Tag: Adventures In Coding

Trying to weekend

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I’ve not been good at weekending recently. I don’t do day job work on the weekends (unless a client has an urgent job for which they’re willing to pay express rate), but over the last couple of months I have been working on my games at weekends, which means I’ve not really been giving my brain a break. I hit all my game-making goals this week and am well on target, so I’m taking a break from that over the weekend. I’m quite looking forward to some downtime.

I’m in two minds about parkrunning tomorrow. Geth is having a week off from volunteering so if I did go, it’d just be me. It might be nice to have a Saturday lie-in for once. I’ll make a decision about that tomorrow morning.

Then I’ve got an actual concert in the evening! First of the year (but not the last as I have several originally-2020 gigs coming up this summer). Again, it’s just me as Geth chose not to come to this one, but I’m looking forward to it – it’ll be great to tick Paul Young off my Band Aid Baby bucket list (which I still need to update following a Duran Duran gig last year) and I enjoyed Go West last time I saw them.

Sunday will be really quiet and thus brilliant in a different way.

Gradually feeling stronger

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Since I first went to the physio a few weeks ago to treat my mid-marathon-block injury cluster, I’ve been doing half an hour of strength training every day. This sometimes feels a bit tedious, but it is working – my aches and pains have gone away now and the foam roller and massage gun aren’t hurting anymore. Just hoping that this improvement continues right up to the marathon.

Game is coming along nicely already. It’s a process I really enjoy.

A fab Monday… no, wait

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I keep thinking it’s Monday. The week is flying.

Nice quiet day tinkering with the March-now-May-and-June game project again – the rest of the week looks similar.

Running: my short runs are now pretty much painless! The daily half hour of strength training really seems to be helping.

And relax

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A bit of peace and quiet for a few days now. Other than work I am looking forward to playing some games (and getting back to polishing the one I was making in March). I’ll be doing a nice gentle six-mile run on Thursday but other than that it’s all short streak savers this week.

I’m also looking forward to eating a bit better now that I’ve got more time to cook. The last couple of weeks have been slightly lacking in vital nutrients.

Not knowing how to de-game, eighteen miles and a glass teapot

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It’s been a bit of a mad week.

After the frantic weekend rush to finish my game by Monday night, I sort of didn’t know what to do with myself on Tuesday! Between TechUP and making two games in the last couple of months, I’ve not really stopped with the non-day-job work since September. I plan to continue with the game-making because I’m enjoying it so much, but I did give myself an enforced break for the rest of the week, and I’m really looking forward to spending the weekend playing other people’s games rather than making my own.

In an ideal world I would have spent the last few days dozing on the sofa… but it’s been a busy week! On Wednesday night I accompanied Geth to the Newcastle University Teaching Excellence Awards ceremony, as he’d been shortlisted for two awards. He ended up winning the award for Outstanding Contribution to Academic Support – I was not at all surprised, as nobody works harder than Geth when it comes to supporting students, but I was super super proud. The award trophy was a glass teapot (TEA – Teaching Excellence Awards), which now has pride of place on our mantelpiece!

Glass teapot trophy

Yesterday I went for my 18-mile long run. I’d been apprehensive about it because I’d run into difficulties with my hip on the last couple of miles of last week’s 14-miler. However, I was able to develop a run-walk strategy during the run that meant I didn’t burn out and didn’t put too much pressure on my problem areas. I’ll be adapting this for the actual marathon – I’ve got a couple of six-mile runs to do during the taper, and I’ll practise the strategy during those.

Today I had a physio appointment, and other than a bit of stiffness everything seems to be fine. I’ll pop in again after the race for a once-over.

It’s been a great week overall but also a tiring one.

Post-submission!

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My new game is out. You can play it here. I’m still making occasional bugfixes but I’m really happy it’s done. Onto the next one! …after a bit of time off to rest my brain.

I’ve got a rare ‘occasion’ to attend tomorrow (Geth has been nominated for some teaching awards and so we are going to the ceremony), and I’ll be doing my longest long run of the marathon training block on Thursday (and I need to go vote at some point), and I’ve got the physio on Friday morning… so I’ll be out and about a bit this week, which will also help get me out of game-panic mode.