Jarric

Thursday - Week 0, Day 4 Yesterday was a good day. In the morning I went out for a run, just an easy 4 miles, which was nice. Work was alright - things are pleasingly quiet this week which gives me a bit of a chance to catch up on stuff. In the evening I posted this challenge, and then spent the rest of the evening browsing the forums and drinking weird beer in front of the tv. It was a really nice evening. Friday - Week 0, Day 5 Today has been a good day so far. Had Crossfit first thing, and as it's the last day of the year our coach decided to give us 'Murphish': 1 mile run, then 20 rounds: 1 deadlift 5 pullups 10 pressups 15 air squats Then another 1 mile run 45 minute time cap I went for 120kg (~264#) on the deadlifts, and got 12 rounds and 2 reps before the time cap. It was actually surprisingly good fun! The pressups killed me though; everything else is ok but pushups are just so hard. I worked this morning; had to sort out some last minute bits for a couple of colleagues who have the week off. This afternoon I went bouldering with Hopalong and his brother. When I got there it was absolutely packed, and I definitely don't feel as comfortable in big crowds as I did a couple of years ago. It wasn't mega productive thanks to the aforementioned Crossfit WOD, but it was good fun once the place quietened down. Now I'm off to get ready to go to a NYE party at The Captain's house. That'll be another fairly large crowd, but at least I'll know most people, and it should be a fun night.

Oh that sounds like a lot of fun. I'll have to see if I can find something like that to have a go at.

2021 was - hell I don't have any words strong enough to describe it. Let's show it the door and get on with a decent 2022. Sorry for everything you've had going on. It will get more manageable. Not magically when the clock strikes midnight tonight, unfortunately, but it will get there. Hope you get useful results from your tests soon.

Good to see you here. Pullups are a great long-term goal, they're a really good way to encapsulate a load of life changes as you say. Interestingly I have the opposite problem with Skyrim - 33 hours in I've met 1 dragon, spent half a day hunting deer, and got sidetracked by 8 separate dungeons which are entirely incidental to the plot. And then I give up having only completed 2% of the game.

Thank you! I'm hoping it will be easier than worrying about varying calories from day to day. Yes, join me on beer day! Not the healthiest day of the week, but it's going to happen so I might as well plan it.

You're doing fine man - this week will always be a bit festive; that's why it's zero week. Also, Monday starts are indeed the correct starts.

Me neither

2022 Road Map Usually I start a year by making a roadmap for the year, and then create my first challenge with that roadmap in mind. This year is no different, but rather than running a battle log for my roadmap I want it at the top of every challenge so I remember what I'm trying to do (looking back over my 2021 roadmap just now I was surprised to find out what some of my goals were!). Goals for 2022 I've been trying to decide what my goals should be for the year, and that's proving quite difficult. I have the option to enter a few endurance races - I'll be doing Rat Race Dirty Weekend that clocks in at 20 miles, and then there's Nuclear Oblivion Extreme (6.5 hours), Nuclear Oblivion Maxx (13 hours). I could add in Europe's Toughest Mudder (12 hours) and even Quarry Events Longest day (16 hours 38 minutes). The trouble is I don't know if I really want to do endurance events; they're really hard work! At the same time I don't know what I would want to focus on if not that; there was talk of the Spartan European Championships being held in the UK this year, but I can find precious little information about that at the moment. With that said, I can always decide these goals later in the year. This arbitrary change of date doesn't have to be the time that I plan to do something cool in the future, so if I do find something that really captures my imagination I'll add it here. The 5 pillars So I don't really have any big goals in the same way as I had in previous years. But I've been thinking recently about what's important to me, and I worked out that it falls quite well into 5 pillars. And then I worked out that I could map the 5 pillars to RPG stats, which made it much more exciting. So my goal for the year is to advance as much as possible in the following: Exercise (Strength) this includes everything I do physically - climbing, OCR, lifting, crossfit, running etc. I really enjoy seeing progress in all of these areas, and as long as I stick with them I'm bound to improve. I couldn't really separate what would fall under STR and what would fall under DEX, and I don't think it's really a useful distinction for the kind of things I do, so I just chucked everything under STR. Nutrition (Constitution) this is about putting the right things in my body (you heard!). That includes food that fuels me well, but also things like moderating caffeine and alcohol intake, and generally balancing anything else I consume. Creativity (Charisma) being creative is really good for me, and it's a side of myself I want to foster. That includes drawing, playing music, and writing. I still want to write and publish some basic D&D stuff, so hopefully I can incorporate that at some point. Self-care (Sanity) this is really just about doing the basic stuff that I know keeps me ticking over - cleaning my teeth, cleaning and tidying my house, keeping in touch with friends. Really basic stuff, but it has such an impact on the way that I feel, so it deserves its own category. Arguably I could have stuck with core D&D stats and put this under WIS, but SAN makes more sense to me for this goal. Also, I'm a super low-WIS person; I have very little awareness a lot of the time, and it's not something I'm really interested in working on (or even know how to work on) right now. Learning (Intelligence) I feel like it wouldn't ne Nerd Fitness without an INT goal. I want to get through the professional qualifications I'm doing (which feels easier said than done right now, as I've somehow ended up working on three units concurrently). I also just love learning things. I'd like to get back into learning French, which I did a good chunk of on Duolingo for a while last year. Really, all learning is good. Under the hood The plan is that my goals for each challenge will have stats assigned to them, and over this course of this year I'll try and get each of these stats as high as possible. I'll start everything at 0, and hopefully by the end of the year I'll have a decent looking stat array. To tie this in with my previous format, I'll be looking at levelling up backwards compared to most systems. Every stat point will be equivalent to 5XP under my old system, and every 20 stat points I will level up. That should mean I can gain 3-5 levels in a year, which feels about right. I don't have to hit every stat every challenge (though I am for the first challenge of the year as it happens). If I want 3 STR goals one month or need all my goals to be SAN based another month, that's all fine; it'll work itself out over the course of the year. Muscle Wizard: Origins I started out last year with some muscle wizard challenges, inspired by Guglug, the half-orc wizard who works as bouncer at the Fiery Grog Tavern. He's even my current profile picture. The trouble with that is that Guglug is a big, burly half-orc, working at being a wizard. That's the total opposite to me; I have the nerd bit down, and it's the muscle bit I'm working hard at! So this challenge is the start of my becoming the muscle wizard. Run 3 times per week [+3 STR]. I've decided that I'm going to commit a bit more to crossfit for the next few weeks. I'm not sure if that's a particularly good plan for long-term training, but I'm just enjoying it more than running right now. That means changing from 3 to 4 crossfit sessions per week, and reducing from 4 to 3 runs. Doing that means that the 3 runs I get in are even more important, so I'm making them the goal. Usually runs will be Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday, and possibly will comprise a drills session, hill session, and long run respectively. Calories - 600 x 4 x 8 [+2 CON] I don't feel up to tracking calories too exactly at this point, but I came up with a plan last year that just might work. Estimating my calories as best I can, I'm going to aim for 600 calories per meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and 600 calories worth of snacks throughout the day. That's 2,400 calories per day, 7 days per week. The 8th day of the week is beer . There's no restriction on when I drink, but I'm aiming for no more than 2,400 calories of beer over the week (about 10 UK pints, 12 US pints, or 5.7 litres). Adding that to my 2,400 of food per day gives me a daily average of ~2,743 and, if I'm at all accurate, that will lead to a reasonable amount of weight loss. Of course, I'm estimating calories, not recording them formally, so I might be well out, but just the mindfulness towards eating and drinking will still be helpful. I'll score my days based on if I feel I've got it about right. I don't have too much weight to lose, and it's not a priority, but if I could shed 5lbs over the challenge that would be nice. Creativity every day [+2 CHA] I don't mind what it is, whether I do a little doodle in a sketch book, or play with a bit of digital drawing, if I pick up my guitar and strum out a couple of chords, or even write a little narrative on here. I'd like to work on the D&D adventure I'm writing up; that would be good. Hell, this could even be prep work for my own D&D game. It doesn't have to be much, but I want to do something. Revise 4 x 30 minutes [+2 INT] I've got an exam in late February, which is a re-take of an exam I failed last year. I fully do not want to have to re-take this again (not least because it's bloody expensive), so I want to get in 2 hours' study time every week outside of working hours. I've split it into 4 x 30 minutes as that seems more manageable somehow. Teeth brushing twice daily [+1 SAN] This is something that I do better when I'm accountable for you guys about doing it. It's also inextricably linked to my mental health and, though I've never figured out where the cause and effect lies, I'd like to think sticking to this will stop me spiralling when I'm having a bad time. Right, that's all the things; if you've stuck with this post for this long then good on you! Lets go and lift some heavy shit. ETA: This is apparently my 51st challenge on the forums. I'm hugely grateful for all the support I've received over the last 50 challenges. Here's to the next 50!

Your energy is always an inspiration - I'll be lurking.

Yeah, that's sounds familiar. I feel like you'll have no problem getting things sorted in dry January in that case. Sounds like a solid plan. You've already well surpassed my squats - last attempt was 102.5kg x 3. I'll try and keep being your deadlift target for a while - haven't recorded deadlifts in a while, last time was 147.5kg x 5, but then last week I managed 5 reps of farmers handle picks at 164kg.

Hey Kel! I love the sound of your goals - what do the acting challenges involve?

Why do you think this is? Is it just the Christmas time splurge? Are you eating out of habit, or out of boredom? I only ask because knowing why you're eating like this might make it easier to avoid. I see you're still squatting strong then! Lovely stuff mate.

Looking forward to your new journey.

Multiclassing FTW! Every system is a made up system. Yours is a good one though. It's making me think more about how to organise mine this year. Good luck with the weather - that's real cold!

I don't know that I'm up to much of a challenge for this, but I'll lurk around here for inspiration if no-one minds? My guitar has been sorely neglected over the last few years, so even if I just pick it up to strum a couple of chords I'd be happy.

I've never played a cosmic horror system, and I'd really love to give one a go. I feel like it's a genre that's really hard to port to D&D; the tone is so different that it genuinely needs a separate system to work properly. These both sound amazing, so that's a good start.

I was going to suggest something similar to Puck. Maybe don't ban the computer in the mornings, maybe just say you won't turn your computer on before X (doing yoga, half an hour of tidying, whatever one thing is important to get done early). That way computer time might feel more satisfying and less wasteful. I'm very keen to play 5TD, and I think it would be great for a one-shot. I'd also love to play Wicked Ones, but I feel like we have to set aside a couple of months of regular sessions to get the most out of it. Ok, this sounds like a riot, that'd make a great one-shot. I may have to download it to steal the tavern games regardless... Still haven't caught up on this thread, but those are my thoughts so far!

That's a great attitude - hope you're kicking today's arse!

I hadn't realised that this was going to be a short challenge. Now I need to change some plans... At dawn we plan!

Congrats on level 50 man - that's some serious commitment. Looking forward to hearing about some more RPGs too.

Ok, well this challenge didn't finish as I would have hoped, but such is life. I'm not going to do a full-on wrap-up here, but I'll reflect on this as I set goals for next challenge.

Thank you guys - it means a lot.

Thank you guys ♥️ Thanks man, I appreciate that. I'll keep it in mind.

I've been going through some stuff this week. Spoilered because it's pretty heavy. Content warning: death and drug use.