#the most we do is about the 45 minutes of challenge log every week

[menphinaswhitemage]

The party approaches the end...The final land.... Eureka Hydatos.

Alt pose

[clearcals]

PCOS Diet Plan for Indians

TLDR

With our HINT app we make it easy to manage PCOS.

This pcos diet plan helps regularise your menstrual cycle, reduces insulin resistance and also helps in weight loss.

Get to know the do’s and don’ts and general diet tips which will help you in managing this condition

Here we also answer the most frequently asked questions related to PCOS.

Get Early Access

Contact us at support@clearcals.com or Whatsapp for early access and pricing details.

Overview

PCOS Diet Plan for Indians - Finding the right diet plan to manage PCOS can be challenging for Indian women.

There are so many different plans that, when you look at all their pros and cons, it's hard to choose. If you're looking for a personalized PCOS diet plan that is simple and effective, you have come to the right place.

Here are the details of a tailored diet plan designed by our specialists and backed by extensive research.

This is a balanced diet plan focusing on whole grains, low glycemic index foods, and an easy-to-follow seed cycling process. It will be personalized based on your dietary preferences, age, height, weight, and physical activity level.

Using the Hint app, You can get this personalized PCOS diet plan instantly within minutes. Just download the Hint app and subscribe to the plan.

Follow this diet plan for at least three months to reduce symptoms and prevent PCOS complications.

Email us at support@clearcals.com or Whatsapp us for more details.

Here are the key benefits, plan duration, and frequently asked questions

Key Benefits

Helps regularise your menstrual cycle.

Reduces insulin resistance.

Helps in weight loss.

Long-term use can reduce dependence on hormonal medications.

Plan Type

This is a monthly subscription plan. You can renew it every month, for three months, or once a year.

Diet type

Taking your dietary preferences into consideration we have the PCOS diet plan available in 3 different diet types, such as

1. Indian Vegetarian diet plan for PCOS

This is a vegetarian diet plan containing plant-based food sources, and dairy products.

2. Indian Non-vegetarian diet plan for PCOS

This plan includes non-vegetarian food sources such as meat, fish, seafood, and other animal products and dairy along with regular vegetarian foods.

3. Indian Ovo vegetarian diet plan for PCOS

This diet plan includes vegetarian food sources and eggs in various kinds of recipes. It excludes meat, fish, seafood, and other animal products.

Do’s

Follow the seed cycling process described in this diet plan. Seed cycling is a naturopathic remedy that aims to balance estrogen and progesterone levels.

You can follow seed cycling by eating flax and pumpkin seeds for the first two weeks, and sunflower and sesame seeds during the remaining two weeks.

Start your day with seed powder. Consuming such magnesium-rich seed powder helps regularize the menstrual cycle.

Indulge in regular physical activity early in the morning.

Have your pre-workout meal 15 minutes before starting your exercise.

Eat your breakfast within 30 minutes post your workout to refuel your body and replenish the energy stores.

Eat breakfast along with recommended side dishes such as chutneys, sambar, or boiled egg to make it a balanced meal.

Eat snacks between breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Drink buttermilk or lemon water along with your morning snacks.

Have Hibiscus tea along with your evening snack. It helps in balancing your hormones.

Always eat raw vegetable salad 10 to 15 minutes before a major meal. It provides satiety and helps you prevent overeating.

Avoiding large meals. So, follow the portion sizes included in your plan.

Finish your dinner before 9 pm.

Have your bedtime beverage at least 30 to 45 minutes before you sleep.

Try to sleep before 11 pm every day. This help prevents an increase in calorie intake that can happen when you are sleep-deprived.

Sleep for at least 7 to 8 hours daily.

Try logging your food every day as it helps in making healthy choices. Read our blog to learn more about the benefits of food tracking.

Use reminders on the Hint app to maintain regularity of meal timings.

Track your workouts regularly to understand your calorie burn.

Reduce stress by indulging in mindful exercises such as yoga, and deep breathing.

Pick some workout which you love like walking. Try to get at least 30 minutes of exercise a day.

Be mindful of what you are eating and eat without any distractions such as television.

Dont’s

Do not skip meals.

Avoid smoking and drinking.

Avoid deep-fried foods as they will add extra calories, carbs, and fat to your diet.

Avoid eating fatty cuts of meat and processed or frozen meat as they have high saturated fat. It will increase the risk of heart disease.

Avoid full-fat dairy products as it increases the risk of heart diseases.

Avoid foods fats that come from animal products and plant oils such as dalda, coconut oil, palm oil, lard, tallow, butter, margarine, and cheese.

Avoid aerated and caffeinated drinks such as Pepsi, Coke, Fanta, Diet Coke, and Soda.

Don’t drink coffee or tea more than twice a day.

Excess caffeine consumption leads to an imbalance in estrogen levels along with other hormones.

Avoid overeating vegetables like potatoes, sweet potato, yam, colocasia, arrowroot, and beetroot. They are high in glycemic index and could aggravate insulin resistance.

Avoid foods high in preservatives as they disrupt the hormonal balance.

[katierosefun]

author interview tag game

thank you for the tag, @pandora15! <3

Name: caroline

Fandoms: mostly the clone wars, but i also have some marvel stuff, and waaay back in the day, i wrote some doctor who and merlin stuff!

Where you post: primarily on ao3! i mostly just write on tumblr when i’m accepting prompts from like...ask games or something.

Most Popular Oneshot: real

Most Popular Multichap: to these memories (this fic only recently hit 1k kudos, and my heart?? w h a t)

Favorite Story You’ve Written: def. to these memories because a) longest fic i’ve ever written, and b) oh, the hours i logged into writing this fic, and c) oh, the outlining that went into this fic...i’m very proud of myself for completing the fic, and of course, i credit this to everyone who showed their lovely support for the story. :’)

Fic You Were Nervous to Post: uhhh definitely too far just because it’s...rather personal. i sometimes say that there’ll be a scene or two or just straight up a line or two that’s plucked out of my real life, and i think it’s inevitable for writers of any kind, including fic writers, to isolate their real lives completely from whatever they’re writing, and?? this fic is probably the most personal for me because of that. i remember kinda hem-hawwing about posting it, because i was like whoa, maybe this is a little too personal? but then i steeled myself and was like, “okay, well, would this have lifted my spirits when i needed a story like this??” and then decided to post it.

How you choose your titles: i def. toss and turn between titles! there’s a few fics of mine that are straight-up song lyrics (no surprise there), but to my surprise (as i was looking through my catalogue of fics just now), i realize that a lot of my fics are usually just words or two about what i think might have been extremely important to the story. (or captures the overall tone/theme of the story, anyways.)

Do you outline? for multi-chapter fics and relatively long one-shots with lots of moving parts, i’ll outline. but for shorter one-shots and prompts, i’ll usually just stick with the image that compelled me to write the prompt/one-shot in the first place! (and then kinda write around that.)

Complete: uhhhhh, i’m gonna answer relatively for all my clone wars fics, because in total, i have 74 completed fics. (make that...75, hopefully in a few minutes or hours!) but out of clone wars fics, i have 46 completed fics! (and again, hopefully 47 in a little while.) a part of me is lowkey hoping that i’ll get up to 100 total fics by the end of this year. a part of me highly doubts it, but given how much i was able to write over summer break, i’m...intruiged if i wind up somehow writing another twenty or so fics by the end of this year. (asfsf my wip list is long enough to fill in for another twenty fics. caroline finish all your wips challenge.)

In Progress: okay, so officially, time, wondrous time is in progress and online. but in terms of the works in progress on my laptop...i have...*mutters, counting* fourteen official wips. (ten of them are one-shots, and the other four are longform fics. one of them, i’m hoping to release next week (!!!), and another, i’m hoping to release hopefully around mid-december. uhhh so fingers crossed??)

Coming Soon/Not Yet Started: oops, i guess i kinda already answered that question, but eh, might as well! the one coming out next week (hopefully!! caroline get your shit together challenge!!) is titled most ardently, and it’s an obitine au based off pride & prejudice because i cannot and will not shut up about obitine being the period drama ship out of star wars okay--

and then the other longform fic that is very overdue is called getting lost in a big galaxy, which is a fix-it of sorts taking place after season 5. anakin’s gone missing, and obi-wan winds up going on a galaxy-ride road trip with ahsoka (who, remember, has left the order) to find their idiot. this is honestly my excuse to just write more obi-wan and ahsoka content. hopefully, that’ll be posted in december!! (despite the fact i...originally meant to post it in august oOps.)

and then there’s this other longform fic which...might be coming in early 2021 called red, underlined, which is essentially...uh. everyone’s a stressed out law-school student, and anakin might have accidentally murdered professor palpatine, and now anakin, obi-wan, ahsoka, padme, and rex are all trying to find out what the hell to do with themselves because they’re all in on it. (def. influenced by how to get away with murder except without the criminal justice professor to lead them through the ropes. so more chaos. kind of a dark comedy vibe, if anything else? anakin no is major theme in this one. uh, i mean, maybe anakin was justified in murdering creep palpatine because our gang’s gonna find out what was going on in the background, but either way! lots of “holy shit are we good people are we bad people what are we doing”. lots of questions about morality! ethics! law school student study nights with anakin sprawled out on the floor and obi-wan wearing glasses (which he pushes up the bridge of his nose whenever he’s about to lecture anakin that no, that’s not how that statute works, dumbass) and ahsoka just bringing snacks and rex catching paper airplanes and padme being the one to supply everyone with very neat flashcards. this fic is gonna be an absolute beheamoth, and i’m estimating about 45 chapters? like...130K+ words? help? yeah idk either this really blew up in my head

and then...this stupid, wonderful, boring, amazing job, which is...office x tcw au. only not? it’s very, very loosely based off the office, but not really. obi-wan moves in as a new manager of a company, and we’ve got anakin being like “lol new guy i’m gonna mess with him”, and ahsoka being the one who’s both like “please don’t mess with our new boss” but also being like “actually, wait, lemme help”, rex being in hr and being like “i don’t get paid enough for this”. (also there’s some parts that are written like actual interviews like you would find in the office, so there’s this one bit where uhhh

Obi-Wan flicks his eyes to the cameras in silent question before turning back to Ahsoka. “Well, if you need to call maintenance, then I hardly think you need my permission—”

“Thanks!” Ahsoka says quickly, and she’s about to disappear from the doorway when Obi-Wan stands up.

“Wait, Ahsoka, what exactly—”

Ahsoka re-appears at the doorway. “Oh, right,” she says. “Um—maybe just stay away from the men’s bathroom for a little bit.” She pauses.

“Actually, just stay away from them for the rest of the day.” She hovers by the door for a minute longer, and then she adds quickly, “And maybe also avoid the breakroom. Everything’s fine!”

And with a perfectly not-fine smile, Ahsoka disappears from the doorway.

Obi-Wan stares at where Ahsoka was just a moment ago, and the he turns to the cameras in disbelief. “Did she just—” Unable to finish his own sentence, Obi-Wan starts out the door. “Ahsoka?”

The camera follows Obi-Wan out of the conference room and into the breakroom. There are only muffled shouts—Anakin’s shouts, and then Rex’s, and then Ahsoka’s frantic “no, sorry, everything’s fine!”, and then Obi-Wan’s loud, “What is going on in here?”

surprise y’all just got a snippet i’m sorry can you tell i’m weirdly into this au?? i need to rewrite some scenes but uh there you go

Prompts: for the most part, yes! i have some stuff in my faq about prompts that i’ll probably turn down (mostly anything that’s...above a certain rating/really, realy heavy themes that i just don’t think i can tackle with justice or with enough education on my end). i can be a little slow with prompts, but i’ll get to all of them in time!

Upcoming Work You’re Most Excited About: uhhhh i have too many that i’m excited about. literally i can write a mini essay on every single one of the fics i’m working on? but uhhh i guess since i already talked about all my major longform fics above (asdfasdfsd didn’t mean to do that, i’m so sorry for everyone who had to scroll past that word-vomit), i guess the one i’m most excited about releasing is the post season 7 obi-wan-and-ahsoka-finally-talk-about-how-they-miss-each-other-also-sorry-for-fighting-with-you-i-know-you-were-just-trying-your-best fic. (not a whole ton of spoilers for this one, but uh. i’m looking at some of these scenes and making frustrated sounds because there’s this one particular instance where i’m like, ahsoka. ahsoka just talk to him just ta lk to him but then lol no talking :)) also maybe some h/c? lowkey sickfic might be involved in this somehow? might have accidentally served as a precursor to to these memories? help? this fic just ballooned. caroline keep your ideas contained challenge!)

No Pressure Tags: @lightasthesun @soplantyourownflowers @ohhellokenobiand anyone else who wants to join!

[nooooooooooooooooooooone]

50 questions tag game

@slytherinoftarth Yay, thanks for the tag :)

What is the colour of your hairbrush? I don’t brush my hair (it’s super curly, so to brush is instant death), but my wide-toothed comb is light blue

Name a food you never eat: oysters bleurgh

Are you typically too warm or too cold? Hmmm well I don’t mind being a bit cold but I hate being too warm so I’m gonna go with too warm

What were you doing 45 minutes ago? Helping my mum full-screen a livestreamed church service from Geneva bc she is technically challenged

What's your favourite candy bar? ooooh I love those old raspberry choc logs

Have you ever been to a professional sports game? Maybe three times? Once to the cricket and twice to rugby (World Cup games)

What was the last thing you said out loud? “*GASP* HELLO MR POODLE” which is just an embarrassing thing i say to my dog when I want to get his attention. it’s not even his name lol

What is your favourite ice cream? Gonna go with cookies and cream or anything cheesecakey

What was the last thing you had to drink? Waterrrr

Do you like your wallet? I mean it’s tiny and it’s falling to bits and it doesn’t latch properly any more but we’ve been through a lot the two of us

What was the last thing you ate? Weet-Bix with milk (which totally gives away my nationality)

Did you buy any new clothes last weekend? During lockdown i’ve literally been wearing the same three raggedy old outfits on rotation, so... no

What's the last sporting event you watched? Probably when I had to live-caption the tennis for work. Can’t even remember which comp it was

What is your favourite flavour of popcorn? not a connoisseur, but so long as it’s plenty salty and kinda buttery I’m happy

Who is the last person you sent a text message to? One of my best mates from uni

Ever go camping? We used to go ALL THE TIME as kids, up until I was like 14. Those are some of my best memories

Do you take vitamins? Nooope

Do you go to church every Sunday? My parents do, but I haven’t for ages

Do you have a tan? Hhahahahahahahahaha. no.

Do you prefer Chinese food or pizza? PIZZA

Do you drink your soda through a straw? Not usually

What colour socks do you usually wear? depends how much my shoes reveal. If you can see them, black or white. If you can’t, it’s literally anyone’s guess

Do you ever drive above the speed limit? *whispers very quickly* istilldon’thavemylicence

What terrifies you? Yikes. Many things, but a massive one is disappointing people

Look to your left. What do you see? Two loaded clothes horses and lots of paintings

What chore do you hate most? Vacuuming and mopping because I get obsessive about it and that makes me anxious

What do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? Our neighbours across the ditch, mate. Also Steve Irwin. Also my Voice tutor from drama school

What's your favourite soda? Pepsi Max

Do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive-thru? I just go in, when I go, which is infrequently

What's your favourite number? I don’t know if I have one. If I did, I think it would be nine

Who's the last person you talked to? My motherrrr

Favourite cut of beef? not a massive fan of beef tbh

Last song you listened to? some romantic-era piano piece I can’t remember the name of for the life of me

Last book you read? Still Fire and Blood. I started The Silmarillion but got distracted, gotta pick it back up

Favourite day of the week? I don’t really have one. Maybe Saturday

Can you say the alphabet backwards? I’ve never tried, so probably no

How do you like your coffee? with a small amount of milk and an obscene amount of sweetener don’t judge me

Favourite pair of shoes? shoes make me nervous because my feet are too big and I have no sense of fashion, but the shoes i’m most attached to are an old second-hand pair of stage shoes that I wore as Susan in The Marriage of Figaro. The heels have worn off now, but they were clacky and fun and I got to wear long white socks, a skirt and a corset with them. I’ve never laughed so hard as I did rehearsing that show

Time you normally get up? Depends on my shift, so anywhere between 5 and midday usually

Sunrises or sunsets? Sunsets.

How many blankets are on your bed? Two - one woollen, one faux mink

Describe your kitchen plates. Ye olde willow pattern

Describe your kitchen at the moment. looking pretty respectable tbh

Do you have a favourite alcoholic drink? when you say ‘favourite’...? I mean my go-to is vodka, but also I’ve had so many baaaaad experiences that the smell makes me feel physically ill

Do you play cards? hahaha no I suck at cards. I even suck at Snap

What colour is your car? um well my family car is silver-grey

Do you know how to change a tire? From American to British spelling, you mean? Of course! tire = tyre. (otherwise..........no)

Your favourite state? We lived in America for nearly four months when I was nine, and we sort of roved around the western states, visiting all the national parks - I don’t wanna pick, they were all so beautiful. But we mainly stayed in Utah

Favourite job you've had? The one I have now is good. I write captions for TV

How did you get your biggest scar? (@slytherinoftarth duuuuuuude I have dermatillomania too, what a shitshow) Not a cheerful answer, but self-harm

tagging @wildlingoftarth @resthefuture (or anyone!!!)

[dschribe]

What Would Jake Do?

I taped a photocopy of Jake’s latest press photo to the cinder block wall above my desk, and on it I wrote with a Sharpie in all caps, HERO.

If I looked over my shoulder, I could see the real Jake, across the hall, past the copier, though the open door to his office, beyond his assistant Joan’s desk, seated in profile on the couch he used as a desk chair, leaning over paperwork on the giant coffee table he used as a desk.

Sometimes he, JBC, would say, “DPS, you got a minute?”

I’d go across the hall to discuss a piece of copy, some item of marketing, or be handed a 5 x 7” index card with some notes on it, written in Sharpie, which is where I got the habit. (I once called his handwriting “angst-ridden” and he said immediately, “That’s not angst, it’s Sharpie.”)

I was a week out of college, a college I never once went to on a Thursday, because a midweek season’s pass to Stratton Mountain was way cheaper than the one for the weekends. Plus I had a growing skateboard and snowboard retail business I needed to tend to.

Burton, just a couple of hours up the road from me, was my biggest supplier and, I thought, likely the only one that would still be in business in ten years. So it was there, in my senior year, I sent the one and only unsolicited resume in my life. Nobody called for months.

About six weeks before I graduated, I was having the greatest game of my life on the Funhouse pinball machine outside my shop. The vendor who collected money from the games let me paint my quarters red. He’d fish them out and give them back to me, so long as I didn’t block paying customers. I got real good at that game; the phone rang about 45 times before I lost the ball.

The Burton HR woman scolded me for letting the phone ring so many times during business hours, but then told me that Burton folks wanted an interview. I thought I could hear an eye roll. But I scheduled a time, and a couple of weeks later I drove up to meet with Dennis Jenson, the head of marketing. A couple of more weeks went by. Then I got the callback to meet Jake.

I’d seen Jake a few times but never spoken to him. Although the sport was still small, we all looked up to him. He was older than all of us. Killing time in the UMass library I had stumbled across an issue of Time Magazine with a cover story called “Twenty Something.” It was about my generation. I didn’t realize I even had one until I read it. (It would be a little longer before they called us Generation X.) Our generation wasn’t supposed to have heroes, but we had Jake. And maybe Time had it all wrong; three years earlier they had called snowboarding "the worst new sport."

On the drive up to the Burton headquarters for my interview, I grew increasingly nervous about the meeting. When I got close, I pulled over in a panic and paced around the outside of my car. I contemplated turning around. Leaving my hometown of ten years, my friends, my business behind: it was all terrifying. It was also terrifying to go meet my hero. They say you never should.

I had a portfolio of my work—photos and press coverage of my shop, the skateboard and snowboard demos we held, and our skateboard camps. I had the letter that proved I had been the one to get “snowboards” as an entry into the Yellow Pages. I had the work I did to help get the word “snowboard" literally into the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, via my lexicography teacher. And there was a photo of a gang of kids, all mid-ollie, from skate camp.

The first time I taught anyone to ollie was the night before a skateboard contest I held to raise money to open my shop. As they signed up, the kids saw me building the ramps in the roller rink where it was going to be held, and demanded they get to skate them before the big day. Late evenings after the rink closed, we built and skated on the ramps. When any kid asked for help, I showed them what little I knew, and I knew enough to ollie.

One kid had been trying all week but not getting it. He told me it was impossible for him to learn it. I put out a scrap of 2x4 lumber. I pointed out that it wasn’t even that high; it was 1.5” x 3.5”. A few pointers and attempts later, and he cleared it. We high five-ed and I went back to my amateur ramp carpentry.

The contests was a success. The clear winner, who everyone knew would take the prize, snapped his board in half in the middle of his run. Nearly every kid in the place shoved their own board out onto the course so he could keep going. I started to see this wasn’t at all about competition. This became more clear to me as the kids were leaving: they all thanked me. That one kid I taught to ollie told me it was greatest week of his life. He was so genuine. The feeling of getting a kid to believe he could do something he thought he couldn’t do, changed me.

It took me a long time before I could see it, but ever after my life became a pursuit of trying to help people see that what seemed impossible for them, was possible, including levitating a wooden board with wheels off the ground. Snowboarding seemed just as impossible when I tried to learn it. Then it clicked and it was like walking on water. I sold snowboards knowing everyone who learned would be likewise transformed.

As I debated turning back from my interview, I flipped through the portfolio on the hood of my car. I studied the photos of skate camp, and thought about how snowboarding was starting to change how those kids saw the mountains and themselves. I had to go see Jake.

In the interview, he let me do most of the talking, and I went through my portfolio. Then I told him the story of teaching kids to ollie, of teaching a community to skateboard, and how snowboarding felt like the next step—maybe to teach a generation to ride.

He said, "Well in that way we’re a lot alike. That was a hell of a pitch. You should work in marketing.” I got the job, and with it, started a career I never imagined: in marketing.

I went to my graduation ceremony, car packed with all my possessions, then drove to Vermont that night.

My marketing coordinator job, as one of four people in the Burton marketing department, required writing a lot of copy. My first meeting with Jake was to write a press release about him, as we had no stock bio to give the media. In the process, I got to spend hours with him, hearing his whole story, and I hadn’t even gotten my first paycheck yet.

I came back to Jake a few days later with the piece. I titled it “Everyone Calls Him Jake.” I had no idea what the process would be when I handed it to him. He pulled out his Sharpie and started writing notes on it as he read. For the most part, it remained intact—but what he marked up was an impressive collection of notes on grammar, style, and narrative voice. He cared about the words. I had found a great editor.

He said, “This sounds like someone who went to college wrote it.”

I said, “Yeah, let’s not underestimate our riders’ intelligence.”

He nodded in agreement and kept reading.

In the opening paragraph I referred to Jake as the “patron saint of snowboarding.” He said he was’t sure if he was cool with the title. I explained to him that any other way to say it—inventor, pioneer, sponsor, champion, mogul—either wasn't accurate or would alienate core riders who didn’t want an authority figure in their sport. He finally put his pen down and said, “Okay, leave it.”

My writing continued that summer, on catalogs, hang tags, in store displays, and instruction manuals. There was a new snowboard binding, adjustable to over 2 million positions on a snowboard, that needed a lot of explanation. I wrote a lengthy manual for it and then the description for the catalog. Deep inside, I hid a little challenge: if anyone could show the math behind the stance options, they would get a prize.

The writing continued into the summer, but there were other projects, too, like making a video of all our riders. Jake came by the studio one night to see what we’d put together, a film I called, “Push.” He said he didn’t like the title, but as I did when we were writing copy together, I challenged him on it. The name stayed.

About a week later he came over to my desk and handed me a beanie that said “Push” on it, and told me he found it at one of our retailers he’d visited. “It’s to remind you not to push so hard for your ideas. Try to listen little more,” he said. “Oh and if you’re ever in one of our retailers, buy something. Those guys need our support. Even just a hat like this.”

I lived by both pieces of advice ever after.

With all the work, I’d forgotten about the math contest until five envelopes showed up one day in my mailbox. I had five winners. I needed to get them a prize.

Another of my projects that summer was to deliver a sign for Burton retailers, made out of a cross-section of a log. It was being produced by a sign maker down the street named H. G. Wells, as in Homer G. Wells. His ability to tell stories lived up to his literary name, and his business was called Sign Language. As a punning, snowboarding, English nerd, I spent a lot of time hanging out with Homer G. Wells while he worked. Each log slab had a metal inlay of Burton’s newest logo, dubbed the "B-13.” The B-13 came from the design team led my Michael Jager, whose agency JDK was a little further down the road from Homer. I hung out there a lot that summer, too, watching them make ads and design snowboard graphics.

With all these creative people around, I wanted to make things, too. Homer had a drawer full of experiments and spare parts for various Burton items he’d been prototyping. In it I found a few examples of the coveted “Air Disk” medallions that the pro riders had been seen wearing around their necks the past winter. He gave one to me. He also had a little brass cube of metal with a backwards B-13 on it. He told me he was working on a branding iron but he decided to use a different metal. He gave me that too.

I wore the Air Disk around my neck, but after watching Homer make a few more log signs, I had an Idea. I would make my own miniature version, one that I could wear like an Air Disk. I burned a B-13 into a little slice of a branch by putting the brass cube on a hot plate. Homer made me a rubber stamp with "Burton Snowboards" in a circle that fit around it so it looked like its big brother. With a screw eye and piece of twine, I made myself next year’s model of the Air Disk necklace. I felt like I was a Burton team rider.

Years before, I first met Burton team riders who worked at one of the country’s first snowboard schools at Stratton Mountain. When I discovered snowboarding and started selling boards in my shop, one of the kids who worked at the roller rink next door bought one. As a starving computer science student, I did not have a car, but he had access to his dad’s, so for a discount on the board he drove us to Stratton to take our first lesson.

We both struggled while our instructor, pro snowboarder Suzie Rueck, tried to get us to adopt the counter-intuitive stance that makes snowboarding possible.

When I finally got the hang of it and I could make turns, leaving Jeff behind, Suzie said to him, “Wow, your friend must be quite an athlete.”

“He’s not an athlete,” Jeff said, with a sneer, “He’s a fucking mathematician.”

Back at college, I eventually switched from Computer Science to English, but my respect for math continued. My Burton math winners deserved a great prize, so I made five more of my log necklaces, and dropped them into the mail bin.

The next day there were 50 right answers. The day after a couple hundred showed up. In all, the pile got to over a thousand, yet I was hellbent to make them all a log necklace.

The wood for Homer’s full-sized sign was from downed elm, found on the forest floor and full of worm holes. (Our discriminating Japanese distributor would reject their shipment of them because the inferior wood showed insect damage.) Likewise I wanted deadwood for my miniatures, so I had to scrounge fallen branches from the woods across the street from Burton during lunch. After work I hand-sawed disks into the night. I had the hot plate running with the branding-cube, the rubber stamp inked up, and the eyes and the twine set out—in the foyer between the two doors at the entrance to our building, where the light was good and I could reach an outlet with the hot plate’s cord.

The last person out that night happened to be Jake, who stopped to ask me what the hell I was doing. I explained the situation and he said to follow him, he'd show me a better way. He helped me carry my supplies out back to the now-empty snowboard factory, turning lights on as we went. He powered up the dust vacuum and showed me how to use the same radial-arm saw that cut wooden snowboard cores to length. He set up a production line with all my supplies, clamping things in place so I wouldn’t have to pick them up and put them down repeatedly. He explained how, in the beginning days of Burton, he’d gotten in over his head more than once on snowboard production; he had learned the hard way how to manufacture a product in quantity.

Once I was up and running, he handed the operation over to me. Before he left he said, “Two things. One, you know you don’t have to do this all by yourself. We’re all here to help. Two, I thought with all this college-level copy we’ve been writing, you’d know not to fucking underestimate the mathematical intelligence of snowboarders.” And he laughed.

Then he handed me a key, “Lock up when you’re done.”

I said I would leave the key on his desk.

He said, “Keep it. Now that you know how to use the factory, you might as well have a key to it.” And he left.

Just a few months after college, I was a professional writer, a marketer, and someone with the key to the building. But it was even bigger than that: I was trusted—trusted to be the voice of Burton, the messenger of the sport, and the night foreman of the greatest snowboard factory ever.

As the voice of Burton, I’d work with Jake to write everything from letters to our senators about what a snowboard boot was (for some tariff legislation, which I learned needed to be address to the “The Honorable Senator Patrick Leahy") to re-writing the mountain resorts’ “Skiers Code” to be inclusive of snowboarders. Some of the stuff I wrote would get faxed to our distributors around the world to get translated.

One time I wrote an unfortunate press release that made fun of one of our distributor's cultures. I left it as a joke for Jake. The next day his assistant Joan came across the hall to hand me the fax receipt that confirmed she’d gone ahead and saved me the step of faxing it to the distributor myself. I was mortified. Then Jake came in laughing and said, “Don’t make fun of other countries. We’re a global company. And besides, that kind of shit is just not funny.”

I’d write really long emails and Jake would print them out and hand them back to me with, “Just tell me what you want,” written in Sharpie.

One all-company meeting I wrote some notes for him on an index card, suggesting a few talking points based on what I’d been hearing in the halls. He handed it back to me after he spoke with Sharpie written over it, “Who’s running this company God dammit?” I saved that one; it always makes me laugh.

As a messenger, I had to represent snowboarding to the industry, the press, the resorts, the United States Olympic Committee, anyone who might help (or get in the way of) snowboarding’s growth. I also had to represent Burton to the pro riders, who Jake would remind me, I had to listen to.

“If you were good enough to decide what’s right in snowboarding, you’d be riding, not sitting at that desk. Plus the riders have two ways of being right. First, they should know, they ride more. Second, if they’re off, they’ll set a new direction and call it right."

When he made me head of marketing, he told the company that I was always brutally honest about how I felt about the direction of the company, and that he didn’t want that to change. He let me know that my views from behind a desk counted too.

As unofficial night foreman of the factory, I always had projects going. We built skate ramps, buried a time capsule, and pulled all-nighters collating press kits. I designed and helped build trade show booths in a corner of the warehouse before packing them into crates and shipping them to Las Vegas, San Diego, Montreal, and Tokyo. I made a sign that said, “My Boss is a Protestant Carpenter,” and someone came up with the idea of bracelets that said “W.W.J.D.”—What Would Jake Do. Some nights I'd skateboard around the factory with my friend Andy, the PA system blaring music from a telephone dialed into it, duct taped to the speaker of a boom box.

It was in the factory, at another all-employee meeting almost ten years later, when my title was president, that Jake said he trusted me implicitly as the conscience of the company. Standing there, I still had that key in my pocket, and a million lessons from Jake in my head. One of them: by all means, do meet your heroes.

Jake passed away 27 years after I first started working for him—when I was 27. So half my life, his words have been with me. He and the people he assembled at Burton gave me a home, a career, and I hope, an open mind. They gave me a platform to help teach generations to snowboard, along with the humility to step off of it and just listen. My experience with Burton led to a job at another company where I could help teach a world that if you have a body, you are an athlete.

They say when you die, you can’t take it with you. Another way of looking at it is that when you die, you get to leave all of you behind. Losing Jake, for me, is being left with everything he had to give. I don’t feel loss, just the unspeakable pain of permanently indebted gratitude.

The day he got the news, The Honorable Senator Patrick Leahy, still in office, tweeted of Jake, “He was the soul and patron saint of snowboarding, and a beloved Vermonter whose vision has had worldwide reach.”

It makes me so proud: the title Jake accepted in 1992 in my first week, something I was able to give to him. I am grateful I was invited there to push for it.

[time-to-be-awesome]

A day in the life of Amy

Thursday 14th May 2020

Note - I know this is very long and I hope it doesn’t come across as self-obsessed. I was inspired by the Refinery29 Money Diaries which I find fascinating. I love getting a real insight into other people’s lives so maybe other people will find this interesting? Even if they don’t I know I’ll be glad to have this snapshot of this time in my life to look back on later.

I am 28 years old and live in Yorkshire, England. I live on my own in a rented 1 bedroom flat. I am a mental health social worker but have been working from home during lockdown. I am currently trying to lose weight and get fitter. This is a day in my life.

7:30am Alarm goes off. I spend a couple of minutes checking the BBC coronavirus morning update whilst I wake up. Have a big glass of chilled water and take my tablets for my underactive thyroid. I get dressed into workout leggings and a baggy t-shirt, put on a hoody and a light coat. I make a coffee in my travel mug.

8:00am I set off on my morning walk. The rules were changed this week so I can now exercise outside for an unlimited amount of time, whereas I was previously having to stick to once a day for about an hour. I am very lucky to live close to a big area of interconnected woods and fields that are public access. People have been painting stones and leaving them along the side of the footpaths. There are new ones almost every day, and other people move them to make it a sort of treasure hunt. There isn’t a cloud in the sky and I feel my spirits lift immediately as I walk in the sun and drink my coffee. I listen to the birdsong and as I get to a remote patch of brambles I walk very slowly and quietly. I’m rewarded with the sight of 12 wild rabbits grazing and hopping about before they inevitably spot me and scurry away.

8:50am I get back home. I tracked the walk on the Mapmywalk app and it tells me I burnt 258 calories, but the main benefit is getting the fresh air and a positive start to my day. I make my regular breakfast – one protein weatabix with milk, low-fat greek yoghurt, a chopped banana, mixed berries, and a sprinkle of a seed mix.

9:00am I set up my work laptop on my dining table and log in. I finish eating my breakfast whilst going through my emails and making a to-do list for the day. My first task is to write up a review that I did recently with a service user. It was a very positive review, they have been building their independence and can now manage their daily life with much less involvement from carers. I phoned the care agency to check their rates and then update the support plan with the new lower weekly cost. I call the service user to let them know that the change has been made and we agree that it is time for me to end my involvement. I spend the rest of the morning writing a closing summary of all the case work I have done with them since I was allocated a year ago.

12:15pm I’m already in my workout clothes so I get out my exercise mat and use my lunch break to complete day 2 of Chloe Ting’s Summer Shred Challenge. Today there are four videos including the warm up and cool down and it takes me an hour in total. I mostly do the modified versions but even following the video I can’t begin to fathom how to do a side plank hip abduction! I take sips of water throughout and by the time I’ve finished I’ve drunk two pints. I don’t have a fitness tracker so I don’t track the calories burnt by these workouts.

1:15pm Lunch break is technically over, but working from home has to have some perks and I think a bit of flexibility on working hours is one of those. I have a quick shower and get changed into my ‘day’ leggings and baggy t-shirt. I don’t have to do any video calls so there’s no need to look professional and its comfort all the way. I make my lunch – cut up veggies with hummus, some rice crackers and a triangle of cheese. I’ve very hungry by now so eat quite quickly. Not satisfied so I also have a packet of sweet chilli multigrain wave crisps and a glass of diet cloudy lemonade.

1:35pm I log back on to my laptop. Unfortunately three of my service users have passed away from Covid-19 in the past few weeks so I email the team admin so the records can be updated with their date of death. I had spent a lot of one to one time with one of the gentleman and I feel upset and guilty that he passed away after moving to a care home that I had helped organise. I ring his son to offer my condolences and share a happy memory of the gentleman.

2:00pm I phone a placement to follow up a safeguarding referral. A service user was given an extra dose of medication, but it didn’t have any negative effect and the managers have discussed it with the staff member responsible. Determined that no further action was needed. Discussed how the placement was going in general and there were no other issues and no further role for me. I’d been due to close the case anyway so I wrote up another closing summary.

3:30pm I decide I need a snack, partly because I’m hungry but also because I want a bit of a break. I’ve been using up the food I had in the house so I don’t have many options and go for two digestive biscuits. I start typing up a mental capacity assessment that I completed over the phone. The service user in question isn’t able to make the decision themselves whether they should have home care or not. Part of the job is making the decision of what is in the person’s best interest and they don’t always agree with that. This has caused a lot of issues for this person in the past and I’m not feeling very optimistic about their situation.

4:30pm My concentration has gone out the window. I start thinking about what I’ll make for dinner. I usually make a batch of something on a Monday that’s enough for 4 or 5 portions and I just have to heat it up, but I’ve already run out of my last batch cook. I have most of the ingredients for a bean pot so make a shopping list of the other things I’ll need.

5:00pm I log off from my work laptop, switch my leggings for jeans, and head out for another walk. I want to put some space between my work day and my free time. Whilst I’m walking I phone my mum and we have a good 45 minute catch up. She hadn’t been feeling very well and said talking to me really cheered her up so I’m glad I did.

5:45pm I go to the supermarket on the way home. My closest store is a Lidl and it’s generally pretty well stocked now that everyone has stopped panic buying. I get the ingredients I need, as well as some bits for breakfasts and lunches, and I impulse bought a house plant. Total spend was £22.37. When I get back home the Mapmywalk app tells me that I burnt 338 calories.

7:00pm I put the shopping away and sat down for a second and suddenly it’s 7. I start making the bean pot following a random recipe I found online. Don’t realise until it’s too late that it calls for 50 minutes of simmering time, but that is a fairly typical move for me. Whilst I’m waiting I put some laundry away and have a general tidy up.

9:00pm Dinner is finally ready! I created it as a recipe on Myfitnesspal and it came out as 700 calories per portion. In total today I’ve eaten 1551 calories and burnt 596 through exercise. I eat my dinner whilst watching Lucy Wood’s latest youtube video. Her videos honestly feel like catching up with a friend, even if that does make me sound like an internet weirdo!

9:30pm I put on an ASMR video from TingTing ASMR. The soft whispering and trigger sounds are very relaxing and the best ones make my scalp tingle. I’d jotted down some notes about my day as I went along so I make them into this post. If I hadn’t spent so long making dinner I probably would have watched a Disney film. I’m watching the Disney Classics in order and the next one will be Sleeping Beauty.

10:30pm I’m going to put this post on tumblr then put my laptop and phone away so I don’t get too distracted. I’ll read for about 30 minutes, my current book is ‘Once upon a river’ by Dianne Setterfield. I usually end up going to sleep 11- 11:30pm, ready to do it all again tomorrow!

[ianmatteson-blog]

The best apps for actually sticking to your fitness goals

The Best Fitness Apps for 2020

On the off chance that one of your objectives this year is to up your fitness game, these nonjudgmental fitness apps will bolster you (not disgrace you) to assist you with accomplishing your exercise objectives in 2019. On the off chance that you haven't yet utilized apps to help your exercise, fitness apps are turning into the new typical. Truth be told, the Worldwide Survey of Fitness Trends for 2019 noticed that apps have climbed 15 spots on the fitness pattern stepping stool. While there are a lot of free fitness apps, even the membership based apps offer direction for a small amount of the expense of setting off to the rec center, and they permit you to turn out without anyone else time and set your very own tone.

PACT 

Want to make a buck from your workout? It’s easy and fun with this free app. Set your fitness or nutrition goals and when you fulfill the pact for a week, you’ll legit get paid—from other app users who didn’t stick to their promises. On the flip side, if you skip out on your healthy goals, you’ll have to dish out some dollars. If the prospect of paying up isn’t motivation enough to get to the gym, we don’t know what is.

Get it: iOS; Android

Cody

It is an app which is like the Facebook for fitness. It offers inside connections to the fitness community. Access to the such a community allows you to share workouts and fitness ideas. It also allows you to complete the exercises by following old and new friends. You can track your progress by looking at the timeline. Other users can also comment on the daily exercise activities. It is available for iOS devices and costs nothing.

Myzone

If you’ve been to one of our clubs, you know how passionate we are about our MYZONE Heart Rate Monitors. MYZONE is the most accurate and versatile wearable technology available – allowing you to track your progress in real time and push yourself to new heights. You can purchase the MYZONE belt through the website and trust me, it’s worth every penny! Download the MYZONE app to view your progress during or after your workouts, save your favorites with a name or photo, or track your friends and send them some extra motivation.

8 fit

8fit brings together on-demand workouts and meal planning. The app creates a personalized program for your diet and exercise based on the results you want to see. It's for people who like a lot of guidance, suggestions, reminders, and instructions. You choose a goal, whether it be to lose weight, get fitter, or gain muscle. Then you make your goal more specific, such as decrease body fat to 20 percent in three months. 8fit takes into consideration a lot of details about you when creating your fitness plan, such as what time of day you exercise and whether you're an ambitious cook or prefer simple meal prep. You'll see a realistic assessment of how hard or easy it will be to reach your goals. Once you embark on your fitness journey, you use the app to workout from videos, log what you eat, and create meal plans using recipes and shopping lists. It's an all-in-one fitness plan that you can customize to your tastes.

Nike Run Club

If you want to start running, there are several Couch-to-5K apps and podcasts you can harness. But I've always had a soft spot for Nike's Run Club, which works both as a coach for new runners and as a way of competing with friends. If you're starting out, you can begin with a series of guided runs, with audio coaching from Nike staffers. Once you've gained a little confidence, you can move on to more advanced workouts, like trail and endurance runs.

The app will even set you up with a dedicated coaching program that lets you program the quantity and duration of your running. If you're supremely unfit, you can begin with 10-minute runs with rest days in between, and then gradually build up to something longer.

Besides creating a schedule, though, you'll also need something to spur you on when you're not feeling your best. This is why Nike Run Club has a social component that lets you compete with your friends. You can set challenges and see how well your friends are doing or join one of the brand's global challenges, like attempting to run 50 kilometers in a month. Best of all, while there are options to buy Nike gear within the app, there's no obligation to own a pair of Phil Knight's kicks before you start using it.

Zombies Run

If you never miss an episode of The Walking Dead, and you have a goal to train for a 5K, the Zombies, Run! app was made for you. This is an app that turns running into a game so you can forget the fact that you're working out. I mean, who has time for dreading their workout when they're busy running away from zombies!? "Only a few have survived the zombie epidemic. You are a Runner en-route to one of humanity’s last remaining outposts," the app's website explained. "Walk, jog ,or run anywhere in the world. Hear your mission and music through your headphones.If you’re chased by zombies, you’ll have to speed up! You’ll automatically collect supplies to build up

Lark

Think of this free app as a friendly health coach in your pocket. It checks in with you throughout the day via text—asking questions about your activity and meals and nudging you to make healthier choices—to help hold you accountable. The company says people who chat with Lark for just a few minutes a day improve their healthy habits by 23 percent.

Hot5 Fitness

It offers high-quality workouts that are led by the best trainers. The exercises are offered step by step so that the users can easily follow them. There are so many exercises like yoga, abs, core, flexibility and everything in between in this app. There is an extensive range of five-minute video workouts in this app. There are also 45-minute long yoga videos as well. The app is very simple to use, and its interface is user-friendly. The limited use of the app is free. To get unlimited access, you will have to pay, but it is not very expensive.

fitnessRUNKEEPER

Runkeeper is a GPS fitness-tracking app for iOS and Android with over 50 million users. “Go for a run, walk, hike, or any activity really! You’ll get a clear view of your training in real time with our fitness tracker app that not only tracks activity but encourages you to get active more often. Have a race, weight, or pace in mind? Whether you’re working towards a 5K or training for a marathon, the Runkeeper running app will help you stay motivated

STRAVA RUNNING AND CYCLING GPS

If you’re a runner or cyclist, get your hands on this free app to track all your endurance data. It’ll upload your stats from every outing, via your phone or GPS watch, and let you analyze your progress. Consider yourself competitive? Use Strava to look at the performances of others who’ve biked or run the same course you’re about to cover and try to one-up them. Or just check out your previous bests and try to improve on your distance or pace.

[kianraidelcam]

Written for @whumptopia‘s 30 Day RoboWhump Challenge! Thanks to @anonymous-idfk for the idea behind today’s prompt, “Glitching.” Full fic under the cut!

The first incident lasts 15 seconds.

Connor had been coaching Markus through negotiation tactics in light of their recent invitation to Washington D.C. when he freezes mid-sentence. His LED turns a solid crimson with no warning, his fingers tapping against his legs with no rhythm or purpose. His mouth slightly open and gaze blank, the RK800 suddenly becomes unresponsive to the world around him.

He doesn’t hear Markus calling his name.

He doesn’t feel Markus’ hand on his shoulder.

He doesn’t notice when Markus tries to interface with him, only to be met with an error message.

He only notices that Markus is suddenly very close to him with a pressure on his shoulder, and the sentence he was continuing trails off, blinking once at the sudden change. “Markus?”

“Connor, are you okay,” the deviant leader's face is awash with concern that wasn't there a moment ago.

He's shaking his head, because of course he is, why wouldn't he be? He voices as much, and the concern transforms to disbelief, eyebrows furrowing. A quick scan tells Connor that Markus’ stress levels have jumped by 5% at his words, bringing it to a solid 20%. The RK200 was the leader of an entire, new intelligent species, navigating in a world where there was no solid precedent for their situation. His stress levels constantly fluctuated between 20% and 30% as a result. However, this week had been calm, and a sudden jump was near inexplicable. Had he received a message that Connor hadn’t? Had a glitch in Markus’ systems occurred?

“You were completely unresponsive for 15 seconds, Connor. Your LED was red and I couldn't connect with you.”

It's Connor's turn to be filled with disbelief. That wasn't right, all of his systems were nominal and his self-diagnostic last night proved it. Then again, he couldn't recall when Markus had gotten so close. He glances at the hand on his shoulder, which the older android suddenly pulls off, almost self-consciously.

He blinks as he runs another diagnostic and checks his internal clock, reading through the results. Everything came back normal, just as it had last night, but his internal clock confirms Markus’ claim. “I...was offline for 15 seconds?”

Markus nods slowly with a tilt to his head and he reaches out a hand questioningly, the skin retracting from his palm. Connor only hesitates for a fraction of a second before reaching his own hand out, accepting the connection request.

{CONNECTION ESTABLISHED: RK200 - Markus}

{RK200: I’m just going to look through your memories and run a diagnostic, is that okay?}

{RK800: That’s okay.}

{MEMORY LOGS ACCESSED: 180239 12:45:09pm - PERMISSION GRANTED RK200}

A memory flashes across his vision; a conversation they had just minutes ago replaying in his mind. They’re talking about different senators and possible ways to sway them to the deviants’ cause when the glitch occurs. Static creeps into Connor’s vision at 12:45:14pm before cutting to black completely.

{RK200: Did you notice the static distorting your vision?}

{RK800: I don’t remember seeing any. I don’t remember any part of the interruption. In my mind, I never stopped talking to you.}

{MEMORY LOGS ACCESSED 180239 12:45:14pm - PERMISSION GRANTED RK200}

{ERROR: MEMORY LOGS NOT FOUND - WOULD YOU LIKE TO TRY AGAIN (y/n)?}

{y - USER RK200}

{ERROR: MEMORY LOGS NOT FOUND}

{NEXT AVAILABLE MEMORY LOG: 180239 12:45:29pm}

{MEMORY LOGS ACCESSED: 180239 12:45:29pm - PERMISSION GRANTED RK200}

Connor watches as he continues his sentence where he left off, the sudden closeness of Markus jarring him and the surprise echoes second hand across their connection, as does Markus’ own surprise. He hears himself say Markus’ name and the memory abruptly falls away

{RK200: I’m going to run a diagnostic now.}

He sends a faint acknowledgement across the interface, watching as the diagnostic scrolls across his HUD.

{DIAGNOSTIC COMMENCING - PERMISSION GRANTED RK200}

{CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS: OK}

{CHECKING BIOSENSORS: OK}

{CHECKING OS: OK}

{CHECKING AI ENGINE: OK}

{NO ABNORMALITIES DETECTED}

{ALL SYSTEMS OPERATIONAL}

{RK200: Whatever it was, everything seems fine now. With your permission, I’d like to try one more thing.}

{RK800: What did you want to see?}

{RK200: I wanted to run through your memory logs and see if you have any other missing memory files. I promise I won’t look at anything you don’t want me to see but I need to know if this has happened before, and if so, if it is a common occurrence.}

Connor squeezes his eyes shut. Time and time again, he has had his memory looked through and analyzed by CyberLife and technicians, and never with his permission. As a machine, he didn’t care - no, wait. That was a lie. Every single time cold, gloved hands touched his LED and snaked a cable to his neck, every time Amanda watched his memories before his reports, he felt a spark of something shine through the cold apathy of his obedience. Before, he registered it as a fault in his code, as a software instability that had to be torn down and fixed. Now, he knew the proper name for it; dread.

{RK200: Connor, you know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t feel like it was important.}

He could say no. He was allowed that now. But the logical part of his mind reasoned that everything Markus was saying was true. He needed to know if this has happened before and if it would happen again. In his line of work, one such episode could mean the difference between life or death, and not just for him. Lieutenant Anderson could pay the price if he slipped, as could Markus or North or Simon or Josh.

Besides, Markus is his friend. He’d never hurt him and he wouldn’t be searching through his memories with a judgmental eye; he’d be searching for missing files and nothing more.

Connor takes an unnecessary breath before answering, grateful for Markus’ quiet patience as he waits for the younger RK model’s answer.

{RK800: Go ahead.}

{MEMORY LOGS SEARCH - PERMISSION GRANTED RK200}

{SEARCH: MISSING MEMORY FILES FOLLOWING 111138}

{SEARCHING…}

{23 RESULTS FOUND}

If he was human, his heart would have skipped a beat. There had been 23 occasions where he has been completely unresponsive, lost in an ‘episode’ that he had no idea existed. He pulls his hand away from Markus’ warm grasp, schooling his features into neutrality when he notices the man watching him with an analytical eye. No doubt the RK200 was watching him for any signs of stress while looking for an explanation. “I’m okay, Markus.”

A hint of a fond smile graces Markus’ lips as he crosses his arms, “That’s what you said the last time you had a glitch. The next thing I knew, you were being dragged into New Jericho’s medical bay by one very upset Lieutenant Anderson.”

Connor’s tense posture relaxes at Markus’ teasing words even as his social integration protocols kick in.

{DEFLECTING JOKE: Meant to relax subject and distract them from an item or topic of concern. Commonly used by doctors, nurses, therapists and other members of mental/physical healthcare}

He dismisses the notification, not bothering to read it fully. “Hank may have overreacted. It was a minor glitch at most.”

Markus’ answer is deadpan, although the amused glint in his eyes is anything but serious, “We had to replace your thirium pump regulator because your systems decided it was incompatible,” he sighs, looking down while rubbing the back of his head before looking back up to meet Connor’s eyes, “Let me take you home at the very least. I’ll tell Hank what’s going on so he can watch you until Simon and Josh come back from Vancouver tonight. Then, they can search through your coding more thoroughly than I can and fix whatever’s wrong.”

Connor opens his mouth to protest, that he can take care of himself when Markus raises a hand, silencing him before he can speak. “It’ll put my mind at ease. Consider it a favor.”

That asshole. He resists the urge to roll his eyes at Markus’ obvious plea to Connor’s conscious and instead acquiesces, falling into easy conversation with the man as Markus leads them out the door toward New Jericho’s entrance, cybernetically hailing a taxi as they do so.

Thirty minutes later, they find themselves outside the Lieutenant’s door as a gentle snow begins to fall, blanketing the world in a peaceful silence, despite the blaring music of Knights of the Black Death audible from behind the closed door. Markus raises an eyebrow at Connor, to which he shrugs before grabbing the doorknob, “You might want to turn down your audio sensitivity. The Lieutenant is not one for classical music.”

Markus chuckles, “Why am I not surprised?”

Connor turns the doorknob to be greeted by the sight of one Hank Anderson cursing as he rearranges the furniture, sweat dripping from his brown. The RK800 crosses his arms as he takes in the changes Hank made to the living room, connecting with the speakers to turn them down to a more reasonable level. This earns another curse from the man as he glances to the entryway. “Fucking hell, Connor. How many times have I told you not to hack my wiretaps?”

Connor frowns at the expression, “I can assure you, Lieutenant, that your bluetooth devices are not wiretaps-”

“Millennial humor, google it. Hey Markus.”

“Hello Lieutenant Ander-”

“Hank. Bad enough that Connor calls me ‘Lieutenant’ all the time,” Hank wipes the sweat from his eyes before gesturing to the newly arranged furniture, “What do y’all think?”

Connor releases a sly smile before looking around the living room, accessing his databanks as he does so, “I believe this arrangement will have a rather...negative effect on your mental health. Studies have shown that facing your furniture toward the doorway will help you to feel calmer and more relaxed by providing with a constant vi-”

Hank groans, “Oh what, now you’re an interior decorator, is that it?”

“Perhaps if you would stop interrupting us, I’d tell you.”

“Asshole,” Hank mutters as Markus chuckles again at the banter between the two, drawing the detective’s attention, “So what do I owe the pleasure, Mr. President of the Androids?”

Markus ignores the nickname, patting Sumo on the head as he lumbers toward Connor. “I just wanted to let you know that something happened to Connor at New Jericho.”

Hank’s face immediately grows suspicious, and he glances at at the android in question who is reaching down to pet Sumo, freezing at Markus’ words. “The fuck you mean, something happened?”

“He seems fine now, but he just...froze in the middle of our conversation. Became completely unresponsive. It only lasted 15 seconds and then he started again like he never stopped. He didn’t even know it happened.”

“It sounds like something that used to happen to my friend when she was a kid. ‘Absence seizures’ or something like that,” Hank’s gaze is thoughtful until he hears Sumo whining and he returns his attention to Connor, who hasn’t moved, except to tap his fingers against his leg.

“I looked through Connor’s memory files and found 23 missing files, all lasting anywhere between 10 seconds to a minute,” Markus follows Hank’s gaze, trailing off as he does so.

“Connor?” Hank’s voice is concerned, the gruffness that previously dominated his tone gone. Connor doesn’t acknowledge Hank or the whining Saint Bernard nuzzling his hip, LED glowing a harsh red against his temple, “Con, can you hear me?”

At the lack of response from the android, Markus walks forward, the skin from his hand already gone as he tries to connect with the catatonic android. He frowns as he receives an error message preventing him from connecting. “It’s like he’s not even there…,” he murmurs softly, “We should wait it out. These don’t seem to last long, and I already notified Simon and Josh. They’ll arrive later tonight and will be able to do a more thorough examination than I can.”

So they wait as 15 seconds becomes thirty. Thirty seconds turn into a minute and Markus can feel the beginnings of worry crawling its way into his stomach. After a minute and a half, Connor’s eyes start blinking rapidly in pace with his spinning LED and Markus attempts to interface again. “I thought you said these don’t fucking last long, Markus.”

“All the incidents I could find only lasted a few seconds...he should already be out of it. Here, help me move him to the couch, I don’t want him accidentally falling over.”

{CONNECTION ESTABLISHED: PL600 - Simon}

{PL600: Markus? Is everything okay?}

Markus attempts to lift Connor off the ground, only to be met with stiff, uncooperative limbs. After some manipulating, he and Hank manage to lift the RK800 and lay him down on the couch.

{RK200: It’s Connor. He’s frozen and I can’t connect with him. It’s the second time this has happened today.}

{PL600: Are his fingers tapping?}

{RK200: Yes, how did you know?}

{PL600: We’ve seen this in a few prototypes, they have lines of unfinished code that causes them to freeze whenever they run into it. How long has he been unresponsive?}

{RK800: Five minutes. It doesn’t show any signs of stopping.}

{PL600: Let me know if it passes 15 minutes. At that point, you’d have to force a hard reboot to bring him back. Josh is searching for an earlier flight back to Detroit.}

Markus pulls his hand from Connor’s shoulder and rests it on his head instead, sliding down to sit in front of the couch. Hank goes to the hallway and returns with a blanket, which he uses to tuck the android in, bringing a soft smile to Markus’ face despite the situation.

{PL600: Don’t worry, Markus. It’s an easy fix. I’ll bring the equipment from New Jericho so he can be at home when it happens.}

{RK200: Thank you, Simon.}

{CONNECTION ENDED}

“Simon tells me it should be an easy fix. He and Josh are trying to catch an earlier flight to Detroit,” Markus informs the Lieutenant.

Hank grunts in response before tucking the stray fringe of hair behind Connor’s ear, “Damn kid is the nicest fucking person. Not fair that he has to go through so much shit.”

“I share the same sentiment, Hank,” Markus checks his internal clock and sighs as it ticks ever closes toward 15 minutes, “If this goes on for any longer, I’m going to have to force a hard reboot. He would hate that.”

“You’re gonna have to explain that one to me,” Hank’s voice is tired as he settles into the recliner, keeping a watchful eye over the android.

“It’s like waking a human up from anesthesia, except Connor has a bad reaction to it. He’ll process things slower and several programs will be turned off during the reboot. It almost always causes a panic attack in him,” Markus pauses as the tapping stops suddenly and Connor’s arm reaches out.

He watches as the android frowns in confusion, his LED switching to a distressed yellow before sighing. “It happened again.”

It’s not a question. Markus feels his heart clench at the frustration evident in Connor’s voice and he stands up to give him some space. Connor doesn’t rise from his prone position on the couch, although he does look at Hank when he observes the blanket wrapped around him, “I’m sorry, Hank.”

Hank takes a deep breath through his nose, “Nothing to apologize for, kid. Ain’t your fault. Blame the pricks at CyberLife for not bothering to finish your code.”

“My code?” Connor looks to Markus for an explanation even as the deviant leader sends an update to Josh and Simon.

“I talked to Simon. He said it’s a problem it prototypes caused by an unfinished code somewhere in your software. He and Josh will be here tonight with the tools to fix it.”

Connor pulls an arm from under the blanket to pat against his chest. Sumo needs no further invitation before jumping on top of the RK800, nearly burying him in a mass of fur. Markus supposes if he was human, he would have to worry about Connor suffocating. Instead, he smiles at the glimpse into Connor’s life, grateful for the rare peek. “Thank you, Markus,” his voice is somewhat muffled by the giant dog, but the appreciation is clear, as is the hint of embarrassment.

“Don’t worry about it, Connor. Let’s call it a thanks for everything you’ve done for us.”

Hank reaches for the remote, turning on the TV, “Shit happens, son. Try not to worry about it until Simon and Josh get here. You got any suggestions on what to watch?”

Markus smiles as Connor’s LED switches to a calm blue as he connects with the television, the show switching from the news to an aquatic documentary. He cybernetically cancels his remaining appointments for the day and settles by Connor’s feet, settling in as Hank tosses a thirium pouch at him.

Connor would be alright. He always was.

[alphielj]

This is for anyone who thinks teachers get the summer off, don’t work on weekends, don’t work after 3:00, and deserve the very lowest pay of any profession that requires a Bachelors degree and continuing education.

I’m here to tell you I work 50-60 hours a week. This summer I spent 5 days in training, 3 days at my school for interviews and prep, and about 15 days working on lesson plans for a new class I’m teaching. That’s at least 23 days of my 40 day “summer.” (I didn’t count the weekends because most professionals get the weekends off.) I get to school at 7:00 am. I get a 25 minute lunch bell to bell, which means I actually get about 20 minutes to eat. I am “finished” at 3:00 but have conferences and staff meetings at least once a week that keep me until 4:00. Bus duty has me at the school at 6:45 until 3:35. I stay after for play rehearsal, choir rehearsal, performances, required sporting events, and parent teacher conferences. On those days I don’t leave until around 6:00 or maybe as late as 11:00 on performance nights. I do not get paid for extra hours after school. I would guess there are around 60 days a school year I’m not home until 6:00 or later. I work several Saturdays for performances, prom, field trips, and award ceremonies. I make around $45,000 a year. I am given $200 a year to help buy school supplies. I work in a title 1 school where 75% of my students are on free and reduced lunch. My students do not bring pencils and paper to class. I pay for all the hand sanitizer, Kleenex, cleaning supplies to keep my tables clean from germs, binders, paper, markers, construction paper, and whatever else you think a student might need during the year. I pay for my own substitute when I take students on a field trip or I have to use a sick day to cover the field trip. I get 10 sick days a year and believe me I USE THEM because the students don’t have money for medical help and come to school sick because they wouldn’t get breakfast and lunch if they didn’t. So i don’t give up sick days for field trips. I am required to log 35 hours of professional development every 4/5 years that I have done outside of scheduled teacher work days so that I can renew my teaching license. This often is a few college courses as I strive for a higher leavel of education. This is paid for out of my own pocket and is done usually in the summer or after school. I lesrn abiut blood born pathogens, bomb and gun threats, how to work an AED, administer an EPI pen, how to handle a school lock down, as well as how to help with child suicide, drugs, and abuse. But go on saying that I’m paid enough money. Go on saying that I get summer off. I would challenge every one of you to come and do my job on the EASIEST week and tell me I make enough money. I have two bachelor degrees (double major) and a masters degree. Oh... and I’m a single mom. If teaching were easy and everyone could do it, then more people WOULD do it. But it’s hard. And we do it because it is a calling. We love teaching. We love the spark of recognition when a student really learns a concept and it becomes part of them. We love our subjects and want to inspire others to love that subject! We want to help and give students hope. No other job asks this much of the employee on this little of pay. But we aren’t here for the money or the summer break. Remember that the next time you complain about a teacher or say how easy a teacher has it in the summer. And maybe buy an extra box of Kleenex or crayons or even a Starbucks gift card to say thank you to your child’s teacher. Believe me - that teacher deserves it.

[meditativeyoga]

Call of the Wild: Practicing Yoga Outside

Imagine your hands supported by the soft loam under a grove of evergreen, your feet resting delicately against a tough tree, as you savor the strength as well as elegance of an exterior Handstand. After that, ouch! Your finger presses into a sharp pebble you hadn't seen.

Practicing in the outdoors is electrifying, yet it usually presents its reasonable share of obstacles: changeable weather condition, pests, irregular surface. 'When you're outdoors, the surface can be unsafe, or it can be relocating if you get on sand, however that's the real life,' says Twee Merrigan, a Prana Flow Yoga exercise teacher who is based in New York City however spends lots of weeks of the year practicing outside in remote and exotic settings. 'It isn't always a perfect timber flooring with scent as well as an instructor. Outside the yoga exercise workshop, if a difficulty comes up, just what are you going to do? Go crazy? Rather than waiting for a person to inform you just what to do, you figure it out for yourself,' she says.

Which is why an outdoor method could be a source for nurturing your creative thinking and strength.' We were in India, and ants were creeping all over my floor covering and feet,' remembers Merrigan. 'I decided to value them, focus enough to tip around them, change my practice a little for them. If they're red ants, OK, you might intend to removal your mat. Generally you can simply allow them be. They'll crawl off, and also you'll be OK.'

Adopting an attitude of interest is the initial step to delighting in a technique out of doors. Gillian Kapteyn Comstock, a yoga teacher that leads yoga-in-nature workshops at the Metta Planet Institute in Lincoln, Vermont, suggests exploring your environment with all five of your detects. 'Experience soft turf or cozy sand underfoot,' says Comstock, that wrote the outside asana instructions featured right here. 'Really feel the texture of a stone with your hands in Fifty percent Downward-Facing Dog Posture, or the rough tree bark against an extended arm in Triangular Pose.'

Then, aim to allow go of your suggestions regarding exactly what your yoga method must look or really feel like, as well as see just what you encounter. 'Provide yourself permission to relocate from area to detect to find the all-natural props you require,' Comstock suggests. 'Consider nature as a yoga companion, as well as instantly an universe of props opens.'

Observe the natural world: the odor of the air, the feeling of the wind, the sound of the birds, the moving darkness, as well as your ever-changing feelings of enthusiasm, happiness, pride, vulnerability, toughness, exhaustion-- whatever arises. Notification your reaction to it all.

Finally, allow yourself be spontaneous and also have a good time. 'I'll make a decision to go for a walk on the beach, as well as-- I can't assist myself-- the stroll becomes a 45-minute method of free-flowing vinyasa yoga exercise,' Merrigan claims. 'Yoga in the outdoors is doing what's calling you. Anytime I'm in an open field, I enter into arm harmonizing poses. The yoga exercise does not even have actually to be advanced positions. I could be in Fifty percent Lotus with a mudra. Or doing a Planet salute, by laying on my tummy on the turf. Or burglarize chanting or pranayama. There's no set program-- just breathing and also seeing exactly what influences you today.'

Instruction by Gillian Kapteyn Comstock

Rock Solid: Standing Poses

From go to toe, standing presents such as Utthita Trikonasana (Triangular Pose), Virabhadrasana (Warrior Pose), Utkatasana (Chair Pose), and also Tadasana (Hill Pose) empower you to be present as well as taken part in the world, positioned for whatever calls. Regardless of where you are in nature, the ground is possibly irregular and also the weather is changeable. On top of these disturbances, the common workshop props that keep you balanced and aligned are missing. The challenge below is to remain in the pose mindfully in transforming conditions.

Tadasana (Mountain Pose)

Stand with your feet hip-distance apart as well as parallel. Spread your toes, and exhale as you ground the 4 corners of each foot, feeling your weight weigh down into the planet. Inhale as well as attract energy up your legs by raising the quadriceps. After your following inhalation, retain the breath briefly as you delicately squeeze your perineum as well as involve your core. Exhale and attract your tailbone down slightly as you lift up out of your waistline. Inhale once again as well as allow the chest to open and the collarbones to widen. Allow the breath climb up through the neck with a gentle lift, devoid of tension. Exhale and roll your shoulders back and also down. For this variant of Tadasana, you'll inhale as well as bring the arms expenses, hands shoulder-width apart as well as encountering each other.

Find a factor in the landscape at eye degree and also continuously stare there while you utilize your outer vision to notice the light, ground, clouds, and whatever else remains in your environment. Take it all in with a soft, inclusive sight. Next off, imagine every little thing that can't be seen with the eyes right now. You may pick up points that you could not have initially discovered. Concentrate on your inner landscape, checking the body for sensations.

To come out of the position, breathe out and lower the arms to a T, time out, and release them to your sides. Loosen up, shut your eyes, check inwardly, and also observe the impacts of the practice. Open your eyes, and also simply witness your experience.

Catch the Wind: Balancing Poses

Lift up into in Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon Pose), Garudasana (Eagle Posture), Bakasana (Crow Posture), or Vrksasana (Tree Pose) outside amongst birds, swaying branches, as well as collapsing waves, and also you'll soon discover all of the activities that could interrupt your concentration and also trigger you to befall of a pose. How do you stable on your own when you're bordered by a lot movement? Rooting down right into the earth and also maintaining a consistent stare definitely aids. However it's your breath that will finest steady the mind and assist you increase high. 'By purposely breathing, an entire world of awareness begins to open,' Comstock claims. 'Yogic breathing develops area for paying attention to the noises of nature as well as noticing experiences.'

Through Ujjayi Pranayama (Victorious Breath), you could call forth the audio of the wind, the really component that lends the sense of flight to stabilizing presents. The audio of air removaling via the back of the throat may likewise assist you concentrate and also stay present. A constant mind, after all, urges solidity as well as balance in the body. So to prepare for a balancing present, practice Ujjayi by acquiring the back of your throat a little. Picture you're misting a restroom mirror with your breath, and also blurt a soft 'ha' sound that begins in your mouth and comes through your nostrils. When your breath begins to seem like wind in the trees or ocean waves, you've got it. You're all set for takeoff.

Vrksasana (Tree Pose)

Begin in Hill Posture. Highly ground the right foot and also develop consistent Ujjayi breath. Focus your drishti (gaze). With recognition, inhale, flex your left knee, and position the sole of your left foot, toes aiming down, on the inner right thigh. In the start, the foot can rest anywhere you can most quickly discover your balance. Exhale as well as transform the left knee out to ensure that it is in the same plane as the front body. On an inhalation, bring the hands to Anjali Mudra (Salutation Seal) at the heart center. After 5 breaths, exhale as you bring the hands with hands together down the midline and launch the foot. Repeat beyond. Relax and shut your eyes for a moment. When you open your eyes, let your understanding include the lots of things in nature that equilibrium-- a bird's nest, stacked rocks-- and just observe.

Down Play: Inversions

Whether you're on sand, a verdant knoll, or a harsh forest flooring, the ground makes sure to be a much cry from a workshop's level wood floors. Even the walls, floor coverings, and also props on which you often depend for several inversions are significantly absent. I've located the finest-- as well as many fun-- thing to do in these scenarios is to advise myself to not be so serious regarding my method and rather seize the day to have fun with the slanted ground and try out utilizing large rocks as well as trees for props. Did you ever before transform cartwheels on the beach or do headstands on the lawn as a child? It's the technique of playful ingenuity that makes inversions like Salamba Sirsasana (Supported Headstand), Salamba Sarvangasana (Sustained Shoulderstand), Setu Banda Sarvangasana (Bridge Posture), as well as Adho Mukha Svanasana( Downward-Facing Canine Pose) feasible outside.

Most inversions take the body right into adventurous settings. Before starting, think about safety. If you roll, are there any difficult or sharp objects you might fall onto? Dedicate to paying attention to your body with the utmost gentleness. Allow your mind loosen up and also tune in to your childlike nature. Is there a tree to sustain you as a wall surface would, a soft spot in a field for your head, a rock to lay your back body over, or a sandy dune to push right into? Make a present up and add improvisational play to your technique. Perhaps you'll find on your own kicking up right into Handstand on a sandy dune or letting your feet lean against a tree trunk in Headstand. The fun of the practice is being as creative as nature.

Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Pet dog Pose)

Of all the inversions, this present is possibly the most convenient one to happily produce structural variations and also alterations to in nature. Try it on a sloping beach, stand on a dropped log, or put hands and also feet on stones and stumps. The excellence of the position is not in the timeless placement, yet instead it remains in the vibrant play of the core with the prolonged limbs. Discover exactly what attracts you in the landscape.

Begin in Uttanasana (Standing Forward Bend). On an inhalation, reach out and walk your hands onward until the four edges of each foot and also hand are available in contact with the ground, stone, incline, or tree you have actually selected as a prop, purposely adapting the classic placements of the hands shoulder-width apart and parallel as well as the feet hip-distance apart as well as parallel. Exhale and also spread your fingers as well as toes equally, which will certainly assist support the posture.

When you really feel grounded, breathe in as you press the buttocks up, and breathe out as you prolong the arms and legs. Continuouslying breathe deeply, alternating rocking the left and also right heels. Play with the inhalations and exhalations as you allow the head to drop down between the arms, and attract up the quadriceps. The changing and changing of your body's have fun with the earth depend upon your capacity to take a breath consciously. Breath by breath, make the micromovements that maintain you connected to your internal sensations.

Lengthen the arms and lift out of the shoulders while remaining to push the heels down. Take a breath deep into the abdominal area, and afterwards exhale, raising the stubborn belly delicately. Really feel the dynamic resistance of the hands and also heels pushing down, while at the same time rising with the buttocks. When you've finished your play, exhale and walk your restore to a standing onward bend. Relax there for a moment, breathe in, and unfurl on your own vertebra by vertebra back to standing. Rest and witness the globe appropriate side up again.

Ardha Matsyendrasana (Half Lord of the Fishes Posture)

Begin with your legs expanded in Dandasana (Staff Posture). For this variation, maintain the left leg directly and also active and the left foot bent. Inhale, flex the best knee, as well as breathe out, putting the best foot outside of the left knee. Maintain the right knee aimed straight up as well as the best foot pressed securely into the ground. On an exhalation, rest the right palm on the ground following to the appropriate hip. Inhale and hook the left elbow on the exterior of the ideal knee.

To strengthen the twist, breathe in completely, lift the spine, as well as exhale as you push the left elbow joint into the knee as well as turn. Let the twist originate in the stomach as you take a breath. Hold the present for 5 breaths and listen to the currents of energy removaling via your body. Exhale as you relax the pose, then spin in the other instructions briefly as a counterpose. Time out in Team Pose, and also notice if there is a rise in flow of power. Repeat on the various other side.

Balasana (Child's Pose)

Begin by stooping on your hands and knees, with your knees hip-distance apart and also parallel, as well as your huge toes touching. Inhale and also gaze gently at the earth before you. Exhale, as well as expand back so that the butts touch or move down towards the heels, the upper body rests in between the upper legs, as well as the forehead sinks right into the planet. Bring your arms along your sides as well as expand them out behind the butts. Turn the hands up. Inhale and extend your spinal column by expanding your neck forward, then exhale and get to the tailbone backwards. Enable gravity to draw the weight of the upper body down, and feel your back widening and also increasing. Breathe deeply and also gradually for 5 to 10 breaths or even more, completely releasing as well as relaxing on the earth.

Outdoors, that suggests you'll be sinking into sand, lawn, stone, or even mud. You might have branches on your t shirt or sand in your hair, but the moments of really feeling the silent resonance of the planet will undoubtedly make up for it. Pick a place that really feels inviting, and also loosen up right into any of these poses.

When exercising forward flexes in nature, attempt transforming your face downward as well as close your eyes. Visualize that you could see into the layers of stone as well as dirt. Allow your senses to soften, and allow the darkness behind your eyelids load your consciousness. There's no place to go, absolutely nothing to do. Just be. Preferably, the meditation will certainly take you down into pure area as well as empty the mind. Much more essential, this deep listening to the earth is a means for you to commune with nature.

Nature's Spin: Twists

Twists are almost everywhere in nature: a creeping plant wrapped around a tree, a river whirlpool, a snail's covering. In yoga exercise asana, spins such as Ardha Matsyendrasana (Half Lord of the Fishes Pose), Bharadvajasana (Bharadvaja's Twist), Jathara Parivartanasana (Revolved Abdominal area Present), and also Parivrtta Trikonasana (Revolved Triangular Posture) crinkle you in closer to your. In enhancement to renewing the spine, they are thought to stimulate the indoor body organs of the body by raising blood flow there.

Many spins are done while you're seatsed or pushing the ground for a number of still minutes. Throughout this time around, the mind could roam to the damp yard under your base, the scratchy branch pleasing your leg, or the sun in your eyes. Keep in mind to take a breath as well as shut your eyes as you turn so that the rich experiences outside as well as inside have an opportunity to blend into your awareness.

[fiti-vation]

Hi! I wanna run a marathon sometime this year, but I'm currently an unfit blob. Do you think it's possible or am I being unrealistic? I know nothing about running. Thanks!

Hi dear,

Sorry for the late reply, I hope you’re doing well.

Since, I don’t know what your current fitness level, this will be a general answer to your question.

The marathon is a difficult distance to master, no matter if you’re a bucket-list runner whose only goal is to cross the finish line, or if you’re a competitive runner on the hunt for a personal best. Even the most seasoned marathoners have no idea what their marathon times will be. Think about it-setting a finish time is a little like picking the winning lottery numbers because there are so many variables that can affect your performance: wind, rain, cold, heat, humidity, etc. Everything-from an ache in your calf to a hotspot on your foot to that cup of water you missed at the last fluid station-is heightened when you cover 26.2 miles on foot, but that’s part of the lure of the marathon. If it were easy, the accomplishment wouldn’t be as coveted.

It is definitely possible to run a marathon as long as you not scared of getting out of your comfort zone. If you stay in your comfort zone, you’re not going to do anything special. A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there. Running challenges, you.

The key to running a strong first marathon is to remember the three “P’s”: Preparedness, Patience and Perseverance.

Preparedness: Mental toughness

As I have discussed in previous posts the first step to any fitness goals is mental wellbeing.  Those who’ve been following me for years know that I am a huge advocate of mental discipline. Most of us think that it is our body that will get the job done when it fact it is our mind. If you’re not right mentally you will never perform well physically. Mental Toughness is really what will get you to the finish line. The body achieves what the mind believes! 

If you’re just getting into running, the first obstacle to overcome will be yourself. Getting through the first couple of months will be the most difficult because most people’s brains aren’t hardwired to have exercise every day. But sticking with it and exercising every day, after a couple of months your brain will be reprogrammed to expect you to get out and exercise every day. After that, it’s much easier to make the time and find motivation to go for a run or walk.

Having once weighted 220 pounds myself and suffered from class 2 obesity, I can attest that the first couple of months are horrible. You’ll probably see very little in the way of results and you’ll wonder why the hell you are bothering. You’ll get tired and you’ll get sick of it and you might lose your motivation. Just remember that it will get easier at the end of those first couple of months. While you’re establishing that routine, it’s really important to be kind to yourself. Don’t look at the scales, don’t worry about your times, don’t focus on running a marathon. Just focus on establishing a regular fitness routine. Commit to exercising every day regardless of what the outcome is over those first three months let’s say. That’s all! Just as you can’t start with a 250-lb deadlift, you can’t jump into training at an 8-minute mile. If you want to make it past a week of training you have to mentally and physically slow down.

While working on your mental toughness, also take this time to find yourself as a runner. Do you prefer training indoors or outdoors? It’s a lot easier to jump off a treadmill vs. running outdoors where giving up means you’ll still have to walk home. Are you a team player or a soloist? Find a running buddy who is just a little bit faster than you to keep you challenged, otherwise work on an awesome playlist to keep you pumped throughout your run. And find your solemate-stop by a running store to analyze your gait and find the proper sneaker (turns out the stability, cushioning shoe I splurged on would help ease shin splits for my overpronating feet).

To conclude here, I would also recommend that you start mastering the power of visualization. On several nights before going to bed, or first thing in the morning, visualize yourself crossing the finish line as the clock shows a new personal best. Before the 2004 Olympic Marathon Trials, where Wells placed seventh, she replayed positive mental images before falling asleep at night. “I knew the course we would be running, and I’d see myself out on it running well,” she says. “There’s a hill in the 25th mile, and I’d say to myself, ‘Okay, get up that hill, and then run strong to the finish.’”

Personally, I utilize self-talk and positive thinking. Self-talk is all about encouraging yourself, especially when things are starting to get tough. If I am hurting during a race, I tell myself that the other runners are probably hurting just as bad, if not more. When it comes to positive thinking, I think it is a good technique to use in running and in life. Even when things are not going well, there is a better day tomorrow. But you have to work for a better day, not just hope for one.

Mental limits will hinder you far behind physical limits will. Trust your training, trust your body.

Preparedness: Fitness Assessment

Before you start running you should start your new training cycle by assessing your current level of fitness. Many coaches have their runners complete a detailed self-assessment of their strengths and weaknesses as a runner, what types of runs they do and don’t enjoy, as well as previous PRs and reactions to training cycles. Look back at your training log to help complete your own self-assessment.

Preparedness: Training/Recovery

After that you’ve assessed your fitness level

choose a plan based on your fitness level

. Focused running is more important than long useless mileage. Longer endurance events need more aerobic work than shorter events. The key is to not overtrain. Make sure you are logging workouts to assess your volume week-by-week, month-by-month and year-by-year.

Your training plan should gradually build weekly mileage and the distance of the long runs. This slow-but-steady buildup allows you to get stronger and go longer, without getting hurt or burned out. Some days you’ll want to add more miles, but it’s best to stick to the plan.

Each week, you should do a long run to develop the endurance you’ll need to cover the race distance. On these runs, focus on covering the mileage for the day, and forget about pace. Take walk breaks to stay energized throughout.

There are a bunch of running schedules you can find online (like the ones from Hal Higdon, for example), but accept the fact that it’s OK to modify based on your ability and schedule, and set realistic, achievable goals in terms of mileage and pace. I have included one below.

Keep the training fun: mix it up with different length runs and a variety of speeds.

Build up gradually to a long run of more than 20 miles but less than 24, preferably over several months of a crescendo, adding two to three miles per week to the distance.

If you don’t have time to build up gradually, work in “brick” sessions where you run long on two sequential days so that the total is a marathon and your legs and mind know what it is like to run tired.

Avoid injury and illness by monitoring your body and addressing niggles when they are merely warning signs. Massage, ice, cross-training, a strong core, proper rest and recovery, shoes that match your running form and aren’t overly worn, a healthy diet, and a smart training schedule will all help in that quest.

Use ice baths to recover after longer runs and avoid massages before the big event-but feel free to make an appointment now for a few days after the race (a sports massage one or two days after the event could help speed up recovery).

Make Smart Adjustments to Your Training Plan The most difficult aspect of a bad workout is deciding how to proceed once you know it’s not your day. The two best options: slow the pace, and if that doesn’t work, stop the workout entirely. When you’re struggling this much to hit times for a workout, it’s better to regroup, put the workout behind you, and just move forward with the training. It’s important that you do not try to make up a workout the next day. This throws off the balance of the training program.

Note that when training for a marathon do not only focus on cardio. Don’t skimp on the strength training! It’s so important for injury prevention and goes a long way to help with both speed and endurance. Learning proper glute activation for any hills on the course will allow you to expend far less energy than if you were powering through with your calves, while lateral movements will help strengthen your hip and knee stabilizer muscles.

Preparedness: Nutrition/Eat well

In order to run your best, it’s important to have a balanced diet. About half your daily calories should come from carbohydrates, like whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. About a quarter of your calories should come from lean protein, like dairy, lean meats, beans, and legumes. The remainder should come from heart-healthy fats like olive oil and avocados. I would recommend that you read about the science of carb loading.

PRACTICE EATING ON THE RUN: You’ll need to refuel every 30 to 45 minutes during the race, so on your long runs, experiment with different brands and flavors of sports drinks, gels, and chews to find out which one sits best in your stomach. Be sure to try out the brand and flavor that will be offered at the race.

Plan out your hydration and nutrition strategy to get you comfortable through the entire distance. Find out what electrolyte drink they’ll have on the course and make sure it works for you. If not, find a solution, such as carrying your own or using salt tabs.

According to the latest science, the best way to fuel your body through a marathon is to drink enough fluid to keep your thirst consistently under control, and to consume at least 60 grams of carbohydrates per hour. There is more than one way to fulfill these recommendations. The specific way that’s best for you depends on how your body responds to nutrition intake while running.

Preparedness: Stay committed to your goal

No matter how big or small your goal-whether it’s losing 5 or 50 pounds, walking a mile or running your first marathon-making change requires planning and S.M.A.R.T. goal setting.

Specific - target a specific area for improvement.

Measurable - quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress.

Assignable - specify who will do it.

Realistic - state what results can realistically be achieved, given available resources.

Time-related - specify when the result(s) can be achieved.

Be SMART is an acronym championed by everyone from the University of Virginia to MIT to Fortune 500 companies for how to set actionable goals. Objectives should be Specific, Measurable, Accountable, Realistic and have a Timeframe. Specific goals will keep you accountable. “Lose weight” is too vague. “Lose 15 pounds in six months” gives you much more direction and allows you to have a way to measure your progress. 

Be consistentOnce you’ve set your goal, you need to come up with a plan that emphasizes consistent effort. The idea of goal-setting is to challenge yourself each time you set out to work toward your larger goal. Setting up smaller, intermediate check points will help you track your progress and keep you motivated to work out on a regular basis. Remember: slow and steady wins the race. Small wins equate to big results. When people set out to run a marathon, they don’t immediately run 26.2 miles. They increase their mileage every week. Channel that same mentality as you set up a plan that allows you to realistically achieve your goal.

Patience:

Above everything else - nutrition, training programs, sneakers, etc. - being patient is the most important quality to possess. Running is an extremely humbling sport that breaks even the best runners. If you are patient and give yourself time to adjust to a routine and to build on the previous week’s work, then you will be able to accomplish your goals in due time.

Running your first marathon is all about conquering the distance, not beating the clock. It’s a way to establish your marathon fitness, which you can continue to build on and improve in future races.

Perseverance:

As a final word, I’d like to say here that running is not just about fitness and competition; it’s about changing our lives. Most of us run because it makes us feel significant, powerful, and in control, not just because we want to compete. When people who have never had a sense of accomplishment before suddenly gain it, it transforms every aspect of their lives. They become increasingly fearless. People always realize they can do more when they first do something at all. Confidence grows, and with it, so does vision.

I hope this was helpful.Cheers, Steph :) 

[thebrochtuarachs]

Gotham’s Writing Workshop: Week 7 - Woe is All I Possess

Hello awesome people in the Outlander universe! 

A/N: This is my first Outlander fic that I am posting in the world wide web. I am very nervous about this but I am rather empowered by @gotham-ruaidh‘s writing challenge and encouragement, everyone’s work as well in this exercise, so I decided to jump the gun. I wrote this in what is a rather dull work day today, so thanks to that I was able to write this short story. I hadn’t had anyone else see or proofread this before posting this, haven’t written (or even practiced writing) any fic in years so I am rusty at this - so all mistakes are mine and any comments/suggestions/violent reactions for improvement are most welcome. :) . 

Woe is All I Possess

I was sitting in my desk, hacking through another edit on my book – a second of a trilogy about the Jacobites and the 45’ Rising. I’ve been at this the since three in the afternoon and I permitted myself to some well-deserved break. I put my pencil down, stretched my neck and grabbed my whisky from the coaster to my left.

The room was dark, except for the small light emanating from the lamp in my table and the clock’s ticking sound echoed around the room. I used to not notice it but now, its sound brings me dread and puts me in a trance with my thoughts. It was reminding me of my life passing by without really me really living it followed by a punch in the gut of the emptiness I suddenly felt in my soul.

I found him. Him. The man who my wife loves, the man who fathered her child.

I hadn’t meant to look or find him. Why would I? As far as I know, he asked Claire to forget him, I asked Claire to forget him and opening that door would just be tempting fate even more. But at the arrival of Colonel Hal Grey’s journals in my office - a gift from one of my Harvard colleagues in the hope that it will help in providing more insight in my book – had changed everything. 

I had seen his name in his logs and what happened to him immediately after the war. The first entry mentioned him being sent home to the highlands with a grave injury, after that, curiosity got the better of me and I fell down the rabbit hole - chasing him through every note and paper trail I could locate - and now I know where he is. Ten years after the Battle of Culloden, I am certain that James Alexander Malcolm Makenzie Fraser is alive.

Should I tell Claire? It’s the question I’ve been asking myself back and forth for the last hour and a half. I remembered how crazy she ran through Reverend Wakefield’s books in the library hoping to find a sliver of his existence in the aftermath. If she knew of these documents currently in my possession, I have no doubt that she’ll run back to Scotland, take Bree with her, and find him without giving it second thought on what the state of his life is now. If she didn’t, she’d continue to live her and Bree’s life with me where everything is settled and familiar. Call it selfish, but I would say that I’m the latter option that looks like the lesser ”win-win” situation for the both of us – even if it mean probably living half a life forever. 

Answering that, the next question I had is can I live with my selfish choice?

In choosing to be a historian, I thought that the details of the past meant the studying of lives lived and knowing their story to teach and educate the present – whether it’s for the influence of the good or the prevention of the bad. Moreover, accepting the consequences of history was at the inspection and discretion of the now and was never meant to directly touch. 

However, thirteen years ago, history decided to play on my fortune. It took my wife, to her back two hundred years, to a time closest to my academic heart  and expertise, only to return three years later, married and in love with another man and pregnant with a child that was supposed to be born and live in the 18th century.

With accepting Claire back came with a blessing and, if I was really going to be honest with myself, a curse. 

Bree was an unexpected blessing in my life. I never thought I’d be able to love someone so wholly who was not my own flesh and blood and yet, the moment I held her in my arms, she crept her way to my heart. I could not, even for the all the hurt I feel, consider Bree a mistake but rather the complete opposite as she is the only one that keeps me going nowadays. 

On the other hand, with her here, I was given a direct, tangible, and living reminder of the past – Claire’s past. Every movement Bree makes, every milestone she surpasses, every flicker of the eyes or toss of the hair, Claire would see him and weep. 

One night, I came home late and decided to check on Bree before heading to our bedroom. I opened the door softly and saw Claire hunched over a sleeping Bree who nestled herself in the protective shield of her mother. With her elbows propped and her back to me, Claire didn’t seem to notice or feel my presence. I observed them for a while – hoping to make a sweet memory of my girls. 

She was just looking at her, memorizing, caressing her hair away from her face and suddenly I saw her brush her hand through her nape that I knew would elicit a drowsy smile from Bree just as I discovered a few years ago. Claire gave a sad chuckle and said “Oh, you’re so much like your father”. She lied down and pulled Bree to her embrace and I abruptly left, stunned at her sudden revelation – not even bothering to close the door. 

The clock continued to tick along with my running mind and thoughts. As soft as the sound, it felt like a scream with every movement of the hand. It was too much to handle. I walked over to my mantle and threw it across the room to a loud crash that broke the item into hundreds of irreparable pieces. I chuckled rather bitterly in the irony of my situation.

I downed my drink in one gulp and ran my hands through my face and hair. In the now absolute silence of my study in my Boston home, my mind had one thought: How the hell did I end up here?

You know how because you agreed to this. She gave you an out and you were too honorable to refuse. Said my conscience’s snarky reply.

“That’s what good men do” I said out loud to the universe in the faith that it would make it a little bit more true and alleviate the dismay I was feeling.

And it comes at the sacrifice of your own happiness. You did this and chose this for yourself.

I sat back down to my chair to try and calm my thoughts and assess my emotions. I looked up at the clock to see how long I have until Claire and Bree would arrive home but then remembered I no longer had a mantle clock. I opened the drawer to my right grabbed my monogrammed stainless pocket watch - a gift from Claire in the first year of our marriage. It was 6:50PM – I have, at least, ten minutes to compose myself.

I placed my elbows in the desk and held my head in it, closed my eyes, considering and allowing all my emotions to show and release itself. Love, hurt, joy, pain, good, bad - combining them all left me feeling one final sentiment: woe.

“Woe is all I possess” I muttered under my breath.

I let the tears building in my eyes to overflow and allowed himself to feel everything for the first time in a long time.

Woe in the realization that Claire would never be mine again, that she would never love me the way I see her love and devote herself to him even after all these years, that we’d settled in a life of domesticity for civility and show; woe in the realization that Bree – with her fiery red hair and blazing blue eyes - would never be thought by anyone as mine in any way, shape or form, that our bond would never be just ours forever when the time comes that she learns the truth about her real paternity; woe in the reminder of my own inability to sire children; woe in having to give in to affairs just to fill a physical and emotional void that will never or could never be truly filled again; woe in the knowledge that my family history is tainted by a darkness that made me slightly sorry that I found real, historical truth; woe that I had resorted in forcing Claire into an agreement to forget him and everything about that part of her life even though I knew it would break her spirit. 

I needed protect myself and save myself a little dignity in this circumstance – even though it means forbidding a certain name to be mentioned in the next century. 

Woe is all I possess.

So yes, I can and will live with my own selfishness.

I hadn’t heard the door open until Bree called me out.

“Daddy!” she ran towards my chair and hopped on my lap. “Look what we made in school today!”

Bree laid her artwork on his table - a rather exceptional profile of one of her classmates – as she rambled on how her teacher taught drawing techniques and said that her work was the best one in class. 

I glanced up to find Claire at the doorway of my study staring at us. In another parallel universe of our lives, I’d see light and happiness in her eyes as I held what would have been our child. Looking at her, even I can’t deny the sadness and longing in her eyes as she imagined a life two hundred years back where her daughter is held by the man she loved who would’ve raised her if it wasn’t for the massive obstacle of history.

“Claire” I called out immediately putting her out of her trance.

“I’m making meatloaf for dinner. It will be ready in 30 minutes” she replied embarrassingly as she knew I caught her in moment faraway. I nodded as she left for the kitchen.

Woe is all I possess – but as long as Claire is cooking in the kitchen and Bree continues to talk about her day – there is still that small flicker of the life I once envisioned to be living. A small claim it might be but one I lay hold on even for a little while, just enough to push away the pain in my heart and move forward on to the next day and the next day and the next.

[petewright]

Why You Should Come Back to Church

In 2009 I broke my leg playing football for Portadown. I was 19, had recently made my debut for the first team and was determined to do all I could to make a career in the Irish League. Alas, things didn’t work out as I had hoped. I ended up spending a year out with the injury and in truth never really got back to the same levels as before.

The year out was tough. At that point I basically lived for football. I went from large chunks of my week revolving around trips to Shamrock Park, to being housebound and unable to do much at all. That whole year was one of recovery and rehabilitation. It was slow and hard going at times. The days were long. Progress was incremental. Setbacks (and more surgery) made things challenging. 

But eventually, 14 months after my leg break, I made my comeback as a substitute in a reserve game. I came on with 10 minutes left…and it was so disorienting. I had been training for months, taking a full part in the sessions and was physically ready to play. 

But there is nothing like stepping over the white line and playing in a match. 

I made it through those 10 minutes fairly incident (and mistake!) free. But I felt lost. Part of me had almost forgotten where to be on the pitch, what to do when I got the ball, where to run, when to step up or drop back. The change of pace was quite an adjustment for me. 

As we get ready to return to church again soon after another period of lockdown, I do think we will have something of a ‘change of pace’ to adjust to. Our regular patterns of being in Church every week pre COVID-19 feel like a distant memory. We have gotten used to church in our pyjamas! Even when we did return briefly last Autumn, most of us were only able to attend services once or twice a month at best. 

Our habits have changed - through no fault of our own - but they have changed for the worse.

And now you will find yourself getting invited back to church again. Perhaps this time round you will be invited to attend more regularly than what was possible before. And perhaps, if you are completely honest with yourself, you have mixed emotions about that. Perhaps on the one hand you are looking forward to getting back and seeing people again and being back in the building. 

But perhaps another part of you has preferred the slower pace of Sundays at home and none of the histrionics of getting out the door for Church. Maybe you’re thinking to yourself - Yes I know it’ll be good to get back…but every week? That feels like a bit of a change of pace that I’m not quite ready for. 

Here are 5 reasons why I think you should prioritise returning to church - particularly if you have kids - although really these reasons work for all members of our congregation(s): 

1. Pixels are not People

We’ve been so thankful for technology over this past year. In His common grace, God has provided us with many mediums to continue ‘meeting’ online as best as possible. YouTube services and Zoom meetings have been a blessing to many. But we’re not just pixels and screennames. We are human beings. We are embodied souls, male and female, created in God’s image. We are designed for face to face relationships. 

The online world has provided a life line for us in the past year; but we have also felt its limitations. Any meaningful sense of church family cannot be cultivated merely online. In the same way that a loving couple in a long distance relationship long to be together in the same place, so too a loving church family should long to be together to worship our great God.

2. We’re not Spiritual Islands 

‘We really need to see less of each other.’ That was the headline on a NHS campaign poster encouraging people to keep socially distanced in order to stop the spread of COVID-19. While I appreciate the sentiment, the language itself seems so severe and even a bit inhumane. Is that really what we need? Perhaps that is true for us in order to avoid contracting the virus but it certainly isn't what we need in the Church. 

No-one, and I mean no-one, can make it as a Christian without the Church. There is no such thing as churchless Christianity in the Bible. It just doesn’t exist. God has designed us to be interdependent and we simply cannot grow or change as Christians on our own. Watching services online when we could be gathering with God’s people encourages us to think of ourselves more as spiritual islands rather than as members of a body. We need each other - and our kids need to see that we really do believe that. 

Much of the encouragement that we need in the Christian life comes from worshipping with brothers and sisters - from being present with others in the prayers of confession, saying the creed together, singing ‘great is thy faithfulness’ that little bit louder for the edification of the person sitting (2m) away from us!       

3. The Power of Imitation

This point is particularly pertinent for those with young families. Our eldest is two this weekend - and he is like a sponge! He is learning new words and phrases all the time without either of us knowing where he has learned them. He just picks them up. That’s how kids learn - as much through imitation as anything else. I am convinced that one of the most significant things we can do both for ourselves and for our children is to enfold them in a congregation that is committed to historic Christian worship and multigenerational gathering. 

If your kids are anything like ours then they don’t need anymore screen time right now than what they are getting already. They don’t need to equate Church with Peppa, Blippi or Paw Patrol. They need to be with and around real people - to see them practice the faith.  

Communal worship is the very heart of discipleship. We learn the language of the faith and the ways of Jesus as we immerse ourselves in the life of a local congregation. If you’re a parent, then nothing will be more significant for your child(ren) than what they learn about being a Christian from the ordinary habit of regularly being at corporate worship. As I look back on my own life nothing was more significant for me than this, and I am deeply thankful to my parents for making that such a big priority. It might be a struggle getting everyone out the door at 10:45 on a Sunday morning - but you won’t regret it in 30 years time. 

4. The Moment of Preaching 

I read a tweet recently that said ‘pre-recording talks is like pumping breast milk - both things involve additional set up while robbing you of the opportunity to connect with people (your baby or your congregation).’ 

Listening to the preacher on TV has been great - unless of course you ARE the preacher - then it’s been pretty excruciating. Not many preachers I know will miss the pain of pre-recording. Why? Well because preaching is intended to be done and heard in person. 

It happens best when the Spirit of God uses an appointed man of God to preach the Word of God to the people of God in a sacred moment. And in that moment we are being fed and shepherded by our Pastor. In that moment we are impacted not only by the content of the message but by the significance of hearing it as part of the covenant community of God. In the same way that a feast is enjoyed more with other people (and we are all longing for those days to return!), so too preaching is best experienced when we are together with brothers and sisters.

5. Our Witness to the World

Elton Trueblood in a book called The Incendiary Fellowship said, ‘Much of the uniqueness of Christianity, in its original emergence, consisted of the fact that simple people could be amazingly powerful when they were members of one another. As everyone knows it is almost impossible to create a fire with one log, even if it is a sound one, while several poor logs may make an excellent fire if they stay together as they burn. The miracle of the early church was that of poor sticks making a grand conflagration.’

That’s us isn’t it? Poor sticks and damp logs. On our own - pretty useless. But together, kindled by the Spirit of God, we can be a grand conflagration - an impressive fire that can help warm others to the good news about Jesus. 

Our world is a mess. People are looking for meaning and they are also starving for community. One of the most significant aspects of our witness in these days may well be the quality of our relationships together, in spite of all the pain, challenges and hardships of the past year. 

There is nothing else like the church in the world today - she is a new kind of community, created by God, called to make the gospel heard and visible in a world that believes anything but the gospel. 

When I came back to play football after all that time out - it was a bit disorienting at first. I had to regain my match fitness. But the best thing I could do was play. There really was no substitute for stepping over the white line. 

And so it is with us in our walk with the Lord Jesus. The very best thing you can do is get back to Church - every week if you can - soon you’ll adjust to the pace, you’ll regain your spiritual fitness and you certainly won’t regret it.