New Challenges

Ciaran with his beloved Swedish Fish

I figured I would try to reign in the scattershot, stream of consciousness style writing from the last time, so hopefully that comes across. As you can tell from the photo that I promise I was damn near bullied into contributing, I like the Boston Red Sox baseball team. The reasons are numerous, many of them stupid or illogical, but nonetheless that dumb baseball team means a lot to me. 

In 2025 Netflix released a documentary style show that was the result of their following the Red Sox around the 2024 season. I watched that season, it was infuriating and frustrating, so I had no intention of watching a documentary that reopened that dismal season. Then I heard about one of the episodes, with interviews from one of my favorite players on the team, Jarren Duran. For those that don’t know, or don’t care about baseball, he wasn’t a particularly touted baseball player. But he plays with all heart, and you can see it in his face after everything he does. He runs hard, he dives, he bats like he cares about every single swing, it’s just motivating to see. Moreover, he has been very open about his support and advocacy for mental health. 

His interview however, delivered a meaningful depth to that advocacy that made me like him so much more. In the documentary, Jarren details that during a baseball season, with all the mental and physical struggles, that he actually attempted suicide. To have one of your heroes come out and say that their mental health faltered to such a point that they actually tried to end it was so humanizing, I’m generally at a loss for adequate description. 

For what it’s worth, I struggle with mental health too. I’ve been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and various sleep related components. I can’t begin to compare struggles, because that would be disingenuous to anybody who’s ever struggled, but I know that I have good days and bad. And to hear, then see, a person I admire admit to his own flaws and to his own struggles, gives the feeling that maybe on my off days I’m not struggling alone. Maybe I’m struggling with Jarren too, which I think helps me. 

Anyways, on to the fitness portion of this nonsense. I decided on another Conqueror challenge. This time I’ll be doing the Giant’s Causeway, a geographic feature / phenomenon in Northern Ireland. The distance is only 50 miles, so my goal is to finish it in a week. To keep with the Ireland theme, I thought I might try a deep dive into the Pogues music while I row. I’m only vaguely familiar with their more well-known songs, so it’ll be kinda interesting to see more Irish punk. 

 There aren’t any shows that I think could be appropriate for watching to keep on theme. I’ve watched all of Derry Girls already, which was awesome. But anyways, I dunno what I’ll watch. It’ll be a spur of the moment decision I’m sure. 

Just to mix it up, I think I’m gonna drag one of the other Dragons to the batting cages soon and document how poorly that goes. So be looking for that embarrassment. I anticipate my arms being sore, and a realization that my hand eye coordination isn’t what it once was. Neither will stop me from yelling at the tv during Red Sox games, but I’ll accept that bit of cognitive dissonance gladly. 

This is the first summer since I was 16 years old that I think I actually want to swim for fun exercise too. I grew up as a lifeguard in the summer, then competitive swim teams in the winter, which I’m pretty sure dragged all the fun out of the water for me. So over 16 years later, I’m gonna see how that goes too. I don’t know what to do about listening to music while I swim though. I know that it’s technically possible with fancy headphones, but I know nothing about them. So that might end up an expensive trial and error.

I think I’ve done better with eating better / healthier food. Ish. I swear everytime that I make a decision to just hard stop eating all bad food, somebody has a pizza night or something. And during our D&D sessions I eat Swedish Fish like they were an endangered species.

But bread is my real nemesis here, because apparently everything I eat somehow has bread with it. So, I really need to get a handle on that. If it wasn’t so expensive, I swear I’d try to just eat sushi everyday and assume that the collective health benefits will outweigh whatever factors I’m ignorant of, which is all of them.

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