calories tracked both days. I had a choc ice I didn't need Monday evening, and a couple of mini brownie bites I didn't need Tuesday evening, but still finished the days at 2,564kcal and 2,579kcal respectively. That gives me a little bit of a buffer that I know I'm going to need later in the week. The muscle - shakes and creatine both days. Monday was a great workout - in one minute a 50ft seated sled pull and then max reps log press. I built up to 120kg (264#) on the sled, the log was 47kg (105#), and my best attempt was 5 reps. I'm not sure I would have scored any better with an extra minute - log press is hard . We followed that with bench press - I worked up to 70kg (154#) x 5, plus drop sets all the way down to just the bar. Tuesday morning I ran. I was pretty tired and it was pretty slow, but I got my 5 miles in. De vertaler - Dutch done both days. Duolingo continues to be buggy. Le traducteur - French done both days. Duolingo continues to be buggy. The face - teeth brushed both days.

Hope the cats get better soon ❤️

Oo, this all sounds very exciting. Gymnastics/parkour are on my list of things that I'd love to do if only I wasn't too busy exercising to do more exercise