Jarric

Damn right you are!

I hadn't even noticed these had gone (they never showed up on mobile in the first place). That's a shame; I enjoyed being Director of Ranger Hospitality. Well done mate, great work!

Awesome job on the challenge, you smashed through those 7,500 points by a long way!

Thank you. And yeah, fault doesn't really matter, as long as we get something workable sorted that's the main thing.

Thrift.plus - is an online shop that takes and sorts donations, and then donates profits to a range of different charities. It's really good mainly because there's a massive volume of stuff, so I can actually find stuff that fits and that I like. Thank you. It's slightly my fault, in so far as I pushed for a load of new responsibilities to advance my career. Somehow though I've ended up doing 2 jobs worth of work as a result, so I need to sort out a plan to stop doing one of them.

Oo, shiny new rower, I like it. 500m is a bit far though; my personal preference is 100m sprints

Wednesday - week 5 day 3 Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit was very chilled out, first a few sets of bench press (think I did 60kg x 3 x 5) and a few sets of legless rope climbs. I'm good at climbing ropes, and quite experienced at being legless, so that was fun. There's definitely a technique to swinging your legs to get momentum going, and I want to work it out. Then we did a couple of sets of bottom up kettlebell press (12kg/27#) and bent over rows (30kg/66#). Work was silly busy again. At the end of the day (well, about an hour and a half after I was due to finish) I sent a short but anxiety-inducing e-mail to my manager about my workload. I've got a meeting with her on Friday, so we'll see what discussions come out of that. When I got home I suddenly realised how absolutely shattered I was. I forced myself not to sit down, and got on with running some washing and doing the washing up whilst WW cooked dinner (she made curried carrot and parsnip soup, it was gorgeous). I had a few beers over the course of the evening, but nothing excessive. I also managed to force myself to get up and hang the washing up, which then lead to me trying on a load of clothes from an online charity shop. I want to try and buy all of my clothes this way from now on; it was so cheap, and everything was really nice, and I didn't have to leave the house. After WW went to bed I stayed up for a bit and watched the first episode of They Were Ten. It's a modern, French take on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. So far it seems pretty good, and I watched it in French with English subtitles so I can sort of count it for language learning? Sort of? 3/5 goals for the day. I did a token French lesson before dinner, and a token Dutch lesson before bed. Calories were actually quite low; I discovered that the soup had less than I was expecting. The beer bumped it up, but was well within beer allowance. I did not have the energy or the patience to work on the essay after work, and I totally forgot about stretching. Teeth were done.

Thanks man! It's looking more like strong than perfect after yesterday, unfortunately. Strong is still good though.

Monday - week 5 day 1 Monday was a good day. Crossfit was squats, and I kept it steady at 80kg (176#) x 3 x 5 interspersed with some more foam rolling my hips. Then we had some GHD situps and handstand holds, plus some pissing about trying to do freestanding headstands to handstands, which was fun. Work was silly busy, and I stayed late. When I got home WW cooked the leftover roast chicken with pasta and cheese sauce, plus some broccoli and peas for colour. I was knackered and didn't feel like doing any essay writing, but as I'd said I would I sat down at the laptop at 9pm and finished off a brief section. Then I did some bonus foam rolling and Dutch practice, and brushed my teeth before bed. 5/5 goals done by sheer bloody-mindedness. Tuesday - week 5 day 2 Yesterday was a good day. I meant to get up and do an early run so I would have time for a Literal Immortality session afterwards. Instead I procrastinated through my morning and just did the run. C25k programme is still a total of 9 minutes running at the moment, but the longest single run has increased to 3 minutes. Did a chunk of stretching when I got back. Work was busy, and pretty disjointed. I had to give a presentation over Zoom to a group of about 50 people in the morning, so I spent a lot of time preparing for that and trying to get it to run to time. It was odd because everyone had their cameras and mics off, so it was more like presenting a TV show - not something I've experienced before. I did also manage to claw out half an hour of study time at work, and didn't work too late. In the evening I cooked gnocchi with cheese, tomatoes, courgette, and onion. I liked it, but WW hated it, so I won't be doing that again. The day finished up with Pathfinder; we're currently exploring an abandoned temple dedicated to Aphrodite Areia, which is fascinating in the few minutes of gameplay we get before we all get sidetracked . The GM had prepared a few diary entries from one of the former temple guards, which were really cool to read out and give us a bit more of the world. 5/5 goals again, gonna finish this challenge strong.

It sounds bloody incredible too. I would boycott it, except for the fact that I had no intention of watching it in the first place. You two are so cute ❤️ . Hope you feel better soon.

Thank you mate I'll keep updating! Hope that smooth writing does rub off on me, thanks! fair enough. I liked that adventure; it's suitably weird and doesn't take itself too seriously.

Week 4 round-up The Chosen - 5/7 days I ate to plan this week. Ironically the result is very close to being on target - I hit 16,657 kcal for the week against a target of 16,486 (an average of 2,380 per day, target 2,355 per day). The secret here is when I did fail the eating plan I still didn't go too mad with calories (sometimes more by luck than judgement). As a result I lost another 2lbs, and am now exactly 12 stone (168lbs, about 76kg). That's the lightest I've recorded since a freak low reading in January, and if I lose weight this week it'll be my first time below 12 stone since May 2021. Then after this week I'll start bulking again and try to add some muscle! I'm sticking to the same calorie target this week, as it seems to be working. Goal this week is to lose 1.26 lbs, which should be doable on my current trajectory. After this week I need to work out my bulking calories; I'm think of starting at 19,200 per week and going up from there. The Wronged - 5/7 days stretching/rolling etc. Hips have been an issue this week, and I spent a lot of time sitting at my desk in the latter part of the week, so I need to stick with this. I also want to get back into Literal Immortality (maybe a goal for next challenge) The Expert - 1/7 days essay writing. Absolutely rubbish. I've already laid down the gauntlet, but I'll say it again, I'm going to work on that essay every day this week. The one silver lining is that I got my result from my previous essay back, which I passed with quite a high score. The Monstrous - 7/7 days teeth brushed. I'm still not sure why this is working, and I'm still not complaining about it. The Spell-slinger - 7/7 Dutch and French sessions. Some are just a token gesture, but if it's getting done every day that's all that matters. I also got added to a Whatsapp group about going to run a Strong Viking next year with some of Willy's IRL friends, so that's some extra motivation on the Dutch side (even if they all speak perfect English). By all means not a bad week, given the disruption of time off work, going to gigs, and mega busy workload. There has been one failing though; not enough gifs!

Thanks guys! I love the two very different motivation styles here . So far I'm 2 for 2 on essay writing this week, and that is 100% because I knew I'd promised you guys I'd do it.

I think @Mistr's idea is a good one; how short can you make a Shovelglove session? Are there barriers to you starting a session that you can remove so that you require less motivation to get started?

Checking people's challenges is hard. I feel like I've done quite well this round and I'm still hopelessly behind, and that's ok; you can only do what you can do.

Weekend 4 Saturday was a good day. I went climbing with Hopalong in the morning, and we spent the day trying out some 7A boulders. I had never completed a 7A and, after that session, I've still never completed a 7A. It was actually really good fun to try and get a few moves into a load of climbs that are beyond my current ability (and fail to get off the ground on others ) When I got home I dropped something at WW's work for her, went to our local zero waste store to pick some bits up, and got some milk on the way home. Showered, hung some mirrors on the recently painted walls, washed some clothes - all little bits that needed getting out of the way. I should have done some stretching, and I should have done some essay writing, and I couldn't bring myself to do either. Food was good - lunch was a 'use up some veg' omelette with fennel, broccoli, and sprint onion. Similarly, dinner was fried rice with leftover roast pork, broccoli, spring greens, spring onion, and frozen peas (and soy sauce, hoisin, and sesame oil). In the evening I decided that I wanted a beer, which I knew I didn't have the calories for, and I did it anyway so that's a fail for the day. Only 2/5 goals for the day - teeth and languages done. Yesterday was a good day. I slept in a bit, and then went out for my C25k run. I walked WW to work first, and ended up running a longer route as a result, but it was a beautiful sunny morning so I wasn't worried. Was about 8°C out too, which is pretty nice to run in really. We finally got to play a Sunday D&D game, which was wonderful, and we finished Lost Laboratory of Kwalish. I didn't managed to kill any (more) of the PCs, but I think everyone had a good time despite a slightly baffling ending . Now it's time for me to prepare Waterdeep: Dragon Heist so we can start that in a few weeks. In the afternoon we went shopping briefly, then came back to cook roast chicken and for me to read through some more of Dragon Heist. I failed, once again, to do any essay writing - I don't really have the brain space right now but unfortunately that doesn't change the deadline to submit it. This week, I am going to finish this essay, and I am going to work on it every day. Please hold me accountable to this. 4/5 goals - I just about got my calories down, stretched after my run, did French and some token Dutch, and brushed my teeth.

You should watch it! Takes a couple of seasons to find it's feet, but it's just a beautiful picture of how bloody weird British comedians are.

Ah that sucks about your job; I agree it's pretty worrying if you're not getting paid, or even if your wages are delayed. Got luck with the job interview though!

Friday - week 4 day 5 Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit was squats, and they felt good so I went the heaviest I've gone in months. I hit 90kg (198#) x 3, 80kg x 5, and 72.5kg x 7. Would love to get back over 200# soon (and after that back over 100kg). Equally everything felt a bit tired and achy for the rest of the session, so I don't want to push my luck. Work was busy again. Trying to stay positive, but sometimes it feels a bit endless. Stayed late, but only until half 6 this time. In the evening WW cooked a pork and egg hash, and we watched the wheelchair rugby league final. I'm still not a big rugby league fan, but it got seriously tense at the end. I also spent a load of time foam rolling my hips and lats. Particularly the hips, in fact, as they'd started to click during Crossfit and my coach had suggested it might be a tight sartorius (I think, looks about the right place when I google it). Foam rolling the top of that was absolute agony, so I'm guessing that he's not only right, but my knee pain may be linked to that. 4/5 goals for the day - essay writing is a challenge that I'm a bit tired for.

I know, she's absolutely lovely! Have you ssen her on Taskmaster this year? And thank you!

Ah you look like you're having so much fun!

Oo, that looks good You and me both!

Thursday - week 4 day 4 Yesterday was a good day. Went out for my run first thing, though I didn't get up early enough to do some Literal Immortality. Still, it was nice to do my 9 minutes of running while Sarah Millican cheered me on, and I did do some stretching afterwards. Work was busy as ever. I stayed until half 7 to try and get a report done, and I still feel like I have a million things to do. Trying to have some more serious conversations with my manager about workload at the moment. In the evening I had bugger all energy, so I bought an oven pizza on my way home and some cheesy garlic bread. Blew my calories, not by much, but a fail for the day. I sleepwalked my way through posting here whilst watching Taskmaster., did some token Dutch, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. 3/5 goals for the day, food failed, and essay writing on a work day doesn't feel on the cards right now. A bonus today though, I got confirmation that I passed my last essay, and passed that unit as a result! That just leaves 1 unit, which is 3 essays, the first of which needs to go in by the end of the month.

Thank you, it does look bigger! It's actually a really simple floorplan - it was a classic Victorian 2-up 2-down, and at some point someone added a room in the roof. So living room and kitchen downstairs are as normal, and at the top of the stairs you would have had two bedrooms; on in front of you and one to your right. Now the one in front is the main bedroom, to the right a chunk has been cut off the other room (which is now the bathroom) to make a hallway, and then there's a switchback to another set of stairs, directly above the original stairs, which go into the loft room Sorry to hear about your FIL, it sucks. And thank you! It really was a good gig

Wednesday - week 3 day 3 Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit first thing was deadlifts, amongst other things, and that's always a good start to the day. I was back to work after my few days off, which of course meant a day sifting through 100s of e-mails and working out what I need to do this week. Ended up staying late, after a 4pm meeting I wasn't expecting ran on. Food was ok, maybe a touch high on the calories as dinner had to be a Gousto meal that needed eating. On the plus side, it was a spiced beef and mango chutney pie with mustard seed veg, and was bloody lovely. I didn't make time for essay writing, and I was too tired from work to care. I did do some token Dutch practice (I'm quite excited by the new Duolingo layout), and token calf stretches before brushing my teeth and going to bed. 4/5 goals done.