Jarric

Friday - W2D5 Physio: ✅ Creativity: ✅ Study: ❌ Teeth: ✅ Waist tracking: ✅ Friday was a good day. Crossfit was farmers' walks, then a WOD of sumo deadlifts and ring muscle ups. I was feeling pretty tired, but I managed 4 muscle ups over the course of the session, so I'm happy with that. Work was busy, but I got some of the stuff I wanted to do done in the end. In the evening I had a couple of absolutely ridiculous beers: We chilled in front of the TV for a bit. when WW went to bed I decided to do some very quick figure drawing sketches for my creativity goal, then got to bed myself.

^This - it would be good to have a couple more people join us

That sounds like an excellent plan. That sounds absolutely beautiful ❤️

Week 2 so far... Physio: ✅✅❌❌ Creativity: ✅✅❌✅ Study: ❌❌❌❌ Teeth: ✅✅❌✅ Waist tracking: ✅❌✅✅ A condensed update, as I'm well behind. Tuesday I ran first thing, and cut my run to 4 miles from 5 because I was running late and my knee felt off. Work was busy. Pathfinder in the evening and I got to do plenty of doodling. The sand dragon/sand elemental/don't know what that we saw at the end of last session ran away, so we didn't die! (yet). I totally blanked on waist measurements, so I've put reminders in my phone now. Wednesday was crossfit - bench press, deadball to shoulder, rope climbs, and some shoulder accessories. All really run stuff. Work was busy and went late, and I collapsed on the sofa in front of Questing Time in the evening. After a few beers I fell asleep on the sofa and didn't wake up until I dragged myself to bed at 1.45am. Not a good day for goals. Yesterday I skipped my run as my knee really doesn't feel right. I had to leave early to go into town for a conference anyway. The beer and the sofa sleeping left me feeling pretty tired and sorry for myself all day, and I left the conference a little early to get home at a reasonable time. When I got in I went to bed for a bit, then chilled on the sofa for the evening. A friend sent me a really lovely message that really cheered me up, it helped a lot. Before falling asleep on the sofa on Wednesday I discovered that Codename Entertainment have a Twitch stream where they randomise a monster, an adjective, and a cute animal, and have to draw the prompt in an hour. Yesterday I decided to draw along with episode 1, 'electric fey goldfish':

Thanks! It's nice to do, thought I don't play nearly enough to be any good these days; my hands just cramp up after a while. In college we used to practice going up and down the fretboard to a metronome, which is boring as hell but quite effective for coordination. We'd do something like this (you may not be able to read this on mobile): G|---------------------------------1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2------------------------------------------------------------| D|----------------------1-2-3-4-----------------------5-4-3-2-------------------------------------------------| A|-----------1-2-3-4----------------------------------------------5-4-3-2-------------------------3-4-5-6--| E|-1-2-3-4--------------------------------------------------------------------5-4-3-2-3-4-5-6--------------| etc. all the way up to 12th fret and then reverse all the way back down to 1. All the notes are quavers (or whatever really, as long as they're all the same length), and slowly increase the metronome tempo over time. I'm looking forward to finding out what we play next too! There's some good options out there; I need to do some research. No but now I need one! Where can I get this beautiful creature?

Yeah, devil's press are aptly named - good luck! (Looking at the WODs you've been doing though, I'm sure you'll smash it)

That's awesome, well done man! Willy would be proud. This is how you end up signing up to more and more races ?

Thanks man! In my experience, 100m sled push is great fun. 300m sled push absolutely sucks. YMMV. I like that idea! Not sure what that thing is, but it sounds fun. Thanks man, I'll bear it in mind. I am trying to think of it as 80% effort whilst maintaining good form, rather than an all out sprint, but I didn't really consider that I am launching into it until you pointed it out here. Now I find this interesting, because I have tracked food very successfully in the past, when I was looking to lose weight. I don't think it actually matters if you are accurate, as long as you are consistent. When I was doing it I knew that maintenance was 3,150kcal per day, so if I ate an average of 2,800kcal per day I would gradually lose weight. It doesn't matter if I was under recording or over recording by 20%, because my maintenance number was derived from the same assumptions, so I was still reducing my intake and it worked. ETA: the key is that my maintenance figure was based on 6 weeks of tracking both my calorific intake and my weight, to give a figure that was correct for my way of tracking, rather than using a random TDEE calculator on the internet. As I said, the trouble with weight tracking is that I don't know if I want to go up or down. I guess in an ideal world I would plan cycles of bulking and cutting, but whilst that works well for bodybuilding it's not a great strategy for OCR I don't think. That's how I settled on the waistline thing - I know that I want that to decrease!

Monday - W2D1 Physio: ✅ Creativity: ✅ Study: ❌ Teeth: ✅ Waist tracking: ✅ Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit was intervals for time of 5 front squats and 100m sled push. I kept the front squats light at 60kg (~132#), but kept loading the sled up until I got to 100kg (~220#). Last intervals (at the highest weight) was about 32 seconds. As a finisher we had a nice little finisher: in 3 minutes: 400m run, max reps air squats. All in all pretty good fun. Work was tough - I spent the whole day trying to get a really complex report completed. I gave up just before 7pm (bearing in mind I only work until 5) and called it a day. I was wiped out when I got home. WW made Swedish meatballs and we vegged in front of mindless TV for a while. I did manage to remember to measure my waist and do a crappy charcoal sketch of the cat, so at least most of my goals were ticked off. I couldn't face attempting to study though.

Saturday - W1D6 Physio: ✅ Creativity: ❌ Study: ✅ Teeth: ✅ Waist tracking: ✅ Saturday was a good day. Having stayed up late on Friday I had a lie in and didn't go climbing in the morning. I did get out for a little 3 mile (~5km) run before lunch, and spent most of the rest of the day lounging about. I did manage to made a lot of salad for the week. We ordered a salad box from Oddbox, who do our weekly wonky veg box, so I basically chopped the whole lot up and divided it into bowls for the week. I now have a load of lunches of rocket, parsley, bell pepper, mini cucumber, garden peas, chicory, and mixed seeds. Sunday - W1D7 Physio: ✅ Creativity: ❌ Study: ❌ Teeth: ✅ Waist tracking: ❌ Yesterday was a good day. Went out in the morning for a 7 mile (~11.2km) easy run. Knee is feeling fine, which is encouraging. I met up with the Ranger D&D group - we've decided to abandon our current adventure so I talked through all of the plot we hadn't got to yet so that we all had a sense of completion without playing it for another few years. We're starting to decide what we want to play next now. In the afternoon I went over to my parents' house for a Sunday roast. It's Mum's birthday next week and she's going to be on holiday, so it was effectively her birthday meal too. It was nice to see them, though hard work as meals with parents sometimes are. By the time we got home I was running short on energy and had a lot of online chats I wanted to catch up with, so I pretty much did that for the rest of the day. I did manage to boil eggs for the week's breakfasts, so that's not nothing. Scores for the week: Physio: 6/7 Creativity: 4/7 Study: 2/7 - must try harder Teeth: 5/7 Waist tracking: 5/7

I could have a stab at this, I'm not great at melody writing but my singing's ok. Let me know if you're still looking for someone.

That sounds like a really fun group, and a solid first workout too - hope it works well for you.

Hear, hear! *raises glass of Leffe Blonde*

This looks so much like a album cover and I am 100% here for it. Glad you're feeling more yourself, that sounds really good.

Friday - W1D5 Physio: ✅ Creativity: ❌ Study: ❌ Teeth: ❌ Waist tracking: ❌ Yesterday was a good day (though not a good day for goals as you can see). Crossfit first thing, which was squats, split squats, Nordic curls and single leg deadlifts - that very handily took care of my physio for the day, which was the only challenge goal I achieved. Work was busy, but I think things are coming together slowly. Yesterday was Mr Willes' funeral. I couldn't make it over to Belgium to attend (as far as I know no-one from the forums could make the trip), but I did manage to catch up with @Rhovaniel and @Charlie_Quinn over video call for the evening. It was a really nice night - we laughed, we cried, we ranted about politics. We said the thing that you always say at funerals, "it's so nice to catch up with you, despite it being for such a sad reason". I had a lovely time; it was cathartic, and reminded me to make an effort to keep up with friends.

Thursday - W1D4 Physio: ✅ Creativity: ✅ Study: ✅ Teeth: ❌ Waist tracking: ✅ Thursday was a good day. Got up and went for a run first thing - 4 miles with the middle 2 at 10k pace. I've started messing with a little warm-up/mini workout before my runs: Banded rotations - because they make my shoulders feel good Scapular pushups - because I read this article recently, and I figured it might be good for shoulder health Clam shells and single leg glute bridge - my standard running warm-up to get the glutes firing Goblet squats with a band and split squats - my physio exercises Bicep curls (same weight as goblet squats) and tricep extensions (same weight as split squats) - because arms After work I picked up my guitar for the creativity goal, and messed about with the bassline for Billie Jean because I saw that @starpuck had been learning it. Then I re-learned the bassline to London Calling by The Clash, which is a great bit of bass. In the evening we watched Questing Time, and I drank a reasonable amount of beer and fell asleep on the sofa. It was actually a really nice night - simple pleasures. Didn't do my teeth though, having woken up at 1.30am and dragged myself to bed!

Wednesday - W1D3 Physio: ❌ Creativity: ✅ Study: ❌ Teeth: ✅ Waist tracking: ✅ Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit in the morning - we started with band resisted deadlifts to make sure we were good and tired, and then we did Helen. We very rarely do Crossfit benchmark WODs, and there are very few that I can do Rx, so I was very pleased to Rx this one. It took me 13'15", which I'm pretty sure is slow as fuck, but I got it done. I was exhausted when I got home, and pouring with sweat in the heat we had yesterday morning, but in a good way. Work was ok. Still busy, but I completed one of the main reports I needed to get done so that's a step closer to feeling on top of things. There's gonna be a lot of fallout from my backlog of work at some point, but for now fighting fires is all I can do. In the evening we went out to see a Sandi Toksvig show. We stopped at Subway when we got into the city for a quick bite to eat, and then headed in. It was a really good show, she was funny and interesting. Most of the show was a quite relaxed tour of stuff she's interested in and junk she bought during lockdown. She finished up with a Q&A which was a mix of funny little anecdotes and political activism talk; that didn't fit together so well, but that's what you get with a live audience. I was super tired when I got home, but I did a couple of 2-minute doodles in my journal and measured my waist before bed, to at least get some ticks for the day.

I meant chub as in an amalgamation of cub and chick, the extra b is just me being unable to type. I hadn't even thought of the slang connotations . It's not a word I've heard used much in that context over here though. And yeah, I'm not sure that a MacDonalds burger has any more nutritional value than the box it comes in, so maybe nothing would have been better. Of course, being bothered to cook would have been better still!

Tuesday - W1D2 Physio: ✅ Creativity: ✅ Study: ❌ Teeth: ✅ Waist tracking: ✅ Yesterday was a good day. Went out for a run first thing - 4 miles (6.4km) with 6 x 110 yard (100m) strides. It was hard and hot and sweaty, but it felt good. Work continues to be busy, and we lost a client which made me feel pretty shit. I pushed to get as much done as possible, but I was totally drained by the end of the day. In the evening I couldn't be arsed to cook, so we went to MacDonald's on the way to our Pathfinder game. We had to wait ages at the drive through, for food that wasn't very nice and I suspect will do nothing for my waistline, so I'll be avoiding that option in future. Pathfinder was really good fun! We fought two giant geese (or, in fact, increased, greecy, Grecian geese), and spent far too long overthinking a statue of a goddess of strife and discord. I was nearly falling asleep at the table I was so tired, but I had a lot of fun and got a chunk of drawing in too. At the end of the session we saw a little whirlwind of dust kick up, then change shape to form the image of a dragon which charged straight for us! We're all just about out of spells, so next week might be a bit scary!

Monday - W1D1 Physio: ✅ Creativity: ✅ Study: ❌ Teeth: ✅ Waist tracking: ✅ Monday was a good day. We tried for new bench press 1RMs at Crossfit - I hit 75kg (165#), which is just about a new best, but failed two attempts at 80kg (176#). That was followed by a few intervals of 100m ski and 10 push press, which was fun. On my way back from the gym I started thinking about my workload and very nearly had a breakdown. We had a chat at work about where everyone is, which wasn't very encouraging as everyone is swamped right now, but at least we all know where we are. Generally I just struggled all day - I was really stressed and emotional and overwhelmed. In the evening WW made turkey curry, which was lovely. I put together a mini I'd bought her for our Pathfinder campaign - she's playing a sphinx - for the productivity goal. I also fixed some other minis I bought her. They're all super cute baby monsters - an owlbear chubb, a wyvern hatchling, a displacer beast kitten, a griffin chick, and a manticore cub.

That's a really good point - if I ran a marathon slowly I would still be tired at the end, even if the intensity wasn't the same as a sprint race. I'll try to remember that, thanks.

Yeah, exactly that! It's also a reminder to stop when enough is enough. I have a very 'just one more' attitude when it comes to alcohol, and it's no fun waking up thinking that all the last beer did was add to my hangover. Thank you! I'm glad it made you smile

Thanks mate!

Sunday - W0D7 Physio: ✅ Creativity: ❌ Study: ✅ Teeth: ✅ Food tracking: ❌ Yesterday was a good day. I went climbing again - I don't usually go twice in a row but Hopalong had a boulder he wanted to finish before it got reset today, and as he was going for an extra session I decided to join. I managed to complete a font 6c route, which is about the top end of my ability at the moment and according to my phone the only 6c I've climbed in the last two months. I also did my physio as part of my warm-up, to get that out of the way. When I got home WW made avocado and fried egg on toasted brioche (because we're just that hipster), and we headed off to wander around the local town fayre. In the afternoon I went to see my dad for father's day, which turned into me reinstalling the drivers for mum's printer because of course I'm tech support for them now When I got home I wrapped a turkey thigh in foil and out it in the over on a low heat. Then I had a cut of tea and some chocolate, and went out for a run. I made it the planned 6 miles, and other than the odd twinge in my knee and hip it felt pretty good. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come. AFter the run I chopped up some potatoes, sweet potato, carrots, and a parsnip, and stuck them in a much hotter oven to roast. I had a very quick shower before putting in some Yorkshire puddings, took the turkey out to rest, and then waited 20 minutes for the rest to cook. Then I made gravy out of the meat juices, and served a lovely Sunday roast with plenty of leftover meat for the week. After dinner I boiled eggs for the week and did a little studying while they boiled. I spent the rest of the evening rolling my calves, which meant I missed drawing but also that I can walk today. Teeth were done and I went to bed at a sensible time.

It would be over in seconds - I'm no match for her!