Jarric

Thanks man! Yeah, it's a good point, thank you. The plan is to listen to my body, and vary the intensity if I need to do so but not actually skip workouts. We'll see how that works in practice. Well, our only race options were halfling and grippli, so it's not that off the wall in the circumference. I dunno, sometimes you want a serious, long-running campaign, and sometimes you want a 3 session silly adventure with daft characters. the blink dog was great fun as a concept, but woefully underpowered. I'd still love to play him more though!

You've done amazing this challenge, you've had so much on and you've got through it marvelously. Enjoy your break!

Week 3 catchup I've got a lot of catching up to do here, so lets start by rounding up week 3 really quickly. Monday and Tuesday were pretty quiet days - Crossfit and running were done, work was worked, evenings were chill. Wednesday night was our work team night out. We've been trying to do this for about 18 months, but for various reasons it hasn't happened until now. I jumped on a train straight from work and headed into town and to the pub. After having a couple of drinks whilst everyone turned up we moved on to the restaurant, where I had a lovely beef wellington and rather a lot of wine. We then went back to the pub for some more drinks. There was much gossiping and socialising and generally catching up with people socially in a way we hadn't been able to do in ages, which was really lovely. I got home just after midnight, but I was absolutely wired and ended up staying up until quarter to 2 in the morning. Thursday morning I missed my run (big surprise there I know), deciding that more sleep was the better option. I actually felt pretty fine all day, if a bit tired, and had a chilled evening. On Friday, WW and I went to see an episode of No Such Thing as a Fish being filmed. For those not familiar, NSTAAF is a podcast presented by the elves who write the facts at QI. For those not familiar, QI is a British panel show where comedians try to answer questions with interesting answers, and avoid common knowledge which isn't actually true. It was a very funny, very nerdy night, surrounded by lots of other very nerdy people, and was really good fun. Saturday I went bouldering first thing. WW's mother was down for the weekend, so we pottered around a bit for the day with her there, and went for our traditional tapas feast in the evening. On Sunday I got up and drove up to Essex for a running training course. That was really useful - we did some static drills focusing on various strength exercises for running, and then some running drills which largely amounted to running up and down hills very fast. I'm counting that as two exercise sessions, as it was 3 hours long and included both strength and running elements. I was knackered after that, so when I got home I had a long soak in the bath, a nice roast dinner, and an early night. I've now got some new programming that I can incorporate into my overall exercise plan, so the other thing I did on Sunday evening was to put together a detailed workout plan from now until the end of 2021. I'd appreciate any feedback or thoughts on the plan, which looks like this: Overall for the week I hit 7/10 workouts, which is ok, 1/3 drawing sessions, which is less good, and 0/7 on tooth brushing, which is rubbish. That means £8 to me and £12 to my mortgage - I really need to work on this if I want to buy something nice at the end of the challenge!

Yeah, that sounds really familiar! Willy's solution is good though... Yeah, this is what I need to do. Maybe I should keep this thread in a separate tab so I can just check in with one-line updates I have the opposite problem - if I miss 2 days I still want to provide really granular detail about every day, plus I know I'll have loads of other threads to catch up with, and I just get so overwhelmed with it that I don't open up the forums at all. So I'm still finishing it off, but I'm going to be playing a Grippli Shifter called Timrek. Grippli are skinny little frog people. A shifter is a Pathfinder class which takes all of the shapeshifting of a druid but removes all of the spellcasting. Basically I get to choose two animals, and I get a minor form where I transform a little and get some benefits, and a major form where I actually transform into the animal. I've chosen an elephant and a mouse as my two forms, partly because one's a good combat form and the other's a good stealth/exploration form, but mostly because I love the idea that I can only be an elephant or a mouse and nothing in between. I have @Starpuck to thank for the name Timrek (read it backwards), and I'm working on the voice for it to annoy my friends as thoroughly as possible. Timrek is as dumb as a box of frogs and has all of the force of personality of a wet tea towel. He's timid and doesn't talk much, having not spoken at all for the first few years of his life. He loves animals (though they don't necessarily love him). All of this lead to him being taken to the local druids to try and help him find his place in the world, and ultimately to learning his shifter abilities.

Two ideas spring to mind. 1 - treat it exactly like a burger without the bun. Add burger sauce, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and gherkins. You could even wrap it in lettuce leaves if you want to eat it with your hands. 2 - treat it like a steak. Add chips, a side salad, roast veg, or whatever you would have with a steak. Bonus points for peppercorn sauce.

Yeah, I've got a similar shopping list of skills. I'm trying to work out how best to structure my training to hit all of that, and get in some running skill work at the same time. How do you want to do this - work together as a tag team, or against each other as a PvP? Yeah, not too bad thank you. A couple of busy evenings have derailed my goals a little bit, and to be honest I've spent a lot of time making a new Pathfinder character rather than updating here. Not that I haven't had time to update here since, but if I miss a couple of days of updates I find it really hard to come back here for some reason. I'm not sure why that is, or what I can do about it.

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about the flaming skull! That was a tough bugger (and a fun one to play). Yeah, it's still gonna take a bit of discussion next session, but I'm confident we can move forward well. You're no newbie mate, you do a ton of training and can definitely outrun me! I have occasionally, but I've not managed to go every week. And even then, once per week isn't really enough to train grip; I need some dedicated grip sessions. Haha, always good to get a reputation as the crazy guy that you don't want to give ideas to! Yeah, I'm up for that, I could use the extra accountability. What do you want to work on most? Oo, exciting stuff! Aww, thank you! And you're right, I may not be where I want to be yet but I'm still ahead of a lot of other people. I need to keep that perspective in mind.

Friday was a good day. I assume it was anyway, I don't really remember now! Pretty sure I did a couple of yoga videos in the morning. At work in the day I know I was feeling a pretty anxious at lunchtime and afterwards. I went for a walk to clear my head instead of going to the pub with the team, and I think that helped a bit, but I don't really know where those feelings came from. In the evening I chilled out, and got a relatively early night ahead of Saturday's race. Teeth done, no drawing but I'd already done my week's worth. Saturday was a good day. I got up early, went through my usual pre-race routine of breakfast and making lots of tea for the journey and to put in a thermos for later, and drove my way up to Essex. I was really questioning myself going into this one. I wasn't sure what to wear, I didn't really have a strategy, and I wasn't feeling 100% myself generally. I ended up going with a wetsuit under t-shirt and shorts, with neoprene socks and neoprene gloves. The gloves were unnecessary, but otherwise it didn't feel like a bad call. I'm definitely bigger than I was when I bought the wetsuit though, which made it not entirely comfortable to run in. The course itself was good fun. I entered the elite wave, which meant 2 x 8km (5 mile) laps rather than 2 x 7km (4.4 mile) laps, and that extra 1km included 8 penalty obstacles. I was really looking forward to that, as I like the technical obstacles and I wanted to see more on the course. To get an idea of the kind of thing I had to do, this was the rules video: When it actually came to the obstacles, I failed a lot of stuff that I thought I could manage. I didn't get through the long rig, I didn't even reach the top of stairway to heaven, and even the monkey bars were too much for me. My grip was just shot very early on. Overall I'm pretty disappointed in my performance. I know what I need to do though to be better prepared for next season - work on grip strength and lose some weight. The penalties were mostly heavy carries or drags. One highlight was the atlas stones - thanks to my practice with d-balls at Crossfit I had the technique to easily shoulder them, which made for quite an easy penalty. Overall it was a really fun, really challenging race. I finished in a crappy position and I failed stuff I would expect to complete, but I gave it my all on the day and I was absolutely knackered by then end. Ultimately I can't ask for anything more on the day, I just need to ask for more from my training.

And, may I say, that was mightily impressive

Yesterday was a good day. I got up and out for my run at a much more reasonable time than I have done of late, so much so that when I got back from my 5k I had time for 15 minutes of yoga for a double workout day. Work was ok - feels like I'm getting somewhere with stuff again. WW had the day off, so she cooked halloumi burgers and made chips for dinner. In the evening we had D&D, our Rise of the Runelords campaign. Fairly early on we launched into a really tense combat against three ghosts, who managed to possess one of the party and the ranger's animal companion. They weren't particularly tough monsters, but possession is brutal in Pathfinder - unless you have the exact spells to counteract it there's nothing you can do but knock your friends unconscious in order to force the ghost out. We were already a little down on spells and resources, and the possessed player was doing an excellent job of fighting against us, so that made for a real nail-biting time. This went on a long time, and if I had the energy and time I could almost do a blow-by-blow of the tiny victories and tiny defeats we had over the course of the combat. Then we managed to set off a symbol of insanity, which turned half of the party permanently insane. Mechanically in Pathfinder that effectively takes someone out of the fight entirely, so that was pretty brutal too. At this point one of the other players snapped, accusing our GM of being adversarial and wanting to make us suffer. It came really out of the blue and really shocked us, and we had a big conversation about the fact that the rest of us felt the combat should be challenging and were having fun, and we didn't feel that that outburst was called for. It transpired that this guy has been having a really tough time at work, and was really burnt out, and that was why his frustration got the better of him. That lead to another conversation about talking about your feelings, not letting things build up until they get too much, and more generally setting boundaries and avoiding burn out. We're all good friends, and we got out the other side of the conversation ok, but it was a pretty tough night and something that I've been dwelling on today. I did get some drawing done whilst trying to process the conversation we were having, and teeth were done when I got home.

Maybe. As long as it doesn't take up bag space that can be used for chocolate

Large gardens, fruit trees, and deer sound like an idyllic place to live - hope all goes smoothly with the final bits on your house.

I've always thought that aniseed was the overriding flavour of all liquorice, and I don't eat liquorice for that reason.

Yesterday was a good day. My neck and shoulders were quite tight when I got up, but I did some yoga which seemed to help somewhat with it. Work was ok. We've got more people in the office now, which was interesting and it's nice to see more people, but it's also so much harder to make progress when there's constant distractions from people wanting a chat. Still, I got done what needed to be done I think. In the evening WW and I sorted the washing out, and I washed up while she cooked what was essentially Bolognese served in tortillas. We also listened to our album of the day - The Gilded Palace Of Sin by The Flying Burrito Brothers - and I can't say I was particularly impressed. I'm not a huge country fan, and this just sounded like generic country to me. We watched Bake Off and generally vegged in front of the TV. I really didn't feel inspired to do any drawing, but I pushed myself to pick up my character drawing book and did some very silly cartoon sketches. I felt much better for 20 minutes of sketching - a lesson I should try to remember.

I still really want to play this! Dungeon Keeper 2 was one of my favourite games for a long time, and I think this would be an excellent tribute to that. If we can set it up, I'm there mate. This campaign is less like that though, in that we've converted the kobolds to the side of good, and are trying to get them out of town without the humans killing them.

Me too! They were supposed to be the enemy, but we've recruited a surprising amount of them. Thank you! Yeah, hoping for my days to be less busy so I need fewer total chill days. Yeah, I'm always amazed by how little you eat! I think size plays into it as well as gender - there's a lot more of me than there is of you I think.

I can't imagine how anyone could do that. Well now I want to meet Two Beer Nay!

Those costumes are amazing! Lovely stuff!

Oo I haven't had port in years. It feels like a Christmas drink; maybe I should think about getting some...

I can very rarely make these, but I'm always up for a one-shot if the stars align and I'm actually free.

Yesterday was a good day. I struggled to drag myself out of bed in the morning, and after almost an hour of starting at my phone I got it for an easy 5k run. That does mean I've missed another workout, as it should have been a two-workout day. I had a bit of a weird day at work - thanks to having the day off on Monday and it being the start of the month I had a lot of organising and generally sorting my life out to do, so I didn't feel like I achieved much of my usual work. Still, I felt good for it afterwards, and between that and finishing more-or-less on time I felt much less stressed after work than usual. In the evening we had our Pathfinder 2e game. We spent a lot of time roleplaying and discussing plans. In addition to our party we now also have a party of kobolds, who are being roleplayed by the same players separately. I don't have a kobold right now, so I got a good laugh listening them be intentionally daft at each other, and managed to sketch a little kobold for my drawing goal. We got home lateish, I brushed my teeth and went to bed.

Wise words friend

The end of last week was pretty challenging. With month-end projects to sort I ended up working some quite long hours. That lead to me doing the evening revenge thing, where when I haven't had proper control over my day I want to stay up late to get some time back. Staying up late then means I'm tired in the morning and less productive, and that gets into a bit of a vicious cycle. I didn't work out at all on Thursday, did get to Crossfit on Friday (it's so much easier to do stuff that's booked), but then didn't work out on Saturday. I also didn't brush my teeth Friday, Saturday, or Sunday evenings, and didn't do any drawing in the latter half of the week. Final scores were 5/10 for workouts, 4/7 for brushing, 1/3 for drawing. Not ideal, but I'll take it as a one-off given the facts of the week. On Saturday, WW and I did bugger all really. I did do some D&D prep, which gave me an hour or two in front of a different screen, but other that that it was a day of vegging in front of the TV. I think that we both really needed it; WW hadn't been feeling well, I'd had a manic work week and also hadn't been 100% well. I'm disappointed that I didn't spend any of that time drawing, but otherwise it feels like a day that happened for a good reason. Sunday was a bit more hectic. I got up earlyish and went out for a 4 mile run, just to make sure I got in some running for the week. Then we had an intense couple of hours of packing stuff up and sorting the washing out before our Ranger D&D game. The party started off with a conversation with a hill giant that they had sort of captured last session. I won't go into what she revealed to the party, as I want them to draw their own conclusions from that encounter, but they got some information and I think still have no clue what's going on overall. They left the giant alive, and moved on to the town of Triboar. In Triboar they spent a lot of time gossiping, and picking up information, followed by a small amount of criminal damage to keep themselves occupied. It was quite a chilled out roleplay session really, which was good fun. After leaving the town the party were attacked by a band of orcs, whom they will have to face next session. After D&D, WW and I rushed out to get a train to London, to go and see Questing Time live. It's the first time I've ever seen a actual play D&D game live in the room with the cast, and that was really cool to do. We also managed to meet up with some of the community we know from Twitch, including one person who played in an adventure I ran over the summer. It was a lovely evening, but WW and I were both knackered so we didn't hang around for too long afterwards before going back to our hotel and passing out. On Monday we woke up in London, so spent a good part of the day just wandering around the city being a bit touristy in the parks. We also had breakfast at a little French place and I tried galettes for the first time, and had lunch at a little greasy spoon before heading home. In the evening we managed to getsome productivity in, and went grocery shopping, put the washing out, and cooked dinner (I heated up some fish goujons, and made cauliflower cheese to go with it and some crispy kale). After that it was time to crash out, so no exercise done for the day (a couple of hours walking round London notwithstanding), and no drawing. I did get my teeth done for day 1 though. So far this challenge I've earned £12, and owe £11 to my mortgage account. I'd like to do a bit better than that split for the rest of the challenge! At the end of this week I've got Nuclear Challenge Cup - the last OCR of the season and one that I'm running a competitive wave in. I'm not expecting to be anywhere near the front, but I'd like to put in a good showing at least. To that end, exercise will be light and stretching should be plentiful this week in order for me to be in the best state for the event. Apropos to nothing, I've also had a bit of an epiphany about food recently. I've been trying to work out how to manage my food intake without resorting to full on calorie tracking, as I want to curb my weight gain, but I'm not quite in the mindset for strict tracking yet. Then I realised, that I can basically break my day down into 3 meals plus snacks, and that if I allow 600 calories for each of those 4 things I should be on to a winner. In fact, that would put me at 2,400 calories per day, which would result in me losing a lot of weight quite quickly, but given that I'd just be estimating and I would have days where I go over that won't be the case. What it does do though is give me something to aim for, and I can pretty easily estimate 600 calories per meal. For snacks, I drink about a pint of milk per day for about 300 calories, so that gives me another 300 calories to play with throughout the day. If I can plan to drink no more than 8-10 pints of beer per week, that's going to put me up to about 2,700 calories per day. Adding in variations in tracking and one-offs, that should be about right for a gentle weight loss. Any thoughts on this plan would be much appreciated, but it feels like a good halfway house where I can keep an eye on my food without expending too much energy on doing so.

To be fair, if it's hard because of weather conditions it's still great training. It might not be as fun as going out for a fast run, but you'll get a lot out of it. Sounds like a great day!