Lovely! Thank you very much for reminding me on my job while I´m on vacation, Harrier! :mdr::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly:
As a Medical Writer I see a lot of those :f_biggrin::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly:
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Originally posted by Primrose6789
Lovely! Thank you very much for reminding me on my job while I´m on vacation, Harrier! :mdr::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly:
As a Medical Writer I see a lot of those :f_biggrin::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly:
What if I was just reminding you of the things you don't have to do right now, so you can be grateful that you have a break from them? 
But fine, here's some "holiday feeling" for you:
Do I have to comment this? :f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly:
Originally posted by Primrose6789
Do I have to comment this? :f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly:
Of course not - you're on vacation, after all. 
Even MORE garden space?
Yes that´s right. As there is still some free space left at "Freetime Farmer", we can rent even MORE beds (for a reduced price). I am BY FAR not as good and experienced as our late DonWolfo was, but I try my best to keep up the good work and to blog more about growing our own food. Let´s see how this will turn out - as I´m on vacation, I have plenty of time to plan the "new garden".
We get two additional beds for sure, the plan is to transfer my sweet pepper plants from the terrace and the mini-garden in front of the house, there. We will have one bed with sweet- and spicy pepper, radishes and salads and one with more pumpkin and more beans. So, now, let´s see what we plan for the additonal beds....
Primrose sure is excited about her new gardening plans, and so am I. 
I hope you guys are too - good gardening projects can be a very nice blogging subject, as evidenced by DonWolfo, whose much too early demise has sadly been all but confirmed now. 
Even with more ambitious gardening plans, our blog may not do justice to his, but we will keep him in our thoughts as we keep going. 
Meanwhile, I'm still exhausted from yesterday's 9 hour shift at my new second job as a lifeguard, which I even had to do alone for a good chunk of it. Vorpal had a phrase about people "using your sense of duty against you", and I suspect this is an issue for me too. I have already signed up for another shift next Saturday, if the weather permits. Not sure if that one would last all day too, but it likely would. The problem is that in both of my current jobs, there is a real shortage of workers, which means a higher load to carry for the ones who do work. I think I had to train three or four new people at my main job within the last few weeks.
It's tough to find the energy to keep going... but as you know, we have some sporting ambitions this summer too, so I better find a way. June is promising to be an absolutely crazy ride, really not sure how I can fit a good Badugi grind in there. I could hardly click my way through a bunch of chess puzzles today.
Well. let's try our best... I'm sure you guys have plenty to deal with too, so let's try to get through, together. But at the same time, let's not neglect our own needs. I know that I can sometimes have trouble with that.
All right, I managed to get a final 2 miles run in despite my fatigue, wrapping up my "Road to 10K" schedule. Over the course of the last six weeks, I ran about 85 miles, or 136 kilometers in total as part of my training. I should be ready now...
Opening Ceremony
It is finally time, the Trollympics return for their second Trollympiad. We successfully competed last summer, as documented on our old blog, and now we are back at full force.
Let's go over the rules again. Every Monday, I will participate in certain track and field challenges, with additional aquatic events thrown in whenever I get to them. The events are divided into the fields of stamina, strength, speed and coordination, representing the major areas of athletic fitness. My performance in each of them will be graded with Bronze, Silver, Gold or a fail, based on appropriate targets set for my demographic by the German Olympic Sports Federation.
The available events in each field are:
Stamina
- 3,000 meter run
- 10 kilometer run
- 7.5 kilometer walking/Nordic walking
- 800 meter freestyle swimming
- 20 kilometer cycling
Strength
- Medicine ball throw
- Shot put
- Stone put
- Standing long jump
- Gymnastics
Speed
- 100 meter dash
- 25 meter freestyle swimming
- 200 meter cycling
- Gymnastics
Coordination
- High Jump
- Long Jump
- Sling ball throw
- Rope Skipping
- Gymnastics
I need to get at least Bronze in all four fields in order to qualify for the badge. My overall rating will depend on the points I will score. I can only use one event from each of the fields for my overall score, with Bronze being worth one point, Silver two, and Gold three. 4-7 points overall will lead to Bronze, 8-10 points to Silver, and 11-12 points to Gold.
Last year, we got the Gold, with a full score of 12, though I had to rely on extra credit from my swimming badges to get the Gold for stamina. This year, I will try to go for the four Golds through the actual events alone - though I will consider any kind of Gold in the overall rating a success.
Of course, I would also like to break a few of my PBs from last year, but let's see where I stand, after all that training since then. Let the games begin! 
Trollympics 2023 Summary
Overall result: Gold
(12 points)
Rated events:
Stamina: Gold (DLRG Swimming Gold Badge) - 3 points
Strength: Gold (Medicine Ball Throw) - 3 points
Speed: Gold (100m Dash) - 3 points
Coordination: Gold (Sling Ball Throw) - 3 points
"Medal Table":
3,000 Meter Run (Stamina): Silver
800 Meter Freestyle (Stamina): Silver
Medicine Ball Throw (Strength): Gold
Standing Long Jump (Strength): Gold
Shot Put (Strength): Gold
100 Meter Dash (Speed): Gold
25 Meter Freestyle (Speed): Silver
Long Jump (Coordination): Bronze
Sling Ball Throw (Coordination): Gold
Trollympic Records:
3,000 Meter Run (Stamina): 16:47 minutes on September 11th, 2023.
800 Meter Freestyle (Stamina): 20:30 minutes on June 29th, 2023.
Medicine Ball Throw (Strength): 12.3 meters on June 26th, 2023.
Standing Long Jump (Strength): 2.28 meters on September 4th, 2023.
Shot Put (Strength): 8.04 meters on September 4th, 2023.
100 Meter Dash (Speed): 13.8 seconds on July 24th, 2023.
25 Meter Freestyle (Speed): 21.45 seconds on June 27th, 2023.
Long Jump (Coordination): 4.10 meters on July 3rd, 2023.
Sling Ball Throw (Coordination): 39.10 meters on July 10th, 2023.
Character Match from "Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games":
Knuckles
3,000 Meter Run (Stamina)
Bronze: 19:50 minutes
Silver: 17:20 minutes
Gold: 15:00 minutes
Not an Olympic event.
World Record: 7:20.67 minutes by Daniel Komen (KEN) at Rieti, September 1st, 1996.
Trollympic Record: 16:47 minutes by Harrier88 (PS) at the 2023 Trollympics, September 11th, 2023.
Harrier's time: 14:57.50 minutes
NEW TROLLYMPIC RECORD!
My training paid off! Thanks to a desperate final sprint, I managed to barely beat the Gold time by just 2.5 seconds, securing the first Gold for Pokerstrategy at this year's Trollympics. This also marks my first ever Gold in a Stamina event, best I achieved last year in this field was Silver.
My examiner didn't even think that I could pull it off as he saw me running. I started out at a decent pace, but at around the halfway point, he informed me that I had slowed down a little. I tried to pick up the pace on the next few laps, and then mobilized my last reserves on the final 150 meters. In the end, I could just barely shave off the decisive last few seconds for the Gold time.
We didn't do any other events today. There was some light rain, and the local soccer club also had a very important game in the Trollympic stadium later on, so we didn't have a ton of time afterwards. I believe it's their decisive play-off match for the promotion to the next highest league. People were already setting up all kinds of stands and all that, and they even had suspenseful music playing, which helped with my run.
More events to come next Monday, but I am very happy with our first Gold, this should have been one of the tougher events for me.
New "Medal Table":
3,000 Meter Run (Stamina): Gold
Current Progress
Stamina: Gold (3,000 Meter Run) - 3 points
Strength: -
Speed: -
Coordination: -
3 points in total, 11 points are required for Gold.
The reason why we are not seeing any Badugi updates on here, in Russian:
Sorry, but that second job on the weekend really did mess up my sleep schedule a little, I believe. I need to get it fixed next weekend, though I may have to work next Saturday too if the weather permits.
I have had some bad fatigue bloopers almost every day this week. On Monday, I poured myself a coffee in the morning and noticed, when it was done, that I forgot the cup. On Tuesday, I dropped a pallet of car batteries at work, rendering several of them useless - though it wasn't entirely my fault, it shouldn't have been stacked that way in the first place. And today, I went to the tennis court and realized that I forgot my racquet at home. 
Reading about some guy struggling with fatigue must be about as exciting as taking a 30 minute nap, but you can see why it wouldn't be so wise to play poker in that state. We will be back to casually shipping MTTs soon enough, I can feel it... but yes, June will surely be an extremely exhausting month. Luckily, Primrose will return this weekend, she can then kick some butt at PartyPoker for you.
Our sporting ambitions haven't waned, of course, so I shouldn't get too comfy after returning home from work - there will be a lot to do, and my body should have had enough of a break now after my successful 3K run on Monday.
Да, я тоже!
(Yes, me too!)
Today is sports-free in the tennis-bootcamp and we are more than happy about it. 
As my achilles tendon gets better, we are already planning our next competitions. In July and August I plan to compete only in doubles - due to summer heat (not gonna play two singles-matches at 30°C or more!) and due to just recovering from my minor injury. Hopefully, depending on the weather and my recovery-progress, I´m planning to play singles at the end of August and/or beginning of September again, when it´s not so hot and the sun is not so strong anymore. Would love to play in one more singles and one or two doubles-competition this season and then I would say, that is enough. Off-season will probably start by the middle of September, when we´re heading for another tennis bootcamp, but then, the technique lessons will start (as always during off-season).
So, that´s the plan so far, on Saturday we´re on the way home again and Sunday will be BIG gardening-day.
Last but not least and very important :f_ugly::f_ugly:: Yes, the sauna is finnish and yes, it´s hot enough!
So those are Primrose's sports plans for the summer, but there are some news for me too:
The Race is On!
I have just completed my registration for a public 10K run in a nearby town, about a 30 minute drive away. The race would be part of a larger state-wide running championship, but that won't matter to me, it is possible to run in just one event too. It will take place on Saturday, June 29th, some time in the evening after some minor runs in the same town, including a 5K race and some events for children and students.
I will consider this run to be a part of the "Trollympics", and apply the same standards:
10,000 Meter Run (Stamina)
Bronze: 74:10 minutes
Silver: 65:30 minutes
Gold: 56:50 minutesOlympic Record: 27:01.17 minutes by Kenenisa Bekele (ETH) at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, August 17th, 2008.
World Record: 26:11.00 minutes by Joshua Cheptegei (UGA) at Valencia, October 20th, 2020.
So 56:50 minutes would be the Gold time to beat... but what about the race itself? Well, I have briefly discussed last year's results before, and I could simply link to them, but instead, I have prepared a version with the names removed in the spoiler:
Spoiler
Yes... achieving such a great Gold level time would have put me in 40th place out of 53 runners. It would have been beaten by six runners in their 60's, and two runners in their 70's. The Silver time of 1:05:30 would have put me in 50th place, and the Bronze time of 1:14:10 - arguably still considered above average in my demographic - would have put me just barely in front of the 82-year-old 52nd place finisher.
In other words, those are runners - not people going out for a jog. Proper, experienced runners. I... won't really stand a chance, of course.
Those aren't really the standards I should have for myself, though. Just completing the run would be an achievement that is respectable enough, I suppose. But the "Trollympic" times should be an appropriate standard. Let's just aim for Gold in there, and that's that - my placement will be irrelevant. I will be happy with a Gold, and gladly settle for a Silver.
So there we go, save the date - Harrier will be racing on June 29th. This still gives me some time to practice, I will simply repeat the last 2-3 weeks from my "Road to 10K" schedule, I already went for a 4-mile run with aerobic intervals earlier today.
Wow!
I've done a 25mi (wow — what was a long time ago! I was 17) and more recently a 10km
both were done mixed run/walk — as in run a set # of paces, then walk the same number.
My current specialty is the 3m hobble
Originally posted by VorpalF2F
I've done a 25mi (wow — what was a long time ago! I was 17) and more recently a 10km
both were done mixed run/walk — as in run a set # of paces, then walk the same number.
25 miles is almost a marathon. 
Impressive stuff.
I have already been pondering if at least a half marathon could be a good goal for next year, but as for 2024, this race will surely be the first and the last for me. We will have plenty of other challenges, of course, mostly related to swimming - though I should also make the yellow belt in karate before the end of the year.
As far as I am concerned, completing a proper marathon is a very impressive lifetime achievement regardless of the finishing time. Maybe I will give it a try one day.
All right, I made it through today's sports program, and so did Primrose, who is ready to return home tomorrow. 
I heard she had a great holiday.
I have also received the good news that the local bathing facility will remain closed due to bad weather tomorrow, so no lifeguard shift for me after all. For the first time in two weeks, I should finally be able to get a full night's sleep tonight. This should considerably improve our chances to see some poker next week, or possibly on the weekend already. Then again, I plan to run up to eight practice miles on Sunday...
Not only that, but with Primrose back home, we should see some poker from her again too, though possibly not this weekend already.
It will still be a busy month, but it's good to have a short break.
Well, urm....yes..
This is me after 2 weeks of tennis bootcamp. I have no idea where my limbs are, they must be rotting away but yeah, finished the tennis bootcamp today and tomorrow we´re heading back home. There will be 2 days of no sports now and hopefully, after that I will best shape on the tennis court. Even though I do not plan many competitions in July and until mid-August, I hope I can finish the season with some more wins at the end of August and the beginning of September. 
Okay, not exactly such a broken down car ....
..but a minor common cold. Home sweet home: we´re back home now, where it´s a little bit warmer than in Northern Germany. I guess these was our "coldest" summer vacation ever. Normally, it´s about 18-22°C and sunny up there but this time, it was like 15°C and cloudy, even sometimes rainy. No problem with that, we could play tennis outdoor anyway, but was more like an October than a June. I personally like that, don´t like too warm weather, but somehow I caught a minor cold: feeling tired, sneezing and having a little joint pain. Now it´s very clear why I felt like a broken down car yesterday... but tennis bootcamp is over now, we´re at home and I have a little time to recover.
HARD WORK!!
Back from 2 weeks vacation and it´s VERY clear that Homer and I had A LOT to do in the garden! 
You won´t believe how much weed can grow during only 2 weeks!! :facepalm::rage: So, first things first: killing weed - which took us about two hours or so. The next thing was planting - four peppers (Pimientos de Padron, two Serranos and one sweet pepper) went right to their new places in our newly rented beds. One pumpkin has moved too and I sowed another pumpkin (giant pumpkin).
June is about time and last chance to sow pumpkin. June is also time to sow beans - and that´s what I did: bush beans and runner beans. In the green house we got tomatoes and cucumbers, and of course, after two weeks vacation, it was a HUGE chaos there!! We had to pinch out the tomatoes and cucumbers and gladly, one of the organizers of "Freetime Farmer" was there - she´s a professional gardener. Big shout out to that lady, she helped us! Couldn´t have done it right without her! 
Besides, harvesting, killing weed, planting and sowing, we also had to bring out the fertilizer and some organic pest-killers! I brought out sheep wool everywhere - it´s a great snail-repellent and fertilizer! 
So, we did our regular garden, the greenhouse and two of our new beds and then we were totally exhaused! So, the new field has to wait a couple of days until we sow on it. But hey, hard work gets rewarded! There was of course also harvest! 
Let´s see what we got here:
We got: different salads, a cucumber (from the greenhouse), tons of giant zombie-radishes (I hope, Homer has also appetite for radishes) and mirabelles. We also harvested strawberries and "Josta berries":
And for lunch, we had a yummy salad (we had home-made falafel with it):
The berries will make a great breakfast tomorrow: Overnight oats with berries
...and as for the empty field ...
I think Ludwig has some plans ..
We wrote them down in this cute little booklet
The plan is to sow mainly veggies for fall and winter. There´s still plenty of veggies we could plant and sow, but we decided - due to pretty "cold" weather this summer so far - not to take risks with mediterranean veggies and be on the safe side. There will be plenty of kale, cabbage, green onion, carrots, beet roots, winter radishes, spinach, pumpkin, beans, chard and salads. Well .... all the low risk veggies
..meanwhile on the terrace .......
Cucumber
Two tomatoes "Black Plum" flowering
Last year, when we were at the "Palmengarten" in Frankfurt, Harrier bought me those special tomato seeds. Now, here we go: This is how two of those seeds turned out - they are now big and strong tomato plants. Another "Black Plum" is on the field but due to not so great weather .... well ... glad that I got only ONE of those out there. On the terrace, they grow well.
And of course we got HOT STUFF
Lila Luzi (beautiful!)
Piquillo
"Feuerküsschen" ("little fire kiss")
The seeds were another gift from Harrier - I think it was a Christmas gift? Not sure whether it was a Birthday- or Christmas-gift.