Jarric

Monday - week 3 day 1 Barbarian: ☠️ Druid: ? Bard: ☠️ Sorcerer: - Paladin: ⚔️ Monday was a good day. Crossfit first thing, with a workout of deadballs to shoulder and burpee box jumps. Given that I'm avoiding high degrees of flexion in my knee this was an exercise in adaptation, as I tried to keep a high hil on the deadballs, a long lunge to get off the ground, and always step down with a straight leg off the box. After that we had 50ft farmers' walks, and I might have set a new PR at 174kg (383#)? By which I mean I carried that weight, but not sure if it's a PR. Work was ok; Mondays are always busy with everyone in the office. My phone was returned in the day, having been repaired under warranty, and also had a factory reset. The evening was therefore spent reinstalling apps and logging back into stuff, including resetting a lot of passwords. My phone is lovely and junk-free at the moment though, and has no games on it, so that's a win. Missed out on time doing physio and creative stuff in favour of sorting the phone, but otherwise goals were good.

Firstly, that's really impressive. Secondly, I was going to try and offer some advice about yoga being about strength as much as it is about flexibility, but I realised that I don't actually know much about training with hypermobility. There are probably some good resources out there for training yoga with hypermobility though (from a quick Google search there seem to be anyway), so maybe that's worth investigating before diving into yoga videos? ?

To physically decompress I would literally stretch myself. Hang from something, bonus points if you're hanging upside down. To mentally decompress I find walks good, or getting to a different height helps; sitting or lying on the ground, or climbing a tree.

touché. Put it another way; even by the standards of cricket this wasn't high energy

No, there's definitely a third option. You need to find the option that works for you, but I'm confident that if anyone can do that you can. I'm really sorry about this, it sucks, but you will find a way through. It brings to mind this guy's story: https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/how-tim-walked-his-way-to-a-50-pound-weight-loss-wait-what/

Week 2 stats Barbarian: 5/7 Druid: 6/6 Bard: 4/7 Sorcerer: 2/4 Paladin: 1/7 Well I've been horrible at updating, so lets wrap up the end of last week at least. On Friday I went into work for a couple of hours, and then went off to play a charity quik cricket match against some other local businesses. It was about 32-33c (about 90f) at the hottest part of the day, and although the cricket wasn't that energetic (mainly because we were rubbish) it was still very hot to be outside much of the day. It was also a big drinking event; I had about 6 pints there, and another 2 in the pub afterwards getting to know a couple of colleagues who I haven't spoken to that much. Suffice it to say that with high temperatures and lots of beer I was kind of asking for trouble. I called it a day about 8pm and headed home, and was in bed by 10pm knowing that I had to be up early the following morning. The following morning I got up at 5am or thereabouts, and got myself out of the door to drive to a Tough Mudder event an hour away. I was feeling pretty jaded from the day before, I knew I had a long day ahead of me, and I definitely had a moment when I arrived of thinking I couldn't get through it. I rallied, but it was a long day standing on a water station, filling endless little cups of water for runners to pick up as they came past. In some ways it was really good; people were nice and were really pleased to see me. It was 32-33c again though, and even in the shade being on my feet and working all day was really tough. I was concerned I was heading for heat stroke on a few occasions, but managed to drink plenty of water, eat as much food as I could stomach, and get through the day. I managed to get home by about 6pm, where I cooked and ate an oven pizza, and then damn near fell asleep on the living room floor. At 9pm I went to bed, and dreamed of filling cups of water. I was up several times in the night, as my efforts to stave off heat stroke worked their way through me. Sunday was D&D day. I was going to get up and run, but I felt like I'd really made myself ill over the previous 2 days so I did a short yoga session instead. Then I spent the morning doing all of the D&D prep that I should have done earlier in the week. The game itself was great fun; the party excelled themselves and surprised me by taking down a bone devil which I thought would certainly kill at least one of them. Now they're trying to explore the rest of the monastery before its engines fail and it throws them into the earth. In the evening I should have done some studying to make up for the time I hadn't had earlier in the week. Instead I read some of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, which I'm very much looking forward to running, had a nice roast dinner, and chilled on the sofa. In terms of my other goals physio is going well and the knee is definitely feeling better, albeit I'm being super tentative with it. Creativity has been hit and miss; I need to be better at accepting a 5 minute sketch as a perfectly acceptable option. Drinking goal has been fine, very much helped by having reasons to go out and drink instead of drinking at home. I've talked about the teeth brushing enough in the last couple of posts.

That's a good question. I take hay fever medication every evening. so that seems like an obvious contender as it's in the bathroom where I brush my teeth. I suppose the thing is how to I make that connection supersede my reaction to simply not do it? I'm in there every evening before bed, I see my tooth brush, and I choose not to use it. Maybe if I make a rule that I can't take my meds until after I brush my teeth? Maybe?

Mass moves mass; use that weight to lift all the things! But seriously, good on you for getting up, getting out for a walk, and having a talk with yourself. I always find I can talk through things in my mind in a much more constructive way when I'm walking/running, so I'm a big fan of the choice. I would recommend less planning and more writing. The art or writing is in the editing; you're better getting something down and then refining it over a few passes afterwards. Even if you re-write a whole chapter or add or subtract chapters, it's better to have something to edit from imo.

They're the serrano ham and manchego. I still haven't tried them but they sound excellent. Sounds like a good reshuffle - office work has very different fitness challenges from other work, and you need to be doing things differently to deal with that. Now get on it and start ticking off those new goals.

I am. I think there's a couple of things. Firstly, in the morning I brush my teeth when I'm waiting for the shower to warm-up. Occasionally if I don't shower in the morning (maybe because I'm exercising later in the day) I miss brushing my teeth, but I'm otherwise really consistent. I don't have a similar associated habit in the evening that makes this automatic. Secondly I just have some kind of mental block about it. I very rarely, if ever, forget to brush my teeth. Instead if I'm tired, or depressed, or upset, or drunk, or any number of things, I just think 'I don't want to do that'. And then I don't. I can't work out if it's a little childish rebellion, or if it's some way of punishing myself by not practising basic self-care, or quite what. It is weird. Maybe it's because you have to move a bit slower because of the weight? Maybe it feels a bit less pointless? I don't know.

We have an unreasonable amount of spanish meat in our fridge because of this. Which reminds me, I must cook those croquettes...

Tuesday - Week 2 Day 2 Barbarian: ? Druid: ? Bard: ? Sorcerer: ? Paladin: ☠️ Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit was power cleans, which I love, and hang power cleans, which I love less. That was followed by a workout of devil's press and skipping. I've never done devil's press before, but it turns out that it's at least better than burpees. I was fairly happy with my skipping too - I probably managed about 40 double unders in amongst another 80 single unders over a period of 10 minutes. Work was good, and I got in an hour of essay writing. Then I threw together a stir fry before heading off for Pathfinder. It was a good game. Plenty of drawing was had, including of my character's new sword, the spiders that were trying to kill us, the barbarian's new pet leopard, and the bats that were trying to kill us. At the end we met a scorpion the size of a shire horse, which will undoubtedly be trying to kill us. Didn't do my teeth in the evening - need to get my head round that.

Oh I love this kind of thing! Ancient legal documents are just beautiful things. Someone at my gym studied historic wills for her masters and I find it fascinating. As a player I'm terrified of ankhegs - it would be nice to terrorise some of my players with them though...

Monday - Week 2 Day 2 Barbarian: ? Druid: ? Bard: ☠️ Sorcerer: - Paladin: ☠️ Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit first thing; we had intervals of 5 front squats and 200m row. I worked at 50kg (110#) on the front squats, which is fairly light for me but my knee wasn't feeling great. The rowing was making my knee click at the lockout of every stroke, so I subbed that for ski erg instead. Times for each interval were 1'12", 1'13", and 1'11" - extremely consistent. We followed that with a 3 minute workout of 400m run and max distance handwalk. I managed to handwalk about 6ft, albeit e-2 'steps' at a time, and after the workout accumulated another 18' before it was time to go. I'm hoping that by forcing myself to face the fear of being upside down in the middle of the gym I'll start to build up to more than a couple of steps before I bail out. Work was ok - everyone is in the office on a Monday so it ends up being a lot of meetings. In the evening I had planned to do some D&D prep, because I have a lot to prepare for next session. Instead I read a lot of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist which I'm hoping to run for this group in the morning, which is technically D&D prep but is neither very urgent or very creative as I'm just passively reading something. It was a nice evening though. Teeth were not done - I've gone off the boil with this and need to get my head back in the game. Thoughts for the week: I've got Pathfinder tonight, a work event on Friday, and I'm marshalling a Tough Mudder all day Saturday. I must do some D&D prep on Wednesday and Thursday so that I have a game to run. I may also get some time on Saturday evening but I can't rely on having the energy for it. I'll get 2 hours of essay writing in at work, but I need to get the other two at the weekend. This will have to be Sunday after D&D, given time constraints and D&D prep. Creativity only needs to be a 5 minute sketch if that's all I've got. D&D prep counts for the goal, so it should be taken care of most days by default. I also need to find a time to do some journaling. Lunch breaks are an obvious choice when working at home; maybe go and sit in a park or something at lunch when I'm in the office?

I'm genuinely excited to watch you do this.

I like to imagine that stack of plates is about 14' tall.

Week 1 stats Barbarian: 6/7 Druid: 6/6 Bard: 4/7 Sorcerer: 2.5/4 Paladin: 3/7 Last week was a good week, but a busy one! On Wednesday my phone died, and I had that sinking realisation of how much if my life is contingent upon me having a working phone. I managed to get an old phone working, and I've sent the new one off for repair (it's under warranty, thankfully), but a lot of my Thursday was spent sorting that out, and setting up this phone so that I can log on to work and keep in touch with people. In the evening we had D&D; a little epilogue to our Rise of the Runelords campaign which was nice. Friday was a pretty normal day. I resisted drinking in the evening, despite wanting one, which meant that at 9pm I decided to do some drawing when I would have otherwise missed my creativity goal. Saturday was climbing and a short run in the morning, and a Pink Floyd tribute band in the evening with my Dad. He's not very well at the moment, which makes him quite frustrating to be around, but in general I had a nice time. On Sunday I ran a D&D game for the first time in ages, for WW, @DarK_RaideR @jonfirestar and @WhiteGhost . It was a really good time; they're all such fun players, and I very nearly killed them all in the first combat (which I guess I might have felt slightly bad about?). Memorable moments include D_R's character convincing a kobold that the group were the 'chosen ones' by use of telepathy, and WW's character attacking a construct with thieves tools to try and dismantle it. Also Garret, the stand out NPC for being totally dismissed by the party within 30 seconds of being met, much to his bafflement. They also met a sphinx and an entity described as The Ferry Man. Yesterday afternoon I went to fix my dad's phone (more frustration), cooked some roast beef, and spent a chunk of the evening prepping for next D&D session. Goals wise physio went well apart from my forgetting to do it yesterday. Beer was fine - I had my one day at home drinking on Wednesday as planned, and I had a skinfull on Saturday night out at the gig but avoided a chunk of the hangover by having not drunk Thursday and Friday. Creativity was hit and miss, but I think D&D prep will keep me more than occupied on this goal. I totally forgot about study, having not looked at my challenge tracker all week, so the only time I got was during working hours. Teeth were bad from Wednesday onwards; I need to focus on this. Journalling has been hit and miss; I think it helps when I do it but I need to find a way to slot it into my routine.

Hope you have a wonderful trip! Good luck with your D&D game!

Welcome back Kestrel! I love the decision tree idea, sounds like a good way to handle the obstacles asthma puts in your way.

saying it's rotting would imply that I was able to spell to begin with. And thank you mate, that means a lot. Particularly coming from a DM as good as you.

Yeah, more or less. The thing with London is that to earn the £5k train fare I'd have to get paid about £9k before tax, and I'd still lose 3-4 hours of my day commuting. I never really got the appeal! Yours sounds like a good plan - I'm expecting big things from the fun fund in that case Echoing others here - if there's a chance doing so will improve conditions for those who still work there then do it.

I don't think I could ever compete with Tank's food descriptions, as much as I'd like to!