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MJ's Journal


MikeRuns

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Hey Everyone I'm MJ(Michael Junior),

My intro and story is Here, it is more of a brain dump and stream of conscienceless than a proper piece of reading material. Here is my journal for my journey to stop gaming forever, but started with 90 days. No matter what stage you are at in life, it is never too late to change, and only compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not who you were 5 years ago or who someone else is today!

Day 1 was September 17th, 2018

I am now on Day 8

Days 1-8

I started this journey with a few goals in mind. I would like to qualify for the Boston Marathon, do a Half Iron-man with one of my cousins, and Learn to play the piano a lot better (A lot of the music I do enjoy is from games I used to play, but overall that music has been a positive impact on my life more than a negative one). I've been going to the gym twice a week to get my upper body back to shape. I have lost a lot of upper body muscle from when I was in college. I have been able to get a lot of productive chores done around the house and knocked out some tasks I have been wanting to get done. I have been watching a bit more TV than usual, but I am adjusting to a new life change so I am giving myself a little leeway there. I was able to knock a lot down off my email inboxes. I used to always have a lot of unread emails (57000), I deleted a ton of emails and am now trying to keep my inbox low just so I can stay on top of it. Last week I baked some chicken and veggies for dinner most of the week and yesterday I used a cast iron pan to sear a steak and it turned out pretty good which I was happy with, it's one of the techniques in cooking i've been trying to get better at. since I enjoy steak.

Day 8 -

Went to the gym in the morning, then to work, came back from work and heated up some food and then sat down and wrote my introduction to this forum and then this first journal entry. I signed up for some coaching to get some help on swimming, and biking for triathlons as I have been a runner most of my life. I am looking forward to getting back into a routine for running and competing again!

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Day 9 -

Woke up and got out on a run around 8am, first day of a training plan I am doing. The run was overall really easy, but just taking it one day at a time. Getting injured is and has always been one of my major worries, as whenever I have gotten injured I normally end up in a pretty bad place mentally. Drank a bit too much coffee at work and had a bit too much heightened anxiety, but besides that work went well and the coffee is outta my system now and i feel much better, Work was good, finishing up a project I've spent the last 3 months on, so its nice to see that come to fruition. Came back home and pretty much browsed the web and went through a bunch of other people intro posts and journal posts.  A few near future goals in order to keep myself accountable.

Figure out current budge and savings rate and push that number to be 50% if not higher.

Figure out trips to see family over the holidays

Play piano at least 30 minutes a day and also hook back up with my teacher

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As a fellow runner training for marathon I can totally empathize with the fear of getting injured. If you haven't already, invest in a good set of training shoes with generous cushioning, strike with your midfoot first on your stride, and be sure to properly warm up/cool-down/stretch/roll out. (Although you probably know these things already, seeing as you're quite a bit more experienced than I).

Glad to see you're doing well. Keep up the good work.

Edited by Deku
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On 9/26/2018 at 11:37 PM, PFMA said:

What kind of music do you like playing on the piano ?

Currently I am trying to learn/ have learned most of To Zanarkand from FFX, The original reason I got back into piano was because I did it when I was a kid and always regretted stopping, but I also like a lot of music from video games/ anime and think it would be cool to be able to play those. It allows me to channel what I like about games in a positive way.

 

On 9/27/2018 at 10:31 PM, Deku said:

As a fellow runner training for marathon I can totally empathize with the fear of getting injured. If you haven't already, invest in a good set of training shoes with generous cushioning, strike with your midfoot first on your stride, and be sure to properly warm up/cool-down/stretch/roll out. (Although you probably know these things already, seeing as you're quite a bit more experienced than I).

Glad to see you're doing well. Keep up the good work.

I've been running for a long time, but haven't always been too competitive and especially recently, trying to get back into being more competitive. Always appreciate the advice, I do need to roll out more, my foam roller is collecting a bit of dust ? . I have been using Adrenalines for the past 10 years or so and always get a new pair after 400-600ish miles. I used to have an issue with heel striking  a bit, but i haven't thought about it too much recently. Feel free to follow me on Strava https://www.strava.com/athletes/11995523

 

Day 10-12

Figured out my savings rate which was a lot easier than I thought, just needed to take the time. Need to start budgeting better in order to increase it, current goal is 50% savings rate. Mostly this week was work, come home, cook dinner, watch a bit of TV (all caught up on walking dead which is one of the few shows i enjoy watching [even if it is cheesy as hell]), and sleep. Got some piano time in but need to get more in. Played some Magic The Gathering with some friends on Friday which was nice, all of them are gamers so we end up talking about games. A lot of my friend groups have been gamers and it can be hard to branch out to others. Have some plans with some non-gaming friends tonight which should be good.

0 Video games played

Watched a few hours of TV this week, but was mostly just catching up on old shows, not randomly starting new ones.

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What do you have to do to qualify for the Boston Marathon? I thought it was a ballot? The Boston Marathon is on my to do list!

I am about to line up for marathon #10 in Melbourne next weekend. Hoping I can get a personal best of 4 hours (the first one took me 5 hours).

For your injuries etc - you're never going to have a "perfect" preparation or feel "perfect" before a run. If you wait until you have that perfect preparation, you're never going to do a marathon. So many of my mates keep putting off doing a marathon because they are waiting for the perfect time. It's never going to arrive.

Don't be concerned if you carry a bit of soreness or tiredness in your training plan. Remember you want to wear out your legs anyway to get used to being tired. It's if you have sharp pains for a couple of runs in a row that you might have damaged something, go see a sports doctor rather than self-diagnosing and ask the question "if I keep running, will I do any damage?"

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/1/2018 at 1:13 PM, giblets said:

What do you have to do to qualify for the Boston Marathon? I thought it was a ballot? The Boston Marathon is on my to do list!

I am about to line up for marathon #10 in Melbourne next weekend. Hoping I can get a personal best of 4 hours (the first one took me 5 hours).

For your injuries etc - you're never going to have a "perfect" preparation or feel "perfect" before a run. If you wait until you have that perfect preparation, you're never going to do a marathon. So many of my mates keep putting off doing a marathon because they are waiting for the perfect time. It's never going to arrive.

Don't be concerned if you carry a bit of soreness or tiredness in your training plan. Remember you want to wear out your legs anyway to get used to being tired. It's if you have sharp pains for a couple of runs in a row that you might have damaged something, go see a sports doctor rather than self-diagnosing and ask the question "if I keep running, will I do any damage?"

There are a few ways to qualify but I am working on trying to qualify by time, which i believe for 2020 is 3 hours for the full marathon. I am not really wating for the perfect time for a marathon, I just know it will destroy my legs a lot so would rather do some shorter halves to get my speed up and back off on the speed and add more mileage for the full. My body doesn't normally do to well on high mileage so I am trying to ease into the training for the full. Not looking for the perfect shape, just a better shape. Also number 10 man that's awesome, what you shooting for for time?

On 10/1/2018 at 8:38 PM, Cam Adair said:

You guys could run circles around me ?

Haha hopefully ?

Day 12-24

It's been awhile since I've posted. I've been trying to be off of my computer more when I am at home since I already use it at work so much. I haven't played any games, and I am pretty sure this has been the longest I have gone in a very very long time without playing any games. I still watch my room mate play games and talk to some co-workers about games, but am sticking to not playing them for at least 90 days. I am 100% done with MMO games or any type of competitive game for the rest of my life though, just too easy to get sucked into. I bought a record player recently and have been fiddling around with that which has been fun. I also started no fap on October 1st, shooting for 30 days, but also might make that 90 days as I think my fap habits had more of an effect on me than my gaming. Whether its a placebo effect or not I have been feeling pretty good most days even if not all days are great. I've been reading more and cooking more and doing more of other things in general. Of course sometimes i end up sitting on my ass and not doing too much sometimes, but small steps. I am in general more excited about life and leveling up myself.

 

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3 hours... well I'm out. My PB is 4h11 which I got on the weekend. I think I could easily go sub 4h10 if I work out how to deal with cramping, which has been my crisis in the last two marathons. I'm going to try and try something new to combat it in the next two weeks and run a virtual marathon for the Chicago medal in the last weekend of October.

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I've past a month now  ?about to be at 5 weeks. The no gaming part has not been to bad, but filling that time with other activities has been hard. I want to be more social, but whenever when I am in a situation to meet new people especially woman I choke or don't approach people I would like to. I made it around two weeks of no fap and then blew it, so trying to start that back up again, but allowing myself to still be pleased about the not gaming aspect. I've been still playing the piano and cooking more. I haven't really been craving any games, there are a few I am excited to be released to play to experience the story, but I will wait to see if I want to do any of that after 90 days.  @giblets the qualifying time depends on how old you are, the older the higher the starting cut off time. I would make sure you are getting enough potassium and possibly make sure you are getting enough sodium in while running, I know some people who eat Salt tablets every X minutes, which I think should.help.out with the cramping.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

It’s been well over 3 months now. In general this has been an interesting journey for myself. Gaming was never really an escape for me until college. I always had fond memories of gaming with my friends or cousin because it’s just what i did as a kid and was enjoyable. Once college hit, and I started going to parties, I really wasn’t sure how to interact socially because I never really went to parties before. That’s when I started to have social anxiety and started using gaming as an escape. Fast forward til now I have done a decent amount of retrospection. 1. I am way too hard on myself and need to allow myself to live in the moment more.

2. I need to get more comfortable with talking with random people about whatever it is. Last night I was on the bus and some drunk guy started talking with me, and instead of ignoring him I engaged in conversation and it was a fun conversation. 

 

3 I need to limit screen time, I have watched a bit more tv than I wanted to over the 90 days, but honestly I should take more of a win from that since I went 90 days without gaming which would have most likely added up to around 400-800 hours, but had much less of that on tv. I also need to stop watching random you tube videos, there are s lot of interesting things out there, but if I wanna learn something I think books are a better medium considering there isn’t and much of a distraction or a chance to get side tracked by other things on the internet. 

4. I’ve read books while I was on vacation and a lot of them basically talked about living life more meaningfully, and about thinking if you really need something before getting it. I reached a point where my salary allows me to pretty much buy whatever I want and when I wanted something I would just buy it without considering the cost or if I was going to use it enough. I realize that none of those things I bought made me happpy and what i really crave in life is genuine human interaction. When I think of the control some of my possessions have over me it can be terrifying. Most people wouldn’t really be too sad if their frying pan was thrown out, but talk to me about getting rid of my gaming pc, tv, or ps4, and I’ll get anxious. Signs like that only just reinforce that I need to get rid of these things that have so much power over me. I’ve started my journey on living a more minimalist (read as living life more purposefully), and started decluttering from my room and my house all of the things I don’t use or really need. I am going to sell my gaming pc, and when i move out i think I will sell my tv and gaming consoles. I currently have a roommate and he has the furniture so if I all of a sudden got rid of my tv and speakers and consoles I feel like I’d be making him buy everything that id still use on occasion. 

I’ve read way more books in the past 3 months than I have in 8 years most likely.

I ran a half marathon in 1:26

I didn’t game for 90 days.

 

After the 90 days I was craving to play something one night, I did end up playing a random game on my ps4, I also installed the Witcher and played for about an hour. I then realized I wasn’t really enjoying the game/ was just playing it because people said it was a good game. I realized I was just wanting to play because I was bored. After that I reset my computer to factory defaults and started putting together pictures and parts to sell on Craigslist. 

 

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