Jarric

Tuesday to Thursday - Week B Days 2-4 Track calories: ? ? ? ? - - - Physical maintenance: ☠️ ? ? ? - - - Study: ? - - - Languages: ?? ? ? - - - Teeth: ☠️ ? ☠️ ? - - - I keep meaning to update and then getting side tracked, so I'll try to keep this short! Tuesday was a good day. I did a load of yoga and some extra foam rolling first thing for my maintenance goal. Didn't manage to get any study in at work, as I had emergency stuff to sort out. I was still feeling the full effects of my cold, and by the evening I was so knackered I was pretty much delerious. I went to Pathfinder, thiugh I couldn't tell you much of what happened - I'm just glad I didn't fall asleep at the wheel on the way home! Wednesday was a good day. Crossfit first thing and I kept it light again - squats up to 90kg (198#) x 3 and 100ft (33m) yoke carries up to 165kg (363#). I'm trying to keep my knee in good shape for next week's Spartan, on top of having a cold, so light is good. In the evening I got some beers in, and we watched Bake Off. WW has caught my cold so went to bed early. I then decided to stay up watching The Boys, and once again got sucked in and stayed up until 1am ?‍♂️. I'm a couple of episodes into season 2 now though. Yesterday was a good day. I got up a little more gently after the later night, but still got in a good yoga video and some physio type exercise. I managed to catch up with some stuff working from home, and do an hour of studying, whilst simultaneously spending the entire afternoon on a Whatsapp thread with Virgin Media to try and not get my internet bill to more than double. I got there in the end. By the time that was done I was knackered again, so rather than cooking I went to the chippy, got a few beers, and chilled out with WW in front of the new series of Taskmaster. Goals have been ok. Physical maintenance is easy enough to hit if I remember it early, and I've quite enjoyed having a short lunchtime walk with a French lesson. Study is a challenge when work's busy, so I'll need to crack on with that over the weekend. Teeth brushing could have gone better; I partially blame tiredness but I think I van work through that.

Not really; I've had mine about 20 years! Work were talking about getting me a new one, I must get onto them about that. It could be there for guests to sleep on! If you can't stop them turning up you can at least be sure they don't make themselves too comfortable. That sounds great - no-one should ever schedule a meeting before 10am. Which reminds me; I have a meeting at 9 tomorrow morning ?

Oh I like that! Antithesis is a great name. "The B Side" sounds more like a jazz bar I think; it's very cool and suave. And yes, ride through Autumn with D&D. Then, ride through all of the other seasons with D&D!

Will your back be alright with the wooden chair? I know I couldn't sit at my desk all day with a fixed chair, but I guess it depends on your set up. There must be a home for the wooden one though. Extra reading chair in the library? Bedroom chair?

Definitely agree with this. There's a real romance to the notion of the starving artist, and a huge myth that successful artists (in which I include musicians, actors, any kind of art) do it all on their own. People don't seem to realise that most artists aren't actually self-taught, and even those who are still don't learn how to do what they do in a vacuum. This also creates another common misconception; the idea that talented people just get it and that they don't have to work hard. In reality talent helps, but 90% of success is putting in the work.

Monday - Week B Day 1 Track calories: ? - - - - - - Physical maintenance: ? - - - - - - Study: - - - - Languages: ? - - - - - - Teeth: ☠️ Yesterday was a good day. I woke up still feeling knackered and still with a cold, so I took it easy at Crossfit. Worked up to 120kg x 5 on deadlifts, and then had a 7 minute WOD where I managed 6 rounds and 1 rep of 3 chest to bar, 3 hang power cleans, 3 front squats @ 40kg. Work was busy, but stuff generally got done. This week might be a bit of a shit show as it's month end. I went for a walk at lunch time and listened to my French lesson on Language Transfer. In the evening I managed to get my Dutch Duolingo in before dinner, which is good because after that I totally crashed. WW cooked a lovely chicken and mango curry, we watched She Hulk, and then started watching Moon Night. After I'd posted my update here it became apparent that I was too tired to even look at my phone, and I sort of sat in a cold-filled haze watching TV until I dragged myself to bed at 10pm. For that reason, no physical maintenance done, and teeth not done either.

I think the other benefit lifting has is how easy it is to track. With all types of art you can usually see improvement from one year to the next, but it's really hard to see it on a shorter timescale. With lifting, particularly for new lifters, it's really easy to see that the weight/reps are increasing incrementally each session and that gives an immediate feeling that you're getting better.

Yeah, that's a good idea. I started on the Duolingo podcast ages ago but only got 3 or 4 in. I also want something I can have on in the background while I work though, and just zone in and out of without really concentrating, so I'd still like to find a radio station or something. I've never watched any arthouse cinema - any recommendations? Thank you, I'm glad you like them! Living on a rainy little island I don't think those pictures are that bad

Week A round-up Track calories: ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Physical maintenance: ? ? ☠️ ? ? ? ? Study: ? ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ Languages: ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Teeth: ? ? ? ? ? ☠️ ? Friday was a good day. I can't remember what I did at this point, which indicates it was a fairly chilled day. Yoga first thing and in bed early, both because I had a race on Saturday. Saturday was a good day. Got up early and went to run a Tough Mudder. I'll do a proper race report later in the week but I will say that I was knackered by the end - much moreso than I expected to be. I went home and achieved my maintenance goal by soaking in a long bath. I had no energy for anything else, but I hope that helped the muscles a bit. I didn't have much time to get myself sorted after that, because I had to chuck some clothes in a bag and go and meet WW from work. We jumped on a train up to town, checked into a hotel, and then went to see a stage production of Upstart Crow. I've never seen the TV show, and it wasn't quite what I was expecting, but it was absolutely excellent. After that we ambled back to the hotel through Soho, which was really cool to see as I've not seen the city on a Saturday night in a very long time. Yesterday was a good day. After a slightly broken night's sleep in the smallest hotel room I have ever seen (it was nice, by my word it was tiny) we headed out for breakfast. We couldn't find anything we liked and we were short on time, so we ended up at McDonald's. Then it was back on the trains and home as quickly as we could. We got back in time to sit for a few minutes before playing D&D. I was woefully underprepared for the game, but it seemed to work pretty well. The party were facing off against a mechanical kraken with tentacles that flew independently from it's body through magic portals. They started off well, destroying the first couple of tentacles pretty easily, and I thought it would be a pretty straightforward combat. Then @WhiteGhost's paladin got knocked unconscious. Then @DarK_RaideR's sorcerer rolled a nat 1 with his sword and started turning to stone, and then got knocked unconscious. Then @jonfirestar's warlock went down. With only WW's rogue left and 1 final roll before she got knocked out too, she managed to open the machine's body and disconnect the power source. I've never come so close to a TPK in an adventure before. It wasn't over there though, with most of the party still rolling death saves. WhiteGhost made his final death save in the nick of time, and then got brought up by a potion, D_R came back with a natural 20 on a death save, and Jon was healed. The party weren't able to stop D_R turning to stone though, and now they have a statue of a gith sorcerer they're carting around with them. That was the first half of the session - the second half was fun but way less tense In the afternoon we chilled out, I roasted a chicken and some veg, and we pretty much relaxed. Calories were tracked all week, coming in at an average of 2,854kcal per day. I gained 2lbs last week, so either that's a blip or my current TDEE is way lower than I was expecting. More data is needed. I did pretty well on my physical maintenance goal at 6/7, and scored perfectly on languages. Missed one night on teeth brushing when I stayed in the hotel, which is such a rare occurrence that I'm not too panicked. The only thing I really tanked on was study - need to make that a focus this week.

Congrats on your son getting in to the school; I bet that's a weight off your mind? What did you used to do at Comic Con, out of interest?

Following along, of course! I'm impressed by your house list, I don't even have the energy to plan to sort my house out, much less do it!

Ah that sucks. I hope you get the chance to run a decent one again at some point mate. Yeah, that sounds great! My French is not great, so not sure how much I'll be able to stumble through, but definitely sounds like a good way to practice. Oh, while I think of it, I've been listening to some Dutch radio - mainly because it's a good station for music but also hoping that at some point I'll start to understand what the presenter is saying. I've not found something similar I can listen to in French though; don't suppose you've come across anything?

That's funny, when I was in secondary school (11-16 years old here) I had a year of our PE teacher doing double duty to teach French. It was an interesting choice, as he couldn't really speak French.

I was curious so I looked it up, and apparently not. Trapezius comes from the shape of a the muscles forming a trapezium, and trapeze is thought to come from the trapezium shape made between the bar, the ropes, and the ceiling. So they're linked to the same shape, but probably not linked directly. The words originate from from Greek trapezion, meaning "irregular quadrilateral,", and literally meaning "little table". Good luck with the job application mate.

Thursday - Week A Day 4 Track calories: ? ? ? ? - - - Physical maintenance: ? ? ☠️ ? - - - Study: ? - - - Languages: ? ? ? ? - - - Teeth: ? ? ? ? - - - Yesterday was a good day. I got up a little late, following the very late night on Wednesday, but still made time for a little yoga and some calf stretches for my maintenance goal. I've got a Tough Mudder on Saturday, so yoga was always the plan as I rest for that. Work was ok. Working from home is better for goals, as I don't have to worry about annoying people when I do Duolingo while I'm making the tea. I also did a couple of French lessons in Language Transfer walking to the shop and back at lunchtime, and learned the etymology of the word 'monster', amongst other things. I also managed to finally get in a study session at work, so that's 1 hour ticked off (probably more like 45 minutes actually, but it's awkward tracking by the minute so I'll give myself a pass this time). In the evening I made pork and apple burgers with some cinnamon and paprika for good measure, and we caught up on Late Night Mash. It's a comedy news show, and whilst it is funny I have to say that politics here feels fucking bleak right now. I'll spare you the rant, but it's pretty scary. Calories were tracked at 2,283, with 173g of protein. I'm actually surprised at how low the calorie numbers are; I thought I was eating more!

Thank you mate! Why only almost?

I like this attitude for you, it's a good approach.

Wednesday - Week A Day 3 Track calories: ? ? ? - - - - Physical maintenance: ? ? ☠️ - - - - Study: - - - - Languages: ? ? ? - - - - Teeth: ? ? ? - - - - Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit first thing started with a workout of muscle ups and burpees. I was hoping to get through it doing muscle ups (so that I wouldn't get too many rounds, and therefore not have too many burpees), but the muscle ups ran out after a grand total of 2 so it was ring pullups and too many burpees. That was followed by sprints on the ski erg, where I spent time trying not to vomit. Work was ok, first time in the office for a while so it was nice to see some people. In the evening I made time to do Duolingo, and then WW cooked chicken teriyaki with rice and we chilled in front of bake off. After WW went to bed I decided to stay up with a beer and watch an episode of The Boys. One episode turned into three, and I ended up going to bed at 2am. Woops. Calories came in at 3,467, thanks to the beer, with 182g protein. I could have very easily done some stretching or something in front of the TV, but I didn't, so that's a fail.

Oo I like both of those. Hemlock Groove is very grungy. I think @DarK_RaideR has nailed the genre for Wolf Cries Red Thank you! Feel free to draw it if you like Nah, I'm just my own editor. Those 3 are good, but I left the other 8 on the cutting room floor I'm imagining the spiky white writing on a black background as their logo now

Nuclear Blast 2022 - race report Still working on catching up with race reports, so here's another! Nuclear Blast this year just so happened to be the day after my work's summer party. The day before had been spent drinking and playing silly outdoor games, followed by drinking and talking. Amazingly I didn't feel too horrendous the following morning, and thankfully I'd had the sense to book myself into the 1.30pm wave so I could get a bit of a lie in. Lie in I did, possibly too much, and with that and a general lack of organisation I was running pretty tight on time by the time I arrived on site. I briefly chatted to someone I had been marshalling with the week before at Nuts Challenge, whilst frantically trying to get myself ready to run, but managed to get to the starting pen in plenty of time. Part of the race for me was a bit of an experiment with glasses. Usually I just take them off when I run, but as my eyesight gradually gets worse I've been starting to think about how nice it would be to see where I'm going. One option would be to spend £75 or so on a pair of sports glasses designed for things like squash, and hope to goodness that I don't lose or break them. I went the other route, which was to spend £19 on the cheapest, smallest glasses I could find, and tie them to my head. I didn't lose them, and they didn't break, so I'd call it at least a partial success. The main issue was that they were covered in mud for a lot of the time, so I still couldn't see that well. At least the mud was in focus... Nuclear Blast is a lapped race at 5k per lap, and you have to start your final lap within 2 hours of starting your first. I was determined to do no more than 2 laps, both because I wanted to protect my knee for future races, and because of the heavy night before. I finished my second lap after 2 hours and 1 minute, and I'm absolutely certain I could have shaved a couple of minutes off there and done a third lap if I had wanted to. I think I made the right call though. The course itself was pretty fun. Lots of mud, quite a bit of it deep, sticky, and draining. There were some good fun obstacles, and a couple of moderately challenging things like longish monkey bars and some interesting rigs. The hardest thing was probably the space hoppers - they may be a kids toy but they definitely wear you out fast!. There were also a lot of slides. And finally, the last obstacle on course and the big ticket new obstacle for this year was the travelator. It was fun because quite frankly, who doesn't enjoy a travelator? It could have been faster though; I went up the fastest one both times without too much hassle. The second lap was a little tougher than the first, but it was overall a nice day and I had fun. At the finish I milled around for my finisher photo, picked up my finisher's cup of tea and free mug, and then had some food and a beer before heading home.

It does! I imagine them as a sort of indie guitar band who were big in the 00s. My go to for a fake band name is Furry Membrane - pretty sure they're punk.

Tuesday - Week A Day 2 Track calories: ? ? - - - - - Physical maintenance: ? ? - - - - - Study: - - - - Languages: ? ? - - - - - Teeth: ? ? - - - - - Yesterday was a good day. Really unusually for our Crossfit gym, we actually did an old Open workout: This was vastly too much work for 9 minutes for the entire class. I went for 80kg (176#) deadlifts, with a plan to do 100kg (220#) in the second half, but I didn't get that far. I used two ab mats on the handstand pushups, and even then I spent most of my time on those, finishing the workout just shy of the half way point at 87 reps. I felt like my handstand pushup technique improved throughout, and I got good and worn out over 9 minutes, so all in all it's good. Would have liked some time to work on handwalking though. That was followed by some l-sit practice, which was nice as it's something I'd love to be better at. It was my first day back at work, which meant a lot of e-mails to clear and trying to work out what I'd missed. That was fine, until mid-afternoon when I suddenly got really stressed for no apparent reason and just lost it. I don't know why, but after that I felt really drained all day. In the evening I cooked sausages with baked mixed beans and crushed potatoes (AKA marginally posh sausage and mash). Then we went out for Pathfinder. I had a really nice evening, and my mood improved loads, even though I'm pretty sure we've killed the NPC we were trying to save I found some time to do some little bits of foams rolling and stretching throughout the day, and to do some Duolingo. Listened to my French lesson whilst going for a walk at lunch time. Teeth were done, and calories tracked at 2,490 (seems a bit low) and 154g protein. Tuesday should have been a day when I studied at work, but being the first day back at work that didn't happen.

That's mega impressive! I've spent all morning today clearing about 200, but 2,000? Just, wow.

Monday - Week A Day 1 I've decided to designate my weeks A-D, given that my numbering would be out of step with everyone else Track calories: ? - - - - - - Physical maintenance: ? - - - - - - Study: - - - - Languages: ? - - - - - - Teeth: ? - - - - - - Yesterday was a good day. It was a public holiday for the Queen's funeral, so I had a full day to get stuff sorted after being away on holiday. Most of the free time was spent wrapping up last challenge, writing my new challenge, and downloading race photos. First though I had Crossfit in the morning, and it was leg day. Squats at 90kg (198#) x 3, 80kg x 5 and 75kg x 7, then 4 rounds for time of 10 lunges, 15 kettlebell swings, 200m run. I did front rack barbell lunges at 40kg, a 28kg kettlebell, and finished in 9'49". Because of holidays and races this was my first leg day in a few weeks, and man am I sore now! Around lunchtime my mum called. We'd bought her an afternoon tea for her birthday, and she was supposed to be going with my dad. He'd dropped out last minute as he wasn't feeling well, so Mum asked if I would like to go. We had a lovely time at a beautiful old hotel, and a ludicrous lunch. It didn't look like much as everything was so small, but after cucumber sandwiches, salmon sandwiches, prawn rolls, sausage rolls, mini quiche, a fruit scone with raspberry jam and clotted cream, a plain scone with lemon curd on one half, and raspberry jam on the other, a fruit tartlet, a slice of battenburg, a pistachio macaron, and a sort of lemon curd profiterole, I was absolutely stuffed. In the evening we watched Marvel's What If?, and I carried on updating stuff here. I also boiled eggs for breakfasts, and did some rolling of my back for my maintenance goal. Calories came in at 3,093, but with most things being very sugary I only managed 99g of protein. Language study was done throughout the day, and teeth brushed before bed.

Now there's a reference I haven't heard in too long! Stop it - you'll make me blush!