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You spelt Madrugada wrong

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I give a more detailed backstory in the respawn thread which you can find here:  Cliff notes:  I and a couple of my friends go on hiking trips, mostly to US National Parks. After our first trip (8-9 years ago), my friend told me his goal of hiking Half Dome at Yosemite. I keep pushing him off due to difficulty of the hike and my obesity and history of knee, ankle, and back injuries. He wants to do the hike before he's 40, which is September 2025 so our next trip IS Yosemite if order to complete his goal I cannot push it off anymore.  I want to do what I can to be able to successfully complete this hike.  Photo of the cables during the last push of the hike (not my photo)   My goals this challenge:     Complete strength training twice per week.  I have a program I am going to follow. The start-up plan consists of warm up, 3 rounds of AMRAP exercises in 30 seconds intervals, cool down.      Complete 30min minimum on incline trainer 2x per week. (pre-COVID I was using the various Star Wars series on Disney + as the carrot to getting on the incline trainer- I will not watch them without being on the machine-so I will be continuing this as it made almost like I didn't notice I was exercising until I was sweaty, breathing harder, or my glutes/quads were getting sore).       Bring lunch to work at least 2-3x per week.     Ride the park and ride bus to work 3 times per week (unless working late shift as I wouldn’t be able to utilize the gym AND ride the bus back to my car) this will help save money for the trip instead of paying $5-14 each day for parking. I am considering 1:1 coaching for the 6month prior to the trip so want to start saving.    Bring water bottle to work 2-3x per week I’ve keep forgetting to grab it and have to either go without water or buy a bottle which A) costs money and B ) is bad for the environment that I enjoy so much         Rewards can help keep me motivated.    My gym has a hot tub in the back of the locker room that I would previously utilize after each incline training session. Sadly it's under construction for the entire summer.      BUT there also is a hydro massage available- of I complete both strength training workouts that week I will use the hydro massage.      The third reward will be if I bring my water bottle AND ride the bus as stated in my goals I’ll put a sticker on my new water bottle.    I think to keep myself interested in coming back to update progress, I'll be adding photos from previous trips. This challenge? 2013 Our first trip: New Zealand Photo at the airport, after a quick bathroom refresh.     This was during a quick break when the sheep briefly turned around from running up the hill at us and we thought we were safe (but that was a lie the sheep dogs turned them back and we started running again). The friend that wants to do Half Dome was safely standing on top of a bench the rancher had placed at the top of his hill for hikers to rest, saw the sheep coming, chose not to warn us and watched cackling and taking pictures whilst we ran like we were in the wildebeest stampede scene of the Lion King. The rancher had quite the comical scene he happened upon once his four wheeler made it to the hill, seeing 3 foreigners standing on the bench, surrounded by the sheep he and his dogs had just herded up the hill. Many hikes in New Zealand went through pastures with little gates to open and shut behind you to be able to walk through the pastures as part of larger hikes.         

A little about myself to start, I joined Nerdfitness nearly 10 years ago after. I had promised my zombie loving friend I'd complete the Run For Your Lives Zombie 5k obstacle course with her. I was a year out from reconstructive knee surgery, wanted to get as prepared as I could for the race and when searching for tips how to do a pull up found Nerdfitness.  I didn't progress far enough in time to do a pull up but I was strong enough to complete the obstacles. One of which were adult sized monkey bars-something I NEVER was able to do prior to this.    Between work injuries and personal stressors I've been off and on with Nerdfitness, working out and eating healthy (more off than on) these past 10 years., but I find when I have a goal with a deadline (like the 5k) I do so much better with being consistent.   My current motivation is the looming  Half Dome hike at Yosemite National Park next  year.  I and my friends have gone on a few hiking trips over the past 10 years. In 2017 we went to Zion National Park and at the pleading of one of my friends, hiked Angel's Landing. I am still so proud I was able to complete it (even if I had to stop several times on the way up the switchbacks-in those moments I decided switchbacks were my arch nemesis).   (pic if of me hiking up Angel's Landing)   Upon return from that trip he told me he wanted to hike Yosemite's Half dome and proceeded to show me photos. With which I asked him if he was trying to kill me. That I'd have to lose about 50 pounds first. Well, it's been a few years now, we've been to Glacier, Acadia, and Olympic National Parks. A couple of months prior to Olympic I discovered the incline trainer at my gym that takes you on virtual hikes and adjusts the speed and incline to match the trail. My friend commented that I was doing so much better this trip in managing the elevation changes on our hikes. I wasn't needing to stop to catch my breath. We are initially supposed to do Yosemite and therefore Half Dome this past week but I convinced him to give me ONE MORE YEAR on the incline trainer since it had made such a difference in a couple of months I had been using it. He agreed and instead we went to Red Wood National and State Parks, Crater Lake, and Lassen Volcanic National Park.  I haven't been able to use the incline trainer as much as I wanted (the last few months people have decided the incline trainer is a treadmill and are using it as such which is frustrating since there are only 4 incline trainers and the two rows of treadmills are never full). So I got a bit more winded than I hoped but still did not need to take any breaks and could keep up conversation (even if broken at times).    He mentioned on a trip a couple of years ago he really wanted to complete this hike before he is 40,  which is September 2025. I have been pushing him off year after year for fear of not being able to complete it due to my obesity, not being physically prepared, and my leg not holding out for the hike and giving out on me either near the top or on the way down.   A big issue I have is my knee. Due to a snowboarding injury and the resulting surgery I do not have the same endurance in my left leg as my right. At Acadia we hiked the Bee Hive and while I did not waver during that hike, I could barely walk the next day as my knee kept giving out and had to wait by the car while my friends hiked the Precipice trail the next day. I was pretty disappointed in myself.    Long story short I need to get my butt in gear so I can have a year to get as prepared as possible.     Half Dome is 14 miles long, planned 12 hour hike, 4,8000 elevation gain. The cables pictured below are for hikers to climb the last 400 feet to the summit without rock climbing equipment         My diet is also a mess.  I don't have much time to cook and many times will get food from the cafeteria at work and a drive through or frozen pizza at home. 1-2 weekends a month I travel across the state to visit my grandfather for the weekend and cook some meals for him that my grandma used to make. This makes it difficult to prep meals for myself for the next week, which is something I'll have to work on figuring out a solution for.   OK so long backstory complete.   My ultimate goal is to lose 50 pounds by Yosemite and in the process of doing this be able to complete Half Dome.  

[random Barry White song fades in] 😏   Friday 17 May Another day of trying to wrap things up at work before my upcoming vacation. Been finding it easier to extend my fasting past the 16 hour period, but Thursday I hadn't packed anything for lunch and ended up grabbing something from outside, while hungry. Of course, it was an overpriced carby choice and the next day I'd gained all the weight I'd lost back just like this. Thus, since there's a bit of understanding at work about arrival times, I chose to be a bit late in order to prep my lunch and it paid off. Also, I might have mentioned a case that went awry just before the Easter break because I didn't check it during the appointment when the client brought the papers but only the next day to find out the deadline was expiring on that same day? Yeah, that's been a bit of an issue and during a post-Easter meeting to see court dates ahead there was mention of a need for attention to detail. I'm glad to say that during another appointment on Friday with a case I'm handling, I was alert enough to pick up not one, but two important details we'd all missed before. Chief lawyer was so excited he randomly high fived me after the meeting  It's good to have these wins, makes me feel better about myself as they balance out the bad stuff and it's an even bigger win that it happened around my employer and he's aware.   Back home I tried to chill with a bit of videogaming, because my personal cases are falling behind and clients are asking what's going on. Been planning to do a lot of them this weekend, but there's already a bunch of things to do besides the cases, plus deffy is coming soon and it all felt very deadline-y. Although I might not have mentioned it, I've been knocking more games off my backlog and on this evening I began with Outlast. Promising, but just wasn't in the mood for a jumpscare-y game so I added to my "Retired" list, to be revisited at some future time. Next up was Flashback, which (much like Beneath a Steel Sky) I tried to get into, but the handling and level structure is so 1993. Could easily see myself staying up all night back then and getting lost in it, but in 2024 it was real hard to go back to such controls and I just gave up. Last but not least, Stubbs the Zombie, which I do remember seeing from when it came out and liking its humor. Long story short, I spent a few hours having a great time with it and got sucked in, next thing I knew it was midnight. No workout then, rest for the big day tomorrow.   Saturday 18 May Woke up rather early, as I had to drive to a car shop in order to pick up some saddlebags for my dad's motorcycle. He got them off some guy on Facebook market or whatnot, he's an out of towner but was in town a few days back;couldn't meet based on our schedules so he left them there and I went to pick them up. Next up was a haircut appointment, I booked it weeks back to be fresh for my holiday but apparently they also want to do a little photoshoot of me on Monday for the company website, so it's nice timing. Since I was early for it too, I visited the nearby farmers' market to grab some veggies and buy a wok. After the haircut, I was supposed to drive to a carpet cleaner and drop off a carpet belonging to my ex's mom, delivered to me by accident couple of years ago while mine was taken to her house. Got delayed due to traffic tho, so I changed the course to line it up with my wrestling friends visiting the annual comics expo. We had a good time and I ran into some familiar faces for a nerd-out, but nothing at the actual expo really struck my fancy if I'm honest. After that I made it to the carpet cleaners just 20' after they'd closed, so I just took the L and drove back home. Having pushed the fast this far already, I also did my workout in a fasted state. 3x10 Bench Press 3x10 Pull Overs 3x10 Overhead Press 3x14 Biceps Curls 3x17 Skull Crushers 3x17 Rear Delt Flyes 3x17 Lat Raises 3x10 Front Squat 3x10 Romanian Deadlift 3x18 Calf Raises With that out of the way, I washed my brand new wok and put it to work, making chicken with a mix of peppers, plus soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, bit of honey, sesame and poppy seeds. Had it over cauliflower rice and it was great. It amazes me how the fasting doesn't feel like a struggle, how I'm not spent working out fasted and it even shut my appetite while eating lunch real quick. Hope those are signs of my insuline response sorting itself out. Oh and I should mention, remember that "losses undone" thing when I didn't pack lunch? That was 200gr I'd regained. This morning I was an entire kilogram down, so winning!   After lunch, I decided to prioritize personal cases and put some work in that I'm happy with. It's nothing grand, but it's a start, its progress and it's making me see it's not as terrible as it might feel when I think about it. Once I had enough of that, I did a bit of housework, had my shower and dinner, made more food to have handy (extra cheesy beans with lots of lamb sausage). It was late when I finished all that stuff and did my Duolingo, but I did sit to finish Stubbs the Zombie. Which I did, just before I came here to post this update. It is now past 1am, so I should probably head to bed.

I've had a weirdly quiet Saturday today and tomorrow is likely to be too - met a friend for brunch earlier and then spent the day at home emptying out under the stairs and sorting through it. Yes the 'death clearing'* continues - I put three things on Olio (a laptop bag, some of those mutliple-peg washing hangers, and a small bathroom bin) and they were all snaffled within a few hours. Love having things going to new homes for use when I don't need them any more! (Olio is a free neighbourhood sharing app) I was wfh yesterday and supposed to be trio-ing in the eve as one of the quartet is away, but another of them was ill so I ended up going to duet with the remaining quartet-er and her partner joined for some of the run-throughs. Was nice to hangout and chat as well as I hadn't really seen anyone in the day. Went to the fwb's after so was a late night, and then I stayed up even later on my phone for no reason, silly Silmarilliane. I did the run and darebee before work and walking at lunch. Got the hydrations and calories. Oo, and physio. Which I have not done yet today!   Yesterday: 🥗 10pts 🏃‍♀️ 10pts 🐝 5pts 🦵 5pts 🚶‍♀️ 10pts 💧 5pts 🤪 -10pts Total: 550pts   *my friend referred to his parents clearing his recently passed grandad's house as 'death clearing' and then said they'd started 'death clearing' their own stuff, not because they're planning on dying soon, but just in understanding that they will die at some point. And as I've been doing a bunch of 'sort through things' as part of my roadmap I immediately started thinking of it as death clearing

Yes, I found it very interesting for sure - and a show that I didn't get at all bored or mind-wandery in. I'll put the quirkiness/grossness:    

I am low on spoons for the full read but hope the tooth pain doesn't affect the anniversary plans too much 🤞

I knew I'd forget about this at the weekend as it's become part of my work-day-morning-routine. I'm very glad this is a thing I can do in my pyjamas!

I am a bit angry for you that it hasn't, because it is supposed to be a pleasant experience and a fun thing to do. Also, I fully blame this particular hair dresser for that, and I firmly believe that finding a good one, who is better at listening to you and better at doing color, will turn out much better.     Exactly.