I’ve read quite a few name change threads on here but I was wondering if anyone has ever changed their (first) name they go by socially not for the sake of hating the old name but just because they liked the new name so much better. Did you ever regret that and how did people generally react to that - did you even tell anyone the reason or did you just tell them you go by xy now? I feel like my social life would be very accepting of this but I missed the perfect opportunity to do this when I started my new job 2 years ago in a new country 😂 but I didn’t really know back then how much I liked the name I would choose and I chickened out because I knew my group would see my legal name everywhere in the beginning (name tags / documents / exam results etc) since it’s almost impossible to change your name where I‘m from without transitioning in gender or being named something horrible. As I‘m still quite new to most of the people in the company because we got trained elsewhere and we have just recently started in the operational environment I feel like I could probably still easily pull this off if I get the courage to do so.
There’s also another guy in my team who has the same name as I do which I feel like would be positive to avoid confusion (which definitely happened already and I work a very time critical and safety critical job where we sometimes shout names to coordinate stuff) but I feel like because of that it might not be taken serious if I casually bring it up in that context too. I just don’t know … I really love that name.
Btw, to most I could even say I‘m going by another of my first names as people know I have multiple first names but most don’t know or remember what exactly those are (I have 3 first names)
I even exposed some to the name already by renaming my phone (and some people airdropped me some stuff or connected my phone to a company car we had together) - no one really bat an eye after initially asking „is it xy phone?“
Looking forward to your input here :)
Oh btw, the name I would choose and absolutely adore is Micah
(I‘m male, 25 years old, my initials would also stay the same and although I am German I don’t work in Germany and basically everyone speaks English where I work at so it would also always be pronounced as I like it to be pronounced)

I(27F) met my friends with benefits(29M) two years ago at the bar. When I first met him, he would always go on about how beautiful I was, about how he never wanted me to leave, about how he thought I was the most gorgeous woman ever. He would call me pet names like sweetheart and love. When he was drunk, sometimes he would tell me that he was in love with me
We stopped hooking up because I think I made him upset. After all, one time, the door accidentally fell off his apartment room, and he had to call one of his friends to help fix it or to help it. Get us out because the door was locked inside, and I hid in the closet. He seemed upset even two years later. He still mentions how he thinks I’m a weirdo for doing that and seems angry about it.
Then there was one time when we were hooking up a lot of the first times when we were hooking up. I would ask him to come right away, and he said that would make him upset because it would make him think I didn’t like him very much. One time, he came quickly, and I asked him why he did that, and he said that’s what I thought you would’ve wanted, and I said no.
He got super upset and angry at me and got my face and told me I smelled and that he hated me. I got him to calm down, and he wanted to cuddle with me, but I left after that. For about six months, we didn’t talk, and then I saw him, and we had a fun time when he was drunk he whispered that he loved me .but at the end again because I was getting sore I asked him to come quickly, and he got super upset.
He wouldn’t even say bye to me. I told him I was leaving, and he just said yeah, and then he got on the phone and started speaking loudly like he was talking to one of his friends that he was.” hanging out with one of his old frat bros” and repeated it multiple times cause I think he wanted to hurt my feelings.
We hadn’t seen each other in over a year, and I texted him, and he asked me to hang out. The entire time, he kept bringing up other women and rubbing other women in my face. He was talking about how he had three women last year dating all at once. I asked about the background photo on his phone, a kid who was his nephew, and he was bragging about how he uses the image to pick up women.
Then he constantly was putting me down. I asked him what he got for Christmas cause when I saw him last time, it was around Christmas, and he told me that I was boring and that was a stupid question. I asked him if a photo in his room was of San Francisco, and he said it was obvious because it’s the only city with town cars.
He also called me annoying and other names. When he was drunk, he told me that I was hot. I don’t understand why he wanted to insult me the entire time I saw him last. I’ve never brought him up by other men, and I’ve never asked him more in the relationship. It was super complimentary when we first met, but now he insults me and constantly rubs other women in my face. Why? I’ve never hinted that I want more, so why insult me and put me down all the time? My friends with benefits put me down so much?
Tl;dr: FWB was super complimentary when we first met, but now insults me and constantly rubs other women in my face. Why?

Hi, I haven't shared this anywhere yet or really gotten into it with anyone but I wanted to share. This has sat in my notes app for a minute waiting for the courage to post it anywhere but I don't really know anything about blogging so...here goes.
Let me tell you a story about love.
In early 2023, I started attending a rather large church in my Bible belt town. I walked in with my head covered and my forehead anointed in an oil I made in my dining room. I stood for worship, took notes in my Bible, and listened intently to every word that rolled off of the pastor's tongue. I bowed my head for prayer. I left without a word.
I was commanded to go to church to study the workings of the Holy Spirit. I needed to “learn the enemy” so that I could fight Him head on in an interdimensional war. I was to cover my head and anoint myself with a “Church Cloak” oil that would keep God from knowing I was in attendance. I was to silently pray over the people in the church, to beg my gods to release them from their enslavement to the Christian God. I was three years into the “astral war”, and only had 2 more years to go until my 24th birthday - the day the war would be finished. I was the messiah of the interdimensional world. I was a once in a generation witch. I was one of the Chosen Ones.
Maybe you’ve picked it up faster than I did, but I was not, in fact the Chosen One. I was in a suicide cult.
I’ll spare you the Who-What-Where-When-Why of it all - but I will say this. I didn’t understand then, but I was being trained to die. The sun would have come up on my 24th birthday, and I would not rise with it.
I faithfully attended my church every week. I wept during baptisms, I pocketed my communion cups to pour onto land that was sacred to the aliens I thought I was saving. I was a good devotee. I went where I was told to go, did what I was supposed to do, believed what I was supposed to believe, bled when I was told to bleed. I shoved doubt into the bottom of my closet and swore that I was trusting.
I wasn’t allowed to question. I was a diplomat. I was an heiress to an interplanar throne. It was only important that I be obedient.
“Obedience is the ultimate sacrifice.”
And I had to be sacrificed often.
Months of decoding riddles, taking on “quests”, and “representing the gods” later - I found myself questioning for the first time in years. My family invited me on a vacation to the mountains of North Carolina, which I reluctantly agreed to go on. Alone in my cabin bedroom, I felt something that shook my entire belief system - I felt the Holy Spirit.
I had been trained and prepared for this moment. I was ready to fight Him off, ready to combat tricks of the mind, ready to tell him I would never become a prisoner of God. What I was not prepared for, is that no one yelled at me. The Holy Spirit was knocking at my door saying, “I don’t hate you”, “I don’t want to kill you”, “Come home”.
I tried to tell myself that this was manipulation. This was a trick! He was lying through His teeth! But the more I listened, the more I knew it was real. The Holy Spirit had not come to kill me. The only thing I could feel from the other side of the door was love.
I did what any normal person would do - made a (now deleted) anonymous account on reddit to beg Christianity to tell me that this was impossible. I had committed blasphemy against the Holy Spirit! I had committed the unforgivable sin! Even if I wanted to get saved - which I totally, definitely didn’t - I couldn’t. Not one comment told me that this was impossible. I deleted the post and cried until the Sunday sun came up.
Back home, the pastor at my church preached a sermon on how the Holy Spirit pursues us in love. I listened to a livestream on the drive back from the mountains.
This was impossible.
I tried to bury my encounter with the Holy Spirit in my closet with the rest of my questions and doubts, and continued to soldier on. The planes, the gods I worship - they loved me. They loved me unconditionally. They only wanted what’s best for me - I told myself I must have gotten wires crossed. I told myself the Holy Spirit is just a more powerful manipulator than I anticipated. God wanted me dead, my gods loved me…right?
A week later, the next sermon in my church's Holy Spirit series raised even more questions. I was given a prophecy that I was to go head to head against a clergyman - so it was right to go straight to the source with my questions. That’s what I told myself, at least. The pastor talked to me for two and a half hours. I confessed to him (in the presence of two other girls in the cult), what had happened in North Carolina. I begged him for a way to make it stop. He didn’t give me an answer. I couldn’t push away what happened in the cabin anymore. I needed to know the truth.
I spent the next week arguing with my friends. The entirety of the war was based on the belief that God was evil, but I knew what I felt. I knew that the Holy Spirit couldn’t be evil. On top of this, if we believed we loved everyone unconditionally - but my friends couldn’t love me if I got saved - there’s the wrench in the wheel! I had found the flaw in the plans! I had spotted the error in the infallible!
If we were wrong about God, were we wrong about the planes? If we were wrong about love, what was right?
My friends begged me to put this to bed. We were told that if we left, we would be killed. We were given gruesome ways that the gods, the monsters, the angels, and the planes would destroy us if we dared to abandon our destiny - and the deals we’d agreed to uphold. I do not ever want to seem like I think my friends were wrong, or heartless, for asking me to stay. Everything we knew said that I was talking about signing up to be murdered. They loved me. The love my friends and I had for each other was real - I know that. Everything else was a lie.
That week, I locked my bedroom door in my empty apartment and paced back and forth.
“This is not me asking for salvation.” I said to my ceiling fan.
“But if you are knocking on my door, this is what I need.”
I gave God a list of three things. I needed my Sunday shift covered so that I could go back and talk to the pastor, I needed my best friend to be okay with the idea of me asking for salvation, and I needed the courage to talk to the pastor.
The next day, my coworker asked if I would trade my Sunday shift for her Friday shift. I cried in my car. The day after that, my best friend agreed to remain friends even if I accepted Jesus. The day after, I emailed the pastor.
I sent him the longest email I’ve ever written, structured in the worst possible way. I look back at that email now, seven months later, and I get teary. I was so scared. I knew that I was going to lose everything. I also knew that Jesus was worth it. He sent back an equally long response and asked me to talk to him in person that Sunday.
After the final sermon in the Holy Spirit series, I shakily sat down in the sanctuary face to face with the clergyman - just as it was prophesied. I, however, could not see it through. I laid out the (literally) bloody details for him, in an effort to defend my beliefs. A last ditch effort to convince myself that I could keep my life. I could keep the promise of being one of the “great witches of our time”, the idea of being the next Crowley, the next Buckland. A last ditch effort to convince myself I was the Chosen One - and not someone who gave up everything for a con.
He asked me how I knew my gods loved me. He asked how a god can love you and command someone to take a knife to you in the same breath. He asked me how I knew they weren’t the “enemy”. He said, to him, that didn’t sound like gods who wanted what was best for me. For the first time in four years, I didn’t have a response.
I don’t remember everything he said to me, but I remember this,
“I won’t pray you see the full truth of how this ends - because I don’t think you could handle it. But I will pray that you see enough to know that this does not end well”.
I brought home the conversation to my best friend that night. I expected her to be angry - but she wasn’t. We talked until the sun rose, we pulled the questions out of our closets, we realized we’d always had the same doubts but knew there was punishment for those who question. We realized there might not have been gods at all. We realized the last four years of our life were a lie.
Most importantly, we realized that the war wasn’t over on my 24th birthday. We were.
We were in a suicide cult.
How could this happen? How could I not have seen it? I had been forced to change my name (to one that meant “Blessed Death” by the way), forced to move, forced into isolation at points because “loving someone was putting them in danger”, I’d been forced to get tattoos, forced to bleed.
Forced. Forced. Forced.
That word came up alot that night. It had never really come up before.
I emailed the pastor. My best friend and I packed up boxes of books, herbs, crystals, altars, candles, oils, tarot cards, ritual supplies, you name it. We looked at our, now basically empty apartment and came to terms with the idea that we had to start over.
The next day, the pastor called me from North Carolina, and walked me through salvation. I got a new Bible, went to church, unveiled, erased the “battle strategy” on the whiteboard in my room and replaced it with Psalm 51:10.
“God, create a clean heart for me and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
I went back to my birth name.
Nice to meet you, I’m Faith.
The word “cult” didn’t hit me until a few weeks later. I laughed at the idea until someone pointed me to the ICSA website (International Cultic Studies Association) and I read through the characteristics of cults. I checked almost every box. I read everything I could find, what leaving a cult felt like, what cult leaders act like, what it feels like to be in a cult. There was a word for what I’d experienced, but I didn’t like it. I still wanted to believe it was real. I didn’t want to feel so naive.
It was easier to say God spared me from demons than to say that God saved me from a witchcraft cult. I can safely say now, that it doesn’t matter. God spared me. God, quite literally, saved my life. The Holy Spirit knocked on my door and carried me out of a burning building. It doesn’t really matter if it was demons or a person who struck the match.
After a couple months, I got medicated for PTSD. I started seeing an amazing therapist. The last member called my best friend and I and left. It was a clean sweep, no one was left to hurt anymore. God pursued me - even when I swore he was evil - and now we’re all alive to tell the tale.
I still pray for the leader, I still pray for the three girls who suffered next to me. I still pray for everyone we told about what we were doing - especially the ones who believed us.
I’ve been saved for almost seven months now. I am watching God work in my life, and He has been so patient with me. I spent four years believing that to be divinely loved was to be tortured.
Now, I worship a God who was tortured so that I don’t have to be.

I(‘M23’) just recently found out my gf(‘F21’) was texting this guy again. We have been dating for almost 2 years and have had our fair share or issues, fights, and couple hourly breakups, but at the same time have had alot of good. We’ve both meet each others parents and grandparents, both been on 7 vacations together and have spent a considerable amount of time together. Also, all information has been told to me and I didn’t snoop to find anything out. I did search for his Facebook after but found it to be unsearchable. I found out because she had to block him after he sent a dick picture. Some background, this started when we broke up for a few hours before Christmas. She had one foot out in my opinion and she has her own personal issues with me. We argued over text and phone after I left and I said some things I regret and loom on her mind currently. She then got on Tinder and flaunted her likes to me before she deleted it by the end of the night after telling me men are still the same. Fast forward to January 7th when she gets a message on Facebook from some guy who followed her Tinder to her Facebook. They chatted intermittently over the course of the next 4 months. She claims she was mean and shutting down all his attempts and telling him all about me, but from the brief messages I saw he was constantly hinting towards his openness towards her. At one point he said something along the lines of I don’t normally date women under 25 which stood out to me. We argued about this because she told me about two weeks ago. I saw her shutting him down and declined his number which is a positive but at the same time I feel like it should’ve never happened. She blamed me for putting her on tinder in the first place and also said she forgot how he found her page. I set boundaries about how I would like she ended conversations between guys who wanted to have s relationship or have sex with her in the future including him because it isn’t appropriate in a relationship. She agreed and we moved on. Fast forward to last night which is about two weeks later and we are both doing our own overnight work. Shes nannying and im dog sitting. She tells me about blocking him and how I should be glad and all and what he did. I was more stuck on how she was texting him about how her weekend was and stuff before it even got to this. She claims she forgot how they met and about our conversation of not texting him anymore. She has then since called me a bitch, says she can text who she wants shes a grown woman and even declared me a drama queen. I since said I wasn’t coming over like we intended and she broke up with me because I keep bringing up the sane two points and she doesn’t care. I should just move on. This situation bothers me because we had s similar incident within our first three months of dating. Some guy found her reddit post from before I didn’t know about and messaged her on instagram. The post was before but not the texts. He was hitting her up looking to hang out and I told her shut it down because she told me while I was driving. Two weeks later we played a get to know eachother card game and showed our phones to the other. I recognized his profile and when we read them she had been texting him more until he claimed he didn’t want a date just to come over. She shut it down but we both knew it was unacceptable behavior. I was going to leave then but she promised to not and claimed she had one foot out because of how new it was and that she’s all in now. I really love her and our memories but mannn… idk if I can get over this happening again essentially. She really wanted to see me tn before we broke up and we haven’t text since. Idk if an apology would even suffice if we do talk again or would I want someone back after taking a break to be single if we take time. Im not sure what im looking for but I just want to talk about it with someone who’s not my family.

Race Information

• Name: Bend Half / Eugene Half
• Date: April 14 / April 28th 2024
• Distance: 13.1 miles
• Location: Oregon
• Time: 1:32. / 1:31:30.

Bend was at 3.5k elevation with ~700 up/down
Eugene is at sea level with ~500 up/down
TL;DR I got a race that felt very good on the first attempt, last one felt way more meh, but overall OK... would do again, but not soon...

Goals

Goal	Description	Completed?
A	Have a well executed half	YES!
B	Sub 1:30	No
C	Recover well enough to race second faster	Yes
D	Sub 7 min/mile	Yes

Splits

Bend
Ran entirely by feel, no pacer. I checked my paces occasionally to stay in a predefined zone (6:50 to 7:10)
Felt like pretty even splits, end was more down hill so I did have a nice positive split, GAP says I slowed down but it felt good.
Eugene

• First 7 miles were consistent 6:52
• 9-10 were around 7:05
• 11 - 13.1 were 7:15 (slowest ~7:30), I was battling side pain and having a BPM through the roof for too long

Training

I heard on a guest on a podcast last year (probably strength running) say offhand that “you can't do back to back marathons but you can do back to back halves,” and I was... intrigued.
Last year I was still in my early "new runners glow" of having big PR's at the start of the year and ever bigger dreams. Some too-high expectations, some disappointments. I figured back to back halves would give me a chance to dream to big on the first and level set for even splits on the second based on the information. I imagined my strategy could change (and it did) but at least I’d gain some useful training and recovery info about myself.
I really like writing out my own training plans, so I've do my own for 18 months. I plan to read Pfitz book and do the 70/18 plan as I imagine it will get me a lot further than my own plans… but I like the process, it hasn’t burnt me out or injured me, so I’m keeping with it until I actually read that book.
I started the year on a 6 week "lose weight and run 5k's" block and hit sub 20 min 5k which had been a long time goal. It felt good! After maintaining ~48mpw during that I switched to half training.
During that time I read Jack Daniel's training book and realized hitting intervals/repetitions/tempos would be very good and I shoulda done them next year. I only had 9 weeks after that block so my lead up training plan was:

• Weeks 1-5 EZ / Tempo+MLR / Rep+ML EZ /EZ /Long/ EZ
• Weeks 5-6 I held on to 60 mpw (my highest ever mileage, topping at 63) and introduced intervals. I felt back to back MLR was crazy as I wasn't hitting training paces (and I did MLR during tempo and repetitions!) so I did one MLR between two quality days and left their mileage low.
• Weeks 7-9 I did a 10k tune up (42min) and taper from 60 to 40 mpw

I started doing marathon pace blocks in my long runs at the get go. Long runs were from 14-16 miles with 1 - 3 miles of marathon pace. It felt challenging but good! Good mental training for the end of a race. I did them back to back, but I think going forward I’ll just do them every other week.
It was my first 60mpw and I felt great holding on to it for 4 weeks. Once I stopped that ill-advised back to back training/MLR the weeks felt manageable.
I also kept up weight training 2-3 times a week with usually two leg days a week hitting all the major stuff.
No injuries, my sleep did start getting kinda crappy for no obvious reason somewhere in there I took for overtraining maybe, but taper was soon thereafter so it was OK.

Pre-race Bend

Taper for Bend felt good. Small niggles and pains came up out of nowhere but I kinda know at this point to ignore them as they amount to nothing. I
Spent few days before in a nice relaxing cabin out in the woods. Day of felt magical, expectations were perfect based on my tune up.
I decided to try caffeine pills and Tylenol for this race so I did a 2 week caffeine fast. Massive head ache first couple days as I was thoroughly addictive, slow building to totally fine after 5 days.

Race Bend

Took 400mg caffeine pills 1 hour before the race with Tylenol. 20 minutes later I was hyper and READY to race. Felt kinda child-ish with the hyperactivity.
Race itself felt perfectly executed. My tune up let me know sub 1:30 was a bit crazy and my former PR was 1:37. I went by feel pretty much the whole race as there were no pacers for my speed and the field was pretty empty compared to a larger city.
Lots of ups and downs, but I once again just felt it out and rode it out. I didn't feel mentally tired until mile 7, but it was OK! Physical and mental exhaustion really set in around mile 11 but I felt capable of hammering on, passing some folks.
Looking at the GAP strava splits in hindsight, the end was downhill so my pace did get “slower” a bit miles 10-13 but not too much.
I didn't know my time until I saw the 1:31:XX on the clock so I had enough for a little sprint to hit just under 1:32 by chip time. I felt ecstatic!

Post-race Bend

I was SORE for a week. I knew I had to recover in 2 weeks for Eugene so I was very careful the first week, but did lots of short easy runs. Started doing light strength training day 4 and it felt great.
This coulda been very silly because I did legs every other day for 4 days, up until 3 days out from Eugene. I was too compulsive in wanting to work out something… next time I feel I will do better exactly laying out every workout (and food) ahead of time with calendar reminders before a race so I don’t just get loopy and over do something.
I decided to tell myself I could walk off the course in Eugene if something felt off, and that it was fine not racing both. This was more out of a way of acceptance and general not wanting to hurt myself/burn out than any specific cause.
I did the math and though I could get under 1:30 for Eugene as:

• It had a easier course (less/up down)
• It was sea level
• It had a pacer I could use for my goal

Pre-race Eugene

I felt recovered after a week, so I did exactly the same thing as my Bend taper for Eugene since it felt good. 10 min Tempo / easy run / 2 repetitions and interval/ easy run/ easy run/ easy run strides / RACE
Everything felt pretty dang good, my heart rate was acting normal, legs felt good. Some runs were meh but I had a great run in my race shoes, Saucony Endorphin Pro 4 (both races) which was easy, kinda fast, and smooth with low heart rate.
Day before race something seemed up. I slept in by a couple hours and had a nap, and felt I could sleep more. Like, lots of rest is good, but I felt down right sleepy… I assumed it was all the carbs but in hindsight I’m less sure.

Race Eugene

Took caffeine pills 1 hour before the race and 40 minutes out I felt that nice familiar high. Walking around Eugene and jogging a bit I was psyched. As I anticipated Eugene was WAY bigger. I found my 1:30 pacer as I lined up and was kinda nervous I couldn’t get close.
First 6 miles felt… OK. I kept the pacer in sight but Jesus it was a crowded field. I am very used to running along and I never understood the “make a move” aspect of a race until now. Trying to get in front of folks, or stay at a good pace for yourself, while surrounded by dozens of people in close proximity is NOT IDEAL. I imagine it’s a skill for me to learn but I liked the small town comparison of Bend. Running my own race felt good.
Bad stuff:

• My heart rate was higher than Bend in those 6 miles. I was running 10 seconds/mile faster… I figured it would pan out…
• Going by Strava my heart rate was anaerobic for 12 minutes and threshold for 50 minutes... like all in the same chunk after the start of the race...
• My stomach started cramping lightly (return of my marathon!) I’m pretty sure refined sugar I normally eschew kinda tripped me up? I didn’t make my Marathon mistake of downing dandy marshmallows before the race but I had a couple sweet scones Saturday to up the carbs. Or it was just an unfunny fluke.

Miles 7 - 8 I kept up the pace, felt pain encroaching though. It was a full body sore, I tried to keep a smooth stride that helped a bit but I didn’t have the same energy as Bend. Checking my heart rate it had been like 10bmp above my supposed lactacte threshold for almost 40 minutes at this point.
Miles 9 - 13 were a pain fest getting slower, this is where I lost my time to hit 1:30. I wasn’t totally thinking about realizing my heart was through the roof from the beginning I shoulda realize early sticking with 1:30 group wasn’t going to pan out. I’m unsure if I even could stick to even splits with the crowd.

Post-race Eugene

Verge of cramps, stiffness. Typical stuff. After some meet and greet I went back and felt possibly the worst I’ve ever felt during a race. Fun experience, glad I could race both.

Post-races

The magic was there for Bend… if I just trained two weeks more and only raced Eugene would I have hit sub 1:30 I wanted? Maybe, or maybe I’ll find out I’m sick and Bend was the best I’d get this cycle. Maybe I was only mostly recovered from Bend and 2 weeks wasn’t enough.
Lots of what ifs, but like, comparatively far less than if I only had one race. A good race or a bad race is such a crapshoot. I do wish the easier course was first so I could have a bigger PR, but like… Bend’s hills and tranquility were possibly more to my strengths, and maybe that elevation wasn’t something that would effect me personally as much. I don’t think sucking in Oxygen is ever the weak link in my chain?
I don’t think I’ll do double halves soon but I may consider have a backup race paid for 1-2 weeks out. It seems a bit impossible to know in the moment though if it will be useful, race day is such a gamble!
Overall I’m happy I went for it in Eugene, happy I did, found I can recover in time for a race, maybe three weeks would be better but god damn I’m excited to train again and a bit sick of a month of tapering, recovery, and now another stretch of recovery.
Made with a new race report generator created by herumph.

With the beta content hitting the main build, and a good Steam sale it seems we have a lot of new folks joining us and having a ball getting repeatedly killed. I thought I would take a moment to write up a reasonably in depth guide to my method for fairly reliably killing Kolmi, and getting the easiest ending.
Game begins:
Your first task is to get a water flask. If you have one, great. If you don't, then you need to either pour out the contents of your flask, or find another to fill as quickly as possible. I generally keep any kind of polymorphine, and pheremone, and dump anything else. Dumping acid is dangerous, best place to do this is right on the stone entrance ramp, where it will turn to harmless flammable gas.
Once I have my water flask, I immediately head to the right. If I find flummoxium, I then find oil and blood and mix up as much Unstable Polymorphine as I can. Then I grab the green tablet, and get over the lava lake, using water to make a stone island in the middle (roughly 9 hops). Blood is even better than water for this, since it makes a type of stone that doesn't melt.
Break the bridge and hop down to the Snowy Caverns. It is possible, but difficult to clear this entire level with just Spark Bolt and a green tablet, but hopefully, you will find better wands and spells fairly quickly. Kite enemies back to the stone tunnel that you took to get here as a fairly safe area to retreat to. Drop the tablet on tanks. Stay close to the ground to help avoid sniper fire. If you have polymorphine, use it to get into the holy mountain above you are spells, wands, and perks. It's possible to use unstable teleportation, but it's risky, you can end up in the level above surrouded by baddies or swimming in lava. I don't get the health there unless I'm in serious trouble. This is a good spot to use pheromone to turn unused wands into gold. It's iffy to trigger, so try making a deep pool behind a statue and dunking wands in it in there. Audio cues are very important on this level. You can hear worms, and most importantly, Ukko well before they are on screen. Ukko can be dropped with spark bolt, as he won't see you when he is on the edge of the screen. Explore the snowy caverns until your health is low. If you have trouble dodging hiisi mortar shots, turn around below 34 health. If you are good at dodging them, turn around at 26 health. Any lower risks instant death from snipers.
Brief note about orbs: Getting a few early isn't difficult, but if all I want to do is kill the boss, I intentionally avoid them. The very first orb ramps up his shield to reflect damage, which makes killing yourself off the shield a lot more likely. I don't need the 25 health that much. Skip them.
Then you head back to the first level. My goal is 600 gold and then I leave. I don't spend a lot of time up there, the rewards just aren't worth it. I prefer spending time and health clearing the second level if possible.
Skip the health for now if you can. The most dangerous enemy in the second level outside of the fungal area is the shotgun hiisi. If he tags you with all 4 shots it's 28 damage, so I want at least 29 health to muck around down there. If I have a way out of the holy mountain I head right mostly looking for hearts, then heal up when below 29 and head to the fungal cavern. If I don't have a way to avoid breaking the holy mountain I heal up immediately and go straight for the fungal area primarily looking for polymorphine, or a teleport spell. Once I have that, I can search the level for hearts. Due to explostions and RoboBastards, the fungal area can be dangerous, so I prefer staying above 60 health. That gives you some leeway in case you get stun dropped and pounded on. Then it's time to go back to the snowy caverns.
Hopefully by now you have built a somewhat better weapon. If you are still underpowered, keep that green tablet handy for tanks. I generally only clear the outside edges of this map. I loop back up here and grab the health in the dark on the first level to help finish clearing the fungal caverns on the second level. If you are still crossing the lava lake with a water vial, make sure you pour some on the rock island you made earlier. Lava melts rock, and it's really hard to see holes in the stone. Never trust stone above lava that isn't wet. Worm blood is my favorite way to see in the dark. If you didn't kill a worm in the caverns, next to the tree on the surface, dig a small hole and chuck the wiggling egg that usually spawns on the lowest tree branch, and juice that worm to fill an empty flask. When you go back in to get the health, be careful of the frogs on the left part of the level, if you get hit just right they don't do 10 damage, they do 10 every frame and can one-shot you.
If you have a way to dig through hard stone, you can check the eye puzzle room for wands, and more importantly, retrieve the note spells from the tree back on the surface. A couple of black holes up and a bit to the left from the greed room in the tree gets you there. If you find a modifier that extends the life of a spell, and a damage adding modifier, those things are excellent at dishing out enough damage to use for the entire rest of the game. The weapon I most often end up with is something like spark bolt with trigger, spiral arc, short range homing, multicast, and notes. I like to spell out DEAD in my wand, because musical murder should also be funny. A simple version will do 2kdps, and a better one will do 30k and 'kill' the statue. The nice thing about this wand is that there are a large number of combinations to build it, and it's lethal without getting a very fast firing wand built. No chainsaws needed. It also is not able to damage yourself unless you get polymorphed, or tagged by a twitch mage.
Now it's time to head to the hiisi base. I don't spend a lot of time here. If I have broken wands, I head across the top right, then down the right hand side to the anvil to repair them, if not, I just go straight down and leave. While the rewards on this level are good, the close quarters, explosives everywhere, and murder lamps just aren't worth messing with. If you don't have explosion immunity, you need to use 'full hiisi base protocol', which is everything that might explode needs to be detonated from a safe distance. Don't ever go near a box, canister, or lamp without blowing the hell out of it from far away. This includes snow piles. Every pile of snow has an explosive under it until proven otherwise.
Welcome to the Jungle, we've got fun and games. This level is the best level to boostrap your run up to the point where you are ready to win. As long as you aren't underpowered, the enemies here aren't all that dangerous, and it's very compartmentalized, and fairly easy to engage enemies when you are ready. Build a wand that's good enough to kill the dragon, and head across the top and down the side to the dragon cave. Melee immunity makes this a lot less risky, his bite does a massive 1500 damage or so, so don't get bitten. Very good chance of a strong wand and spells from killing him.
This is a good moment to talk about bypassing the lower levels. Once you can reliably dig through hard stone, you can skip right to the end fight. Add mana and Luminous Drill on a wand with .34 recharge or less is all you need to make a light sabre that continuously digs just about anything. From the dragon cave, go about half a screen to the right, and dig straight down. If you do it perfectly, you will hit the triangle door between the temple and the wizards den, go through the middle of it, briefly pop out at the bottom of the temple, and then dig directly into the room to fight kolmi. A drill wand that fires every frame does 600dps, which will kill a zero orb Kolmi in about two seconds, which means you don't every really need a boss killing wand.
This level can also be where you bootstrap your run to go long, if that is what you want to do. There is often Woundmasters you can use to get massive amounts of maximum health. I'll generally try to do that if possible. If I have some way to heal, usually vampirism or wand experimenter, I'll skip hearts I find on this level hoping to find a woundmaster. If you do, clear the immediate area of threats, and go for it. Killing the dragon is a reliable way to have at least one heart to work with. The best trick to make this easier is knowing that restarting the game resets your debuff timers, so you can stack up Woundmaster debuffs until your health is below 8, then travel to the heart no matter how far it is. (It is a bit tedious to restart your game every 15 seconds, but if the result is thousands of max health, I'll do it).
If you can't skip to the end it's time to enter the vault. Ideally you want fire, toxic, and explosion immunity for this level. If you aren't living the dream, then proceed straight down with caution. Stand on a ledge and fire down to destroy everything beneath you before heading down. Try to avoid getting forced a long distance right or left, if you can just dig through the wall to keep going down. You probably already have a weapon good enough to kill kolmi, so we are done searching for rewards, and just want to leave as safely as possible. This is a good level to have homing on your wand, as there is very little chance of poly.
I treat the temple very much the same way, only I generally remove homing from my wand before entering. If you are using a wand that can damage yourself, be extremely careful because swap mages are common. So are poly mages and poly monsters. If you have left over worm blood from the third level, this is a good time to use it. Again, go a straight down as possible, carefully dig rather than get side tracked. Prioritize killing the poly mage and poly monster. Be wary of the poly monster's bubble attack, because it does AOE poly. If you kill a poly mage, eat the corpse for a minute or two of poly immunity. Watch out for toxic rock. Breaking the green crystals changes all the rock around it to toxic, and it's a dull red instead of a bright green, so it's easy to miss that it's dangerous.
Then it's on to killing the boss. If you didn't get any orbs, he is a pushover with 1200 health. Sometimes he has helpers spawn, and they can show up just after he dies, so keep an eye out. If my damage wand isn't strong, I like to dig out the hole that the left hand lava will flow into, because sometimes the stone plug in the ceiling gets stuck, and the fighting area starts to flood with lava, which makes a longer fight ... awkward.
That's a pretty good outline of my basic run that isn't trying to go long. Good luck, and happy dying!

This is kind of long and ramblely, but I wanted to be as truthful as possible and give as much context as possible. Please give it a read through and let me know your thoughts!

Race Information

* **Name:** Jim Thorpe Marathon
* **Date:** April 28, 2024
* **Distance:** 26.2 miles
* **Location:** Jim Thorpe, PA
* **Website:** https://runjimthorpe.com/
* **Strava:** https://www.strava.com/activities/11284682370
* **Time:** 3:32:09

Goals

Goal Description Completed?
-------------------------------
A around 3:20 *No*
B sub 3:25 *No*
C PR *No*

Splits

Mile Time
------------
1 7:44
2 7:19
3 7:44
4 7:18
5 7:49
6 7:42
7 7:42
8 7:50
9 7:51
10 7:54
11 7:49
12 7:45
13 7:58
14 7:48
15 7:37
16 7:49
17 7:58
18 7:57
19 8:07
20 8:24
21 8:06
22 8:07
23 8:17
24 9:03
25 9:28
26 9:41

Training

For context, I am early 20s F who has been running consistently for almost two year now, though I have been generally physically active all my life.
I got into running thinking I'd do a half, and then I enjoyed running a bit too much and ended up training enough to run a marathon, so I did my first marathon (Philly 2022, ~mid Nov) after starting May 2022. My training plan for this marathon was just run a lot, and run everything slow. In 2023, I trained for Philly again following the Pfitzinger 18 weeks/up to 55mi plan (did speed workouts for the first time!) and ran 3:27:02 with a super pro friend pacing me. I was pretty excited by this race and figured I'd have a good chance of being able to run Boston 2025 if I kept up the momentum and trained for a spring marathon. This led me to sign up for Jim Thorpe, which I thought that being a downhill course would definitely let me run within 3:25:00 and qualify for Boston 2025.
I followed the same Pfitzinger plan as before, with a few modifications. I trained for a goal marathon time of 3:20:00, thinking that I would have 5min leeway during the race if things went wrong. I tried to run the recovery runs slower, especially as I got closer to the race because in the previous cycle I was running these around 8:45min/mi, which isn't really "fast" but definitely isn't recovery. I also paid a lot closer attention to my marathon pace runs. In the previous training cycle, for a workout like 14mi marathon pace with 18mi total, I'd run 2mi warmup, 14mi at marathon pace with breaks in between to eat gels (definitely cheating), and 2mi cooldown. I changed to 4mi warmup into 14mi at marathon pace with no breaks. This was definitely a really rough adjustment at first and I would often be under my desired pace towards the beginning of the plan, but I got better towards the end. Finally, I had the general goal of "stick with my lactate threshold runs" because those runs were by far the hardest for me and were the workouts I was mostly likely to not hit pace on.
Here were my goal paces for the run types: * Easy: ~9:30min/mi * General Aerobic (~8-12mi runs): ~8:45-9:00min/mi * Long Runs (14mi+): ~9:00min/mi, held steady throughout * Marathon Pace: ~7:40min/mi * Lactate Threshold (4mi - 7mi): ~7:15min/mi * VO2 Max (speed workout kinda stuff): ~6:40min/mi
The beginning 4 weeks felt a lot harder than I expected. I took a month "off" (running ~30-40mi/week) which I thought would keep me in decent shape, but all of those runs were generally slow (~9:30min/mi) and for fun. Workouts were really a slap in the face starting the training plan again. However, coming into the middle of the training plan I really felt pretty good. I struggled a lot with exhaustion during the last training plan like falling asleep in class, but I felt like my recovery was faster this time. The only workout I still struggled with were the lactate threshold workouts. I'm fine for the first 3mi, but after that my breathing is so hard and my legs feel toasted and it's really hard to keep pace. At some point I just started looking at heartrate instead of pace and trying to keep a hard effort since keeping pace was so demoralizing. I settled for about 180bpm.
With five weeks to go, I ran a beautiful 18mi with 14mi at marathon pace. Tried a beefy caffeine gel for the first time (SiS Beta Fuel + Nootropics, 200mg of caffeine) and felt like I was flying. I actually easily hit my marathon pace and felt confident about my race. Then, the great calamity. I rested for one day, and then ran 11mi the next day with friends... after that my left shin/calf hurt while walking. I ended up having to skip the next two long runs and cut back on mileage. This hurt so much after such a good marathon pace run because it felt like my pace dreams were slipping away.
My shin/calf managed to get well enough to run a 20mi three weeks before the race with only some pain. I replaced the 16mi Sunday long run with the 20mi because I felt like I needed a long run as a mental confidence check and prove to myself that I can still run longer distances, and I figured because it was only 4mi more than scheduled it shouldn't hurt my taper. With the two week taper after that long run, my shin/calf felt fine enough to race in.
To give people a better idea of my mileage while injured: * 6 weeks to go: 52mi (week I ran the marathon pace run) * 5 weeks to go: 29mi * 4 weeks to go: 24mi * 3 weeks to go: 39mi (skipped 1.5 runs to make sure I could push out the 20mi) * 2 weeks to go: 31mi (back to following the plan as normal at this point) * last week: 48mi (includes the marathon)
And some other random details: * I train using the gels I use while racing, and I take the gels at the same interval (so in theory my stomach should be very used to the gels) * I run with a water bottle/waist belt thing and drink whenever I want to (maybe only drinking at "water station miles" would be better? Or learn to run using less water?) * I'm in a running club and I run races with them during the training season for funsies. This spring, I ran a half at marathon pace, and set a 10K PR. I also ran 5Ks but didn't try to PR because either a. heavy training week or b. injured later.

Pre-race

At this point, I had no clue what I'd be able to run, but I felt like I still has a good chance of at least getting a PR. My plan was to start out at 7:40, on track for 3:20:00, and have a slower second half if needed but hopefully still keeping around the same pace. Perhaps too optimistic looking back?
Last race in Philly I wasted 2min cause my stomach was so bad I had to go to the bathroom twice in the middle, and my stomach was cramping for a good 2/3 of the race too, before and after the bathroom breaks. The stomach cramps during Philly made my legs feel really weak which I think made me go slower than I otherwise could have. Because of this, I focused on eating healthy the week before (diet was generally healthy during training too, but was especially careful the week before). I also slept a full 8 hours every night the week before the race. The day before the race, I ate pretty much only simple carbs (bagels, pasta, dinner roll) and avoided fibers/fat to minimizing the chance of needing to use the bathroom during the race.
Unfortunately, the weather was not super great. The week before was all 50F highs, but for the day of the race the temperature spiked to an 80Fe high, and the humidity was >90% with a 40 some degree dew point. Most of the race should still be in the 50Fs, but the last stretch would be in the 60Fs. I trained in pretty frigid dry winter conditions, so I was worried about being able to handle the heat, and whether I'd be thirsty/cramping at the end. I decided to use 5 SiS electrolyte gels, one SiS caffeine gel that was so good during training, and drink at every water station (roughly every 2-3mi).
Another thing is that because Jim Thorpe is in a gorge, the GPS was going to be really bad according to the race organizers. Therefore, my plan was to manually lap every mile with the Race Screen on Garmin, and try to find some people going for the same time at the beginning of the race to run with. I depended so much on seeing my current pace during my training runs that this part made me the most nervous.
I had a 0.78mi warmup (way too little in hindsight, but I was worried about adding unnecessary mileage for my shin/calf to deal with), and lined up at the starting line.

Race

The first 4 miles saw some crazy pacing issues with me. I genuinely had no clue how fast I was running until I hit the mile markers and lapped my watch. My watch was telling me my current pace was 8:30min/mi ish when I ran those two miles at 7:20min/mi... not a great confidence booster at the start, but I figured I would run a bit slower to let my pace even out.
Over the next few miles, I tried to problem solve keep my pace even by looking at my heart rate instead of my pace. Outside of my lactate threshold runs I pretty much never checked my watched heartrate during my run, and I didn't know what my marathon pace heartrate was to be honest, but I tried to keep it around 170bpm. Was this reasonable for my age? I had no clue. It felt like a reasonably hard effort effort at the time, where it would be challenging to keep up but not be so hard that I would hit the wall later. As the miles went on it became so much harder to maintain that heart rate, and my pace was slower for the same heartrate, so I opted for a pacing strategy based on effort, where I tried to feel like I was pushing myself but hopefully not too hard, and try to run faster if the lap pace for that mile was slow.
At mile 6, I could feel my stomach start to cramp, an added factor that made it even harder to keep pace. I also missed picking up water at one of the stations by whiffing the cup (in these circumstances, should I go back for water?). At mile 12 I tried going to the bathroom hoping that it might help, but I was empty. I think this meant my diet choices worked, but something else was just making my stomach cramp up pretty badly.
By mile 12 I was sure that 3:20:00 was completely unrealistic, but I was still hoping for sub 3:25:00. I had my caffeine gel around this time too, and while it didn't feel as good as during training it helped me feel more focused. I tried to make back some time, but it was really hard to devote all of my concentration for long enough periods to break out of the 7:50ish pace. My stomach was still cramping in the background, which I did my best to ignore, and I started feeling pretty nauseous when I went fast so I tried to run right at the edge of a bit of nausea, but not too much nausea. Choking down gels became harder. And by mile 18, I was so thirsty despite drinking water from every station that I was just looking forward to the next station.
By 20mi, my watch said I still had a chance of PRing, so I tried to up my pace for the next two miles. Everyone was so spread out by this point in the race that it felt like I was running alone, and the race course was now exposed to the sun. I was getting even thirstier and my stomach was cramping hard enough I thought I might shit myself (despite having no shit, as evidenced earlier), and my legs were starting to hurt but I still wanted to PR.
By mile 23, I felt like I hit the wall. I am sure the dehydration, heat, my whole digestive system wanting out from my body, blah blah blah contributed to that, but it was also a mental collapse. My watch told me that my finishing time would be slower my PR, and in that time while I was hurting and running alone I just couldn't convince myself that I could run fast enough to still PR. My pace fell off a cliff and I dragged myself across the finish line in a time way slower than what I envisioned in my worst case scenario.

Post-race

So, feeling pretty ashamed about giving up at the end. Boston 2025 is no longer possible, but I am determined to be there at Boston 2026. Here are my thoughts/questions on things to do next and improve. Feel free to be brutally honest with feedback:
* Dealing with the mental aspect: As soon as I felt like I wouldn't have a chance of hitting my last goal it was hard to find a reason to continue running fast. I think it's something I struggled with during my training too specifically with the lactate threshold runs, where when I fall off my goal pace for the workout I am always tempted to just fold. That's why I ended up using the heartrate method to continue giving myself a goal to strive towards, but even then there were two lactate thresholds that I caved in for. If I believe that I have a chance of hitting my goals though, I give it everything I have. I guess my question is that is there a way to train the "give everything" mindset even when I think I've failed to hit your goals? Any ways to practice convincing myself there's still a chance? Any other runs/workouts I can adapt to give me more chances to practice achieving this goal? I'm thinking I could make my long runs into progressions, but I'm not sure if that would be too exhausting for recovery purposes (and I love doing my slow long runs :( ). I know the solution to the mental aspect is partially "just try harder", but that hasn't been working well so far so I'm wondering if there's a specific way to improve at "trying harder".
* Another part for the mental aspect: I wanted to run a faster pace than I was running throughout the whole marathon, even before my mental completely gave in. Part of me failing to do so was me being unsure about whether going to hard would set me up for failure later in the race, and part of it was just that it was so hard to maintain a faster pace, taking way more sustained mental effort than I had put in for long runs. I think I am not used to concentrating too hard when running, which is fine for when I am feeling good but clearly a skill I need to build for days where I am not feeling good like in this race. How do I train this too?
* Side tangent, though perhaps relevant: Interestingly, I don't have this issue for the 5x800 style runs, maybe because the distance is so short that the pain seems temporary and its easy to mentally tell myself that the goal holds for the next 800 even if I run one too slowly. But this sectioning doesn't happen as well for long hard efforts because floating in the back of my head I know that even if I finish a chunk I have to do it again and again without a break.
* How do I pace? I didn't appreciate how much of a boon it was to have my own personal pacer during Philly. My friend was super experienced and tried to keep an even effort throughout. I felt like I didn't need to think about what the optimal amount of effort to put in was, I simply turned off my brain and followed. I didn't even look at my watch the whole race, and in the end when I was tired and dying he kept me motivated by reminding me of my goals and giving me encouragement. But obviously, I need to learn how to pace by myself.
* So what is the optimal heartrate range when running a marathon? Some sources online say 90% of max heart rate, which would be around 180bpm for me. However seeing as how I struggled to keep up that effort for 6mi during a lactate threshold run, I am sure I can't keep up that effort for a marathon. I looked back at that one marathon pace run and my heartrate was ~170bpm. I have no heartrate data for Philly because I had to borrow someone else's watch, their their heartrate sensor was really off. What might be a reasonable range for me, and how could I train it up more effectively? Probably more lactate threshold runs I guess, but maybe there's a better workout to ease into those since I am so used to running slow? In addition, how do I account for drift where my heartrate speeds up anyways throughout the race, regardless of my pace?
* Is pacing by effort even valid? My marathon pace run before I got injured felt relatively easy, which is why I really tried to rein in my effort throughout the race because I didn't think it should feel that hard. Even compared to the last marathon, it felt a lot harder earlier on. And in training, I have good days and really bad days where an easy pace feels hard. So for you all, if you aren't feeling well during a race, do you just ignore the relative effort you have to put in and go full steam for your desired time? Is it smarter to try to race by effort and try to get the best time for the conditions that day? I think I was wavering between these two ideas for most of the race.
* Sticking with a group? I saw this advice online, and I tried running with people at the beginning, but me trying to stay in certain groups led to some of the crazier pacing in the first four miles. Is there something I'm missing on how to select groups to follow?
* The stomach: I tried so hard to fix this since my last race. I really think my stomach cramps this time are not due to diet problems/literally having shit. I've found that before my long runs if I eat a healthy balanced diet and avoid fiber the day before I am fine. Maybe my stomach cramps from too much exertion while running? Perhaps a longer warmup would have been better to get used to the pace? I wore my running belt to carry my gels, but maybe the slight up down bouncing movement induced bowel movements in my stomach (although the belt/stomach issues in generally were nonexistent during my marathon pace run before injury). I've read about imodium on this sub, does that work by making the poop more solid or by causing the muscles to move less? I think this is a huge factor that has held me back in my past two races, and any and all advice would be appreciated.
* Hydration: I don't think I mentioned this before, but I was also really thirsty in the last 6 miles of Philly 2023. This time I drank way more, but also felt so much worse possibly because not used to the heat/humidity anymore. Would it be worth it to just carry a water bottle with me or is that too much time loss? Should I full on stop at the hydration stations and drink a lot? Issues with that is a. severe time loss, and b. chugging water tends to give me side stitches when I start running after. I usually sip as needed from a water bottle while training, is it a viable strategy to start limiting my water intake during runs to match race conditions better or would that just be needlessly dehydrating myself?
* Thoughts on continuing to use the Pfizgerald 18 week/55mi max plan? I really do not want to move up to a higher mileage plan because of how much extra time it would be; balancing training on top of college, extracurriculars, and friends is already a tall order. Maybe there is another plan floating out there that would be specific to areas I need to improve on?
* Shoes? I used the Adidas Ultraboost because they were my workout shoes while training, even though they were a bit heavy. For my last marathon, I wore the Nike Vaporfly 2, but with online ordering I got a size too small and two of my toenails completely fell off, which is why I didn't want to wear them for this race. I didn't buy new shoes for this race cause the Vaporflys were already so expensive, and I didn't want to spend more when my workout shoes are technically already a "fast" shoe. I generally feel pretty fast in the Ultraboosts, so I didn't think having Vaporflys for the race would make that much of a difference (at least for a $260 difference). Also, my form isn't super good and I do a more midfoot/heel strike, so it felt like I was wasting the carbon fiber plate but not maximally activating it. I guess my question is, do they actually make that much of a difference even for someone with my running form?
* Did my injury really warrant such a decrease in performance? I knew that this marathon was going to hurt more than my pre injury marathon pace run, but it genuinely was so much harder than I expected. I thought I'd still be okay because my injury seemed relatively minor compared to how bad it could be, seeing as how I was still able to push out some short runs without pain even during the weeks where I was injured. Also now, about 8 hours after finishing, I don't think my legs hurt as much as they did after Philly 2023, so I think my legs are relatively fit. I don't know how much of my performance today was due to a mental failure and the conditions with the weathemy body versus how much was due to a genuine loss in fitness. I would love to hear people's thoughts on this. Also, if I get injured in the future, how can I recalibrate my goals?
* Finally, if I train for 18 weeks, I get a small off season period until late July. How do I utilize this the most effectively? Do I continue running a lot after a short break? Should I do workouts during the off season so I can associate them with fun (like my long runs) instead of painful tests of my fitness? Is it worth cross training and what would I do to cross train, considering the fact that I don't know how to ride a bike and I don't have access to a pool/gym?
If you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading! Let me know if you have any additional questions or if there's additional info I can give. This race wasn't my best but I am determined to do well on my next one!
TL;DR:
Trying to qualify for the Boston marathon, previous time 3:27:02 and aiming for at least sub 3:25:00 with this marathon. Training was solid up until a minor injury 5 weeks before the race that made me cut back some mileage. During the race, felt like maintaining pace/speeding up took more effort than expected, even though the pace was slower than goal pace by about 10sec/mi. Also struggled with thirst, heat, pacing myself/running long stretches alone, and stomach cramping/nausea. Ended up giving up on keeping pace at mile 23. Would appreciate advice on practicing building mental strength during the training phase, how I can avoid the stomach cramps with diet being eliminated as a factor, learning how to pace, among other things. Thank you so much!
Made with a new [race report generator](http://sfdavis.com/racereports/) created by u/herumph.

So I’m lucky enough to have two internship opportunities this summer. I’m having trouble deciding what to do. One is with a large utility company and requires a federal background check. The other is at a headquarters of a large chain that spans several states.
The thing is, the utility company internship pays $28/ hour and is basically data entry and the other pays $16.50 but is actual project management and IT infrastructure.
I really really need the money that the utility company would pay to get through my remaining 5 classes (tuition and cost of living, etc.) before graduation because I don’t want to take out any more loans. I’m no where near the limit for fed loans but I don’t want anymore especially after hearing about this job market. I’m terrified of never being able to pay back my loans. If I don’t take the utility company, I may have to work two jobs this summer and then only take up to 6 credits/ 2 classes in the fall with a large down payment and then payment plan. This would be about $3,200 total if I’m lucky to be able to pay that. I would have to find a way to pay for the other 3 classes after too. Like I’m not sure what the plan would be but I don’t want to take time off school.
But the $16.50 is actual Project management and IT infrastructure which is different than help desk from what I was told. I already had a help desk internship the previous summer. The $16.50 one would be way better experience on my resume long term. I’m just terrified of how I’ll get through my remaining classes if I don’t take the $28/ hour internship. I think with the $28 an hour I could save enough to pay for at least 4 classes.
I’m also a little scared that my background check will be denied. I read online that any wrong details are perceived as you lying. I lived in fostercare and my history had to go all the way back into fostercare in my teens. I didn’t know the addresses I lived at and had to ask the director of DSS where I might’ve lived. I didn’t have good references for these years either. I’ve also worked a lot of temp jobs during college and realized I left a temp job off so I’m scared overall the fed background check will get denied. I’ve read that these background checks take a long time and they sometimes let you start and then deny your background check and you end up with no job. I don’t want to deny the $16.50 and have no job. I have passed a background check for my previous internship to be able to go into little kids classrooms and that was for the state, but I don’t think these are the same kinds of background checks.
The $16.50 an hour job’s culture kind of scares me. They’re a huge chain and have many departments in IT, but they’re known for not having the best culture or caring about people. They’re also known for letting students work during the school year after internships which would be a huge plus for me. The $28/hour one is for a temp project and staying on is way less likely because of this and because it’s several hours away. $28 is giving me a housing stipend as well.
The $28/hour could potentially show that I can pass a fed background check though and it’s a big name in our region so that might be a plus.
Another factor is that my current part time job has tuition reimbursement up to $4000 a year after 90 days and I would have to quit this job to work at the chain. I’m almost to 90 days and other people in my store have used the tuition reimbursement so I feel like that’s a good opportunity if I can save the money to use it. I could keep my part time job and work weekends only if I took the utility company job.
Overall, I’m very stressed about what to do. Please feel free to ask questions. I may have left some details out because I forgot and there’s a lot of factors. It just feels like a lot. What do you think?

Hello, welcome to London!

Visiting us? Moving to study or work? Brief layover? Moving to a new part of London? Any small questions about life here, if you're new or been here your whole life, this is the place!
We get a lot of posts asking very similar questions so this post aims to address some of our most Frequently Asked Questions, and give you a place to ask for assistance.
Your first port of call should be

the london wiki

It includes sections on:
What should I see and where are the non-touristy stuff and hidden gems? We've written about the big must-sees here and we highly recommend TfL's Experiences site. We've listed some of our favourite lesser-known stuff here And the cheap/free stuff here
How do I pay for the Tube/bus, and what's an Oyster card? You don't pay cash. You can use a number of contactless payments systems such as your Contactless bankcard (which is widespread in the UK, but maybe not so much elsewhere), Apple Pay, Android Pay, or you can buy an Oyster card and top it up with credit. See here for more.
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Is the London Pass worth it? Probably not
Other subs that you may find helpful:

• /LondonSocialClub - Meeting new people for events, activities and/or pints.
• /IWantOut & /UKvisa - Check if you need a visa and how to get one if you want to work here.
• /LegalAdviceUK - Good for all sorts, especially for questions about landlords and contracts.
• /UKPersonalFinance - Another goldmine of sage advice.
• /AskUK - Great for general questions about UK life that aren't specific to London.

Tips for posting:
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Non-touristy stuff - There are no secret corners where we hide the good stuff from outsiders! This is one of the most written about cities in the world, so when we want to go to a museum, or gallery, go window shopping, or whatever, we look at the same sources as tourists (listings sites, blogs, etc - see front page of the wiki).
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Hi folks hope you are doing well. I keep running into issues when I start talking to someone and begin going on dates. I’m very big on communicating and I value people who can respond to text messages, give me calls, FaceTime with me stuff like that. I also enjoy quality time but I 100% understand when somebody wants space. Sometimes I get the feeling like I want to be alone at times and so I don’t somebody up my butt 24/7, more like maybe one or two texts a day to maintain our connection. Maybe even less once we are dating but I’m negotiable about it. Are my expectations too high? It seems so common in gay men to just ghost people out of nowhere and not say how you really feel when it may be difficult to do so. I’ve never understood this as I think being direct is the healthiest thing you can do as a person. Does anyone else experience this and how do you navigate it? I don’t force anyone to talk to me if they don’t want to but so many guys are like shocked that after not responding to me for days I just lose interest.

I’m wanting to get a grill for my partner as a birthday present. We don’t currently have a bbq, and we’re infrequent grillers at best — all our prior grill experience was on shared condo building patio grills.
I want to keep things as simple as possible: gas, super easy assembly, and goof proof to use and maintain. I think the Weber 2000 is the way to go but I’d love a sanity check from those wiser than me.
Considerations: - we’re 2 adults, a toddler, and an infant. For our usual dinners, we like to have leftovers, so we tend to cook about 4-5 adult sized portions at a time. - we entertain maybe once every 6 weeks or so. Usually with 2-6 guests. - we’re in a house, the grill would go in the backyard, on either grass or a dirt/pebbly patch. - we’re renting and likely to purchase in 2-3 years (so don’t know if we’d even have a yard then, though it seems likely) - we don’t currently camp (etc) though we might start once the infant is in her preschool years. - we live in Scotland, so there’s a fair bit of rain (and maybe more importantly, wind). We could store the grill in the garage if needed but it’s a bit of a journey (have to either take it through the house, or go around 2 houses and through an alley)
I’m hoping the 2000 could be a good “starter” grill … if we end up loving grilling, we can upgrade when we move and keep the 2000 as a spare or portable grill. (I’d consider the Weber 2200 but it’s £120 more here for some reason, which puts it out of budget.)
What do you all think?

I’ve been a partner for almost 10 years. I promoted to ASM 2 years ago, and to SM a year ago. I wanted this job for so long and I loved it until I didn’t. I frequently found myself reminiscing on my SSV days and constantly think about how being an SM just doesn’t fulfill me like being an SSV does. I’ve ran a successful store for a year. I made it through some really rough times at my store. I was going to keep at it, until the other night I realized something.
I come home from work, and I’m still worrying about work. No matter what I do, I can’t stop thinking about the possibility of callouts and the inevitable texts I’ll get during my “time off”. I don’t get to leave work at work ever, unless I’m on PTO. And even then, I’m responsible for the operations of a business, I can never fully shut it off. I come home from work, and I’m on my phone trying to get shifts covered because a partner is sick or a partner quit. This was fine when I was freshly an ASM, single, and so eager for the new opportunity. Now I’m married, and this job takes away so much of my time with my husband. He’s so understanding, but I feel so much guilt and stress from it. So today, I told my DM that I’m stepping down.
And honestly? She was so supportive and understanding. I don’t know if I’m shocked, but it was a pleasant feeling to know that I wasn’t guilted into changing my mind. I’m a little scared for this next step, but I know that when I was a SSV, I was the happiest i’ve ever been at any job. So here’s to a new chapter!
If anyone is thinking about stepping down but the conversation with your DM is what’s holding you back, this is your sign.

I was a young mom at the time this happened, and I was desperately searching for employment for several months before I landed this fantastical hellhole.
Even though there were definitely a few red flags at the time of my interview, I didn't care; I needed money, and I was a chronic people pleaser with a fear of conflict. So.
Back ground on this job and the environment (this is going to be LONG AF, and kinda sad, but pls read cus I believe the details leading up are important). Sorry for any typos:
It was a simple kiosk job near an entrance of our cities mall. You know, one of those locations that sells cellphone cases, other protective accessories, device unlocking services, screen repairs, etc. Not hard work by any means, but for someone like me who can't sell her way out of a wet paper bag, it was a challenge.
Anyway, the programs used to unlock devices - and just the POS systems in general - were very... lacking. Basic. Bootlegged. But who was I to question any of it? Who was I to question my employers when they told me to log my own hours, and send them in like a weekly "list" via email to their personal emails, rather than having an official clocking system in place? Who was I to question the absurd pricing on cheap, under qualified products? Who was I to question how they store customer's phones that they are trusting us with while we replace a shattered screen or unlock their devices? (BTW, the way we did that was by placing them in an unlocked drawer that was loose and loaded with many random items, such as pens, note pads, paper clips, thumb tacks, elastics, duotangs, screw drivers, etc. Anything put in there was at risk for damage or even disappearing into the void).
I mostly worked there alone; either an opening or closing shift, it varied. There was at least one other employee outside of management that would switch off with me at the end of a shift. Those employees never lasted long; either they were fired, or they valued themselves more than I did myself, and would leave after seeing the nonsense going on...
So this would normally leave me to either work with my boss's (the owners) wife or him himself. Working with the wife was... fine. She either gossiped with me or wondered off to do her own shopping in the mall, leaving me alone. The husband, however, would make my skin crawl every time he'd so much as call into the store, let alone come by in-person.
If he called, and I didn't pick up - whether I was with a customer or not - I'd get scolded. If I wasn't with a customer, he'd demand to know what I was apparently so busy with that I couldn't pick up the phone. If I WAS with a customer, he'd demand to know why I didn't pick up and just quickly tell him I was with someone than hang up; he'd tell me "he'd understand". Other times when I'd be with a customer, but I'd be too afraid of the consequences of NOT answering his call, I'd briefly excuse myself with the customer and tell my boss I was with a client, so I'd call him right back. He'd yell at me at those times, too, telling me to "use my brain" and not to be rude to the client by being on the phone, that it should be "common sense". There was no winning.
When I was hired on, I made it explicitly clear that I had a specific set of availability that they needed to work with, as I DID NOT have childcare, and was working around my boyfriend at the times work schedule to accommodate. He'd work when I didn't, and vice-versa, set hours. They agreed to this set of availability since I could work weekends.
The thing is, if there was ever an instance where the wife was sick, or made other plans outside of working hours that would conflict with a morning shift (like a night of drinking); or another employee would be sick or quit last minute... he'd call my personal phone. At all hours of the day. Demanding, I came in and replaced whatever shift was needed. I would get texts or calls at 2am on a Saturday night, telling me I had to open the store the next morning for his wife (plus close) because she wouldn't be able to anymore, and I'd have to replace her shift. Or he'd call at 6 pm on an evening "ask me" if I could replace a shift for the next day for whatever reason. When I'd tell him I couldn't because of my set availability schedule and lack of childcare, or because I already had plans, or would even be OUT OF TOWN - he'd yell at me over the phone and threaten my job. Calling me selfish and useless and replaceable. If I didn't pick up his calls on my personal time, he would call and call and call. Leave texts and voicemails that were vile and degrading until I'd call back and give him what he wanted.
When he would come into the store while I was working alone, he would hover around within that 8 x 10, enclosed kiosk space and finger through everything I was working on. Messing it up. Questioning everything I did, ask why the inventory was stored and logged so poorly when those were the ways I was taught. Would call me stupid, would yell at me in the open for all the mall-goers to observe and hear. Would call me a "bitch", would ask me why I would just stand there and stare at him while he complained at me and not say anything back to him; would suggest I was too "rtarded to speak up and pathetic.
There were "good moments," where he'd give out little compliments or praises. Talk like I was human and appreciated for being there. Like dangling a fruit of approval in front of someone who craved it, just to keep them compliant. But it was all manipulation to get something else, one way or another, until another "blow up."
Many employees from the surrounding stores would observe this happening. One of the Toys R Us employees next door stepped in once... that was nice of them.
People... I know how it sounds. Why the fuuuu- would I stay somewhere like that, where I was treated like absolute, burning trash?
Answer is simple: I needed the job, I young, I was scared to lose the money... and I had ZERO self-respect at the time. I clearly knew the treatment wasn't OK, but I thought it was normal for people to stick out a shitty job for a paycheck.
Sad, I know, I promise I'm different now 🩷 but the actual ptsd I had to heal from this job...?
ANYWHO! That depressing af backstory was needed to both vent and lay the groundwork for my petty revenge 😈
On a day off following a closing night shift, I received a call from the boss in the early morning. I didn't pick up; so he kept calling. Then his wife added herself to the mix, calling and texting me. Finally, I called HER back, asking what was going on? To my shock, the phone call consisted of me being questioned where a customers phone was and accused of stealing it, as I was the last known person to be in the store with it. They demanded that I come to the store immediately and return the stolen phone, or else they'd be calling the police for thief. After throwing some questions at them myself, and reminding them that I wasn't even the person to have accepted that particular phone repair, or who submitted the logging of it — let alone having even seen it in any way — they fired me. They threatened to sue me for losses, threatened to inform the malls HR to make sure I'd never be employed anywhere else in there, again.
When I told them that's fine, to do whatever they wanted because I wasn't going to listen to they're BS anymore, the husband grabbed the phone and told me I would not be receiving my final paycheck. They would be withholding it to cover the costs of the missing phone; they refused to "pay another cent to a thief" like me. I told them they couldn't do that, and they said they could do whatever they wanted, and I had no say in the matter.
Knowing that they couldn't do that, and knowing DAMN WELL, I didn't touch that phone - let alone steal it - I finally let the fire in me burn like a firey passion.
In the following days, I went around to the surrounding stores and gathered statements from willing employees (including past ones from my store), who spoke on my behalf about the abuse they'd witnessed the owner propel at me (and other employees). On a flash drive, I uploaded all the photos I'd been gathering in the "just in case i need them" folder on my phone. Evidence detailing their improper methods of storing and locking merchandise, customers belonging, etc. Proof of how they mismanaged their logging systems, inventory, and order requests. How they are bootlegged and illegal. How their pos system worked. Proof of how they had us submit our hours to receive our paychecks with, and how they often manipulated the numbers to say we worked less and resulted in underpayment rhat they never rectified or acknowledged. Screenshots of the barage of call logs, text messages, and even audio recordings of voicemails hed leave me with him threatening my job and talking me down. Slapped everything in a pretty manila envelope, contacted my provinces Labour Board, and filed a formal complaint. Mailed everything off the same day and waited.
It took a couple of weeks for me to suddenly receive a check in the mail — IN FULL.
A few weeks later, I got a call back from my files case worker, who informed me that the missing phone had mysteriously reappeared shortly after they'd launched their investigation. At first, they temporarily shut the store down while they conducted a full check on the shop, it's procedures, and the management.
In the end, I am happy to report that the store was completely SHUT DOWN - unable to reopen under that name. Boss would have LOVED THAT as a franchisee, lmao
Turns out they were in a huge amount of debt, were manipulating finances more than I realized, including how they were paying us and working our taxes; had a couple of complaints put in on them from past employees already, and were indeed using illegal software to unlock phones because it was "cheaper".
All I can say is... I'm not stupid. I'm actually pretty smart. And at the end of the day, regardless of how much someone is unnecessarily willing to put up with for the sake of a paycheck: NEVER mess with a mother and her means of providing for her family.
My old boss thought he had a punching bag in me as his employee.
In the end, I made his world burn to the ground 😇
Oh.
And I also made out with his wife during a Christmas party that only she and I attended 🫶
Cheers! 🥂

• Chrissy

My step kids spoiled and entitled behaviour has been super irritating for me and I had enough.
It was my birthday weekend and of course we were still expected to cater to what THEY wanted to do. We took them swimming at a pool place (my idea) I wanted to do something fun. Then immediately before we even left the building they were demanding “what are we doing/where are we going now? Then begged to be taken to this special playground. Sure it’s no big deal, but they constantly want to go to playgrounds. Every time we have them we take them to playgrounds and sometimes even twice daily and I’m getting really tired of it. They live next door to one and still can’t get enough of their dad bringing them to the playgrounds they want. I’m honestly just tired of them expecting to be taken places every minute of the day. And the amount of times they request we take them to a playground is exhausting. On the way home from something? Let’s stop at the playground. Barely finished having supper. Can you take us to a playground? Like I get kids love playgrounds and that’s normal but it’s like an obsession and it’s like we have to constantly entertain these kids. I didn’t want to spend my whole birthday doing that stuff, I thought the pool would be good enough and then we could just have some downtime for once before we went out for my birthday dinner. We pull into the parking lot of the playground and my SO could see that I was upset so when the kids got out of the car, I told him “honestly it just seems a bit spoiled, like nothing is enough it’s always what are we doing next out of them and not thank you, and no one asked me what I wanted to do.
I was so relieved when he told me he understood and that he does see the issue with how his kids are always expecting so much from us and never seem to be satisfied and that they get SOOO much more than most kids yet they NEEEED more and more. He apologized for not checking with me first. And it’s not like I would have even said no because I hate to be the bad guy who ruins their day… but it would have been nice if he had considered me.
Then today we took them to another playground. The thing is with his kids is that they don’t just want to go play on the playground, they demand we play with them to. I’ve never met a 10 and 13 year old who needed their dad to play with them so much. SO didn’t want to at the moment, him and I were sitting together enjoying the sun and watching them play. They both started whining for him. He says no. Step son then comes over and starts calling his father lazy and whining about him not playing saying he’s being mean etc. I say to step son (which I usually stay out of these things and don’t try and parent them but I couldn’t help it) “your dad and I just did something nice bringing you guys all across town to this particular playground and you’re being unappreciative, you’re being rude to your dad. You should be thankful and not talk to him that way. When step son finally stops bothering us SO looks at me and says thank you. Thank you for doing that and backing me up. He then confessed that he knows his kids are so dependant and incapable of doing anything without him because of him never saying no and that he caused it a long time ago by always entertaining and playing with them. I told him it’s not at all bad that he does those things and that I admire how fun he is for his kids and that he does so much more than most parents, but that I do agree they are quite spoiled and need to learn you are an adult and they don’t run him.
I’m hoping this is the start of him standing up to his kids more. I’m just glad he didn’t get offended by my comments and understands and sees the issue.

hi!
im almost done with my first year of university and im excited for the summer! i’d love to get to know some new people and make some new online friends!
send me an interesting chat and tell me about yourself! please be able to hold a conversation and put effort into our talks. im super down to talk about literally anything as long as we vibe! but don’t just hit me with “hey”/“hi”/“what’s up”/etc.
tell me about your passions. vent to me about your job. tell me about how amazing your relationship is or how messy the break up was; im here for the tea. tell me if you’re team kendrick or team drake (there’s only one right answer). are you watching the nba playoffs? tell me about your summer vacation plans. your fav new show or song. tell me if current events worry you. tell me if you’re happy with life. talk to me about anything; let’s have a great conversation? :)
a little about me:

• im lebanese / canadian
  
• im bisexual / pansexual
  
• im a goofy sarcastic person at heart, i love to make people laugh, im pretty open minded and if you need someone to rant to or vent im a good listener
  
• i have an older sister
  
• i love back and forth playful banter, roasting each other and all things that energy
  
• im a night owl (est time zone, bonus points if you can keep me company late at night)
  
• in my freshmen year of university in canada; i want to be a doctor eventually
  
• i have have the cutest cloud dog
  
• im super outgoing and outdoorsy and want to travel the world as much as possible, i love to visit different areas and take part in new experiences! hiking through mountains, kayaking, rafting, camping, soaking in the sights and the atmosphere, and trying all the amazing local food. love going out with friends to concerts, to dance, to go on road trips and cottage trips
  
• i love to stay active, im a big basketball fan. (also a casual nfl fan)
  
• i have progressive / leftist views. pro-choice, lgbtqia+, etc
  
• love hiphop and r&b the most but a listen to a bit of everything else too
  
• some shows i love: breaking bad, the bear, russian doll, game of thrones (before it became terrible), avatar the last airbender, house md (also i watch a few anime)
  
• some movies I love: everything everywhere all at once, spiderverse 2, the dark knight, interstellar, the incredibles
  
• i don’t play video games
  
• i love to read too; hot take, the percy jackson (and sequel) series > the harry potter series
  

if any of that interests you send me a chat and let’s talk 💕 (i may get too many chats to reply to everyone so I apologize in advance! please keep that in mind but I’ll try to eventually get to everyone that grabs my attention thank you!)

Hi Everyone - hoping someone has some insight on how best to proceed. I booked tickets via the Austrian train operator ÖBB for travel from Prague to Salzburg.
Original routing: EC 333 Prague to Linz 10:21-14:06 RJ 644 Linz to Salzburg 14:30-15:49
I received an email saying the Prague to Linz train was canceled about a week prior to departure (I’m including the email at the end of my post in case it’s helpful). It mentions that there’s a replacement bus service, but based on the email and the link provided it is unclear what happens next. When I review my booking on their website there is no option to select the replacement bus service:
-Are they rebooking me automatically onto the replacement bus service with no change in cost?
-Or is my entire ticket canceled and I must now book again from scratch? (and pay the now much higher price)
Does anyone know how they would typically handle this? Ideally, I won’t have to book again from scratch because it will be much more expensive now. I will call ÖBB tomorrow when their customer service opens to find out more. Just hoping the community here might have some advice.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Text of email: “Sorry, but this train has been cancelled. Please check the current timetable to reschedule your journey to the next available train or transport.
Detailed information about your journey Interrupted service: EC 333 from Praha hl.n. (05.05.2024, 10:21) to Salzburg Hbf General message: EC 333: Update 7 (26.04.2024 15:55) Service disruption, Rail replacement bus service
Please check our current timetable online.”
Further info they provided:

• Update 7 (28.04.2024 21:55) Service disruptionGaisbach-Wartberg - Lungitz/GusenDue to construction work, travel between Gaisbach-Wartberg Bahnhof and Lungitz/Gusen Bahnhof is not possible until approximately 12.05.2024, 23:59. The EN trains trains will be rerouted. For the long-distance trains we are providing a rail replacement bus service between Pregarten Bahnhof and Linz/Donau Hbf for you. For the short-distance trains we are providing a rail replacement bus service between Pregarten Bahnhof and Lungitz/Gusen Bahnhof for you. You should currently allow for up to 30 minutes of additional travel time. Please note that space on the bus may be limited, so please also use alternative travel options if possible.

Before I begin, I (17F) would like to say that I love my parents (45F and 44M) very much, and that I do care for them, however a lot of things have come up recently and I really need some advice on this subject.
I am the oldest sibling in my family, and typically take care of my younger sister (15F) when my parents are unable to. Last night, I enjoyed my Junior Prom. My parents were okay with me going, and gave me a curfew of 10:30 PM. And I was okay with that. However, this is where it gets a little bit tricky. I picked up my sister from an event right before my prom when my dogs got outside of the house. When I got home to get in my dress and drop my sister off, my mother began to yell at me, calling me every word under the sun for letting the dogs out—she’s done this before. I will admit it was my fault for not checking to make sure our dogs were inside, but I do not believe it was enough for me to be yelled at like this for. Additionally, I had my 2 friends I was going to prom with in the car—we will refer to them as Gemma (17F) and Terry (17M) (both of them are queer, which is important to this post). My mother continued to refer to them as confused and slurs—and even me as I had matched with Gemma (who was in a suit)—which rightfully upset me. After this incident I left my house, and enjoyed my prom without any word from my parents.
Around 9:30 last night (an hour before my curfew) my phone died, and I had no way to check the time, so I told Gemma to keep me posted for the time. I get access to a charger shortly after, and find 30+ missed calls from my parents telling me to get home now, around 9:55. I leave my friends house, and drop off Gemma.
This morning as soon as I woke up, I get berated and yelled at by both of my parents who were in this case, making themselves out to be the victim. I explain everything and even apologize, but they kept on going. So, at this point I get angry and call them out on their behavior.
My parents have done this with every argument we’ve ever gotten into, and I don’t know what to do. I plan on leaving the state as soon as I graduate and removing them from my life, but how do I fix this now? And am I the asshole for calling them out on their behavior towards me?

So, my ex and I broke up. As I’m sure you can tell 😕 I’ll give some backstory.
We hadn’t seen each other in over a month, and I was going to be starting a new job soon so I’d have significantly less time to spend with her. So I asked her to hang out on multiple occasions. Going out, coming over and relaxing with her, just ya know simple stuff. She was either busy working or needed rest from the long work week, which was true. I never doubted that. She did work a lot. But my brain had other ideas. See, I’ve been through a LOT of shit. Cheated on, lied to, ghosted, you name it. Every time I went through shit like that, I lost a piece of myself. My PTSD got so bad that any time something good was happening, I always assumed something bad was around the corner. I could never believe that I deserved happiness, and that life would come knocking and tear down even the smallest bit of hope or goodness happening. When she told me she was busy whenever I asked, I knew in my heart she was telling the truth, but my brain kept shouting at me, telling me it was a lie. Saying she didn’t wanna see me, I’m annoying, I’m not wanted, she’s preparing to leave me, shit like that. Mind you, we had been dating three months and let me fucking tell you, it was the best three months of life. I knew within the first month and a half that this was it. This was the one. Anyway, I sent her a long message about how I was feeling and what was happening, reassuring her that everything happening had absolutely nothing to do with her. My brain takes my trauma and tries to apply it whenever something goes a different way. At first, she apologized saying that I shouldn’t have had to go through such hard times, and what she could do to fix it. I told her it wasn’t something that was her responsibility. She isn’t supposed to fix me or put me back together. That’s my job. But then she went on to say things like “I don’t know why you don’t trust me and the things I say and that I’m secure in what we have.” “I am tired of not being seen and I’m not going to ask anyone to see me.” “You projected on me in a big way” “I’m not mad I promise but I don’t know if you’re gonna believe that either.” And then she said it. The sentence that ripped my whole world to shreds. “I don’t think this relationship is a healthy choice. I don’t see a way forward after this.” At first, I blamed myself for everything. I should’ve had this conversation in person, rather than over text. That was my first mistake. I still cry to this day because it was the happiest I’d ever been in a relationship. I found my dream girl. The last person I wanted to be with. My friends kept telling me it wasn’t my fault, and that I should be able to talk about my feelings with my partner. But I knew, deep down, it was my fault. I just couldn’t figure out why. Then yesterday, it hit me. When she said she didn’t feel seen, that’s what hit me. She reassured me all the time about us. And I kept pushing it down, when it was right in front of me, trying to subconsciously prepare myself for her leaving me, since I’ve been through it so much. I pushed her away. I made her feel like all the effort she put in was for nothing. I made her feel like no matter what, I'd never be able to fully trust her. She felt like she would never be enough. I chased her away. I finally realized it. I was at work when I was thinking about it, and I stopped driving and just started bawling my eyes out. I screwed up. The best part of my life, the best woman I've ever had, the full package, left, because of me. I sabotaged my own relationship. She was the one, and I blew it. And now I'm going to spend a lot of nights wishing I could take it back. I made a mistake. I fucked up. I'm never going to be able to forgive myself for that. So much has been taken from me in this life, and I'm supposed to let her go? I can't. I just can't. I've tried everything in terms of getting her back, I wrote notes, I messaged her roommates, stuff like that. I didn't wanna be the crazy ex boyfriend so I've just been sitting at work and at home thinking about it and I can't even focus on anything. I can't sleep. Food has no taste. Everything is heavy. My hobbies are boring now. It was so bad that I had to have my roommate delete her number and pictures because I didn't have the strength to do it myself. I do not know what else to do. It seems like everything I touch, comes to ruin. She's gone, but I can't help but have that 1 tiny slither of hope that she will return. I miss her so much, and I really really wish I could fix everything. But I can't. And I don't know what to do. I failed.

Recently I’ve been texting and talking on the phone a lot with a guy I met off a datingsite. He and I seem to hit it off, and have many things in common (general values, hobbies, music).
However, we only have been texting for about a week, and have our first date planned in 2 days. But he has been texting me a bunch everyday, telling me he misses me when I go offline to work or spend time with my family.
As well as excessively spamming messages with hearts, “I really like you”, and else. Is this a case of love-bombing, and if so: does this mean a lasting relationship can still bloom from it?
I do really enjoy his company too & like him back, but I worry about accidentally stepping into a situation where I might get hurt. Any advice would be super awesome! Thank you in advance

Disclaimer everyone in the story is above the age of 21.
A little background this happened many years ago during Covid when I met my best friend. We’re gonna call her Scarlet. I had just broken up with my very first boyfriend when Scarlet had asked me if I would like to meet a couple of her friends at a birthday party. we went to Ben’s house. when we got to the party it was just Ben, Scarlett and I. later on that night. Shane joined us. I kind of had a thing for Ben. Ben and I got each other’s social, medias and start talking. About a week went by Ben and I started dating and so did Shane and Scarlet. Scarlet was really into ghosting Shane , and she would often go out with Ben and a bunch of other friends, and leave shane behind. I wasn’t much of a drinker, so I wouldn’t attend to most of their outings, there has been some times where I would call Scarlet because I wouldn’t be able to get a hold of Ben and she would tell me she didn’t know where he was even though I got told by Ben’s friend Zack that they picked him up and it made me suspicious of what was actually going on. I had talked to Ben about it and he said that nothing happens other than they drink and talk about the relationships. Well, it happened to be that on one of their outings Scarlet and Ben got too drunk and ended up going upstairs into the little brothers room of their friends Jose’s house. turns out that during that night Ben ended up turning his phone off so that I couldn’t call him or disturb him and he put his phone on the top of the refrigerator. Jose end up telling me the next day about 4 o’clock in the morning telling me that they had sex and his little brothers room. when I found out I was devastated. I ended up taking all of the things he gave me, especially his hoodie and the shirts from my now ex best friend and I burned them all in my fireplace around 12 o’clock in the afternoon, Jose brought Ben over by my house to pick up his stuff when I’d already burned it all. Ben didn’t seem very mad tho almost like he expected it. I took the break up pretty hard. I ended up moving from my parents house to my aunts house because I really needed to get away from the situation in about three or four months are gone by before I ended up deciding I wanted to move back to my parents house. my parents are planning a trip for the whole family to Disney World. I was extremely excited for it right before I move back home. My parents talk to me in the car asking me if someone I knew was in a lot of pain and needed to place to stay what I let them, and of course I said yes. then he continued to say well What if it is somebody that you really hate and I said depends on the person. it turns out that my parents were letting Scarlet stay at the house. It was only supposed to be for a short time, but turns out that my sister and her came very close. Almost like mother and daughter. By the way my sister is about 30 and has no kids. And my sister intended on her staying for as long as she can. . I was very upset because not only did she cheat on her boyfriend with my ex boyfriend, but she completely lied to my face multiple times about where my ex boyfriend was. I want nothing more than for her honestly to just not be around me to leave me alone, but because of my sister and Scarlett‘s relationship they did everything together and she ended up getting extremely close with my mom and dad. and my mental health ended up d depleting. I ended up seeking professional help, and my parents ended up taking Scarlet instead of me using my ticket to Disney World. After I came back Shane had reached out to me finding out that I was back in town and I found out that Scarlett and him were still dating. I no clue she didn’t tell him and he was best friends with Ben. How could he not know. I ended up telling him what happened. he was so furious that he broke up with her and cut off their engagement. I had no idea that they were engaged. I felt extremely awful. It turns out that she wasn’t just cheating on him with Ben, but a couple other guys as well. almost a year had went by and Shane had asked me at least three times if I wanted to go out with drinks with him and I refused because I thought it wasn’t right since she was my ex friend but on my birthday about a year later me and him hooked up and started a relationship that ended up lasting about a year, so am I the asshole for ending my ex best friend relationship?

I am the wife. Now 39 and my husband 44 and our children are now 1 and 3 years old.
My husband showed me his post but he has missed a lot of things out. If I am the a*shrike I will put my hands up and admit that.
Prior to the VIP event at Downing Street, the best man from our wedding had come to our house and in front of my husband. Stated that my husband had been flirting with their friend’s girlfriend at this LARP he had been attending for many years. He said,”You can twist it up to (my name) as much as you want afterwards.” My husband didn’t back deny it, he didn’t throw his friend out, or deny the claims. I felt sick but I had no words.
When the VIP Downing Street event came up, it was my cousin who had been out of work for years who had the job and she phoned me and offered me a ticket. As she knew, that I don’t really go out anywhere. I asked my husband’s permission on 3 separate occasions. By text, face to face and verbally over the phone and each time he gave his permission. Was still looking for an extra ticket for him and was going to go as far as to use my own month to get a ticket but my cousin told me, that it was VIP and therefore limited. But still we discussed getting tickets in the future as we knew my husband was into politics. It was not a party but V.I.P event, for relatives of people who worked at Downing Street. Before people knew about Boris Johnson and the parties. At the last minute my husband decided that I could not go with our eldest. To get me to listen to him, he threatened to tell my Uncle’s wife about my Aunty being a b*tch. They don’t get on and this would have created so much drama on my side of the family. That my husband was contacting relatives, to moan about my Aunty. The second thing he did, was he said,”You can’t go if there is a bomb scare can you?” In my mind, I thought about me and our baby being tackled by the police and how traumatic it would be for us. Especially our child.
The V.I.P ticket was just that. A V.I.P ticket to look at the inside of Downing Street get a chance to meet my cousin’s collegues. There were other children attending too and every adult there was a parent. From my mother to step father. So it would never be a party.
After I cancelled attending, nobody could take my place as it was such short notice and, they had made arrangements as I was bringing my child who was very young. After the cancellation my husband began saying that he would have taken us down to London, that my step father drove like a maniac. All of these suggestions that he never meanioned before and even worse, he began telling other people this too. As if I would take our baby to a party I am not that irresponsible and I stopped clubbing over a decade ago.
My mother decided to ban my husband from my Grandmother’s house, as that is where everyone meets whenever we are doing anything. Like birthday parties, film night e.t.c My Grandmother who has always liked my husband said that it was impossible for that ban to take place, as it was her house. My mother and I have a very close relationship like best friends.
Yes I was abused as a child by a man who was beating up my mother. But the authorities are aware of that and know who he is and are dealing with it.
I arranged for my mother to have a conversation with my husband as they used to get on so well. My mother even did a surprise birthday spread for him. Something which I have never experienced in the nearly 20 years we have been together from his side, the most I have got is a birthday card and some cards and month but I have still appreciated it. Anyway they talked and my mother brought up what the best man had said about him flirting with another woman, also about him making jokes to our baby saying,”Do you want another Mummy?” Things I had told my husband I didn’t find funny and not to do in public but he did it anyway. Which was in front of his family and I found that hurtful and humiliating. For a moment my husband took the phone to a part in the kitchen where I couldn’t hear what was said and my mother maintains up until this day they that he threatened her.
Regarding the Bomb scare threat I told my husband that even if he had said it in jest, he would have lost his job and been investigated by police. But he laughed it off. My cousin was in tears as she could have lost her job and this is the type of things they warn you about in government jobs. She doesn’t work there now and she did ask to speak to my husband to get an apology but he refused. Said he didn’t have anything to Aplogise for. Why did I tell my Mim about the bomb scare threat he made? We have that relationship where she tells me things about her partner and we have never confronted him about it. I thought it would be the same for me, yes I apologised to my husband all the time about telling my Mum he made a bomb scare threat.
Regarding marriage counciling we tried it it for a moment and in the 1-1 session the councilour told me my husband raised many red flags and asked what he was like with our child.
While pregnant with our second my husband would call me “lazy” and compared me to other women he knew who were pregnant. Still I did everything, from breakfast to ironing his clothes to work, any D.I.Y in the house which needed doing, buying extra rails for our clothes. Even putting the bins out. Still he would cuss me and call me names. On two separate erate occasions he came to my midwife appointment and changed the time and dates there and then saying he couldn’t make it as he had to support a collegue from work. On one such occasion he rushed home after dropping me and our eldest home, had a shave changed his clothes to meet this female colleague. Showing the midwives that he wasn’t too interested in the appointment which they arranged as they were concerned that I would get gestational diabetics. I agreed to the change of the appointment times as I didn’t want to create a fuss and was embarrassed that he had changed them.
While pregnant he would text and phone this female colleague every hour of the night, Waasaap, FaceTime whenever. Meanwhile he was calling me names. He even once turned and said this weird phrase,”If there are 2 dogs but one isn’t interested and another dog comes along and is sniffing.” In relation to his relationship with this female colleague.
There was an incident where one of his mother’s dogs growled at our child for getting too close to him. I was heavily pregnant and had to come off the livingroom chair I was sitting on to get our eldest. My husband said it was just a “warning growl” and his nieces who grew up with dogs said it was “scary” how the greyhound reacted. This is a dog which retired from racing and used to chase small things. So naturally any parent would be weary of that. So I spoke to my MiL about it and she blamed me for it , saying that it was because I was on my mobile phone. Even though there were other relatives who were closer to my son.
I knew I couldn’t talk to my family about how I was feeling so I began speaking to the best man who had since retracted his statement about my husband flirting with another woman at his LARP game. But he let me know that there were other people who felt weary around my husband and how he was banned from LARP for his behaviour. I was shocked as my husband had always told me he was being bullied there. And not one to just follow what someone says on face value I contacted them and they told me that under no circumstances would my husband be allowed at LARP or any other events they themselves did due to his behaviour.
There had also been a few work collegues who said he was threatening to them and aggressive. Not a casual conversation but people who had reported this to people in the company he worked for.
I wasn’t suffering from post natal depression, I was stressed and upset at what was happening , what I was being told and how I was being treated.
My respite was only supposed to be until my husband’s temper had subsided. I stayed at my Grandmother’s for about four days with our children.
Back home my husband confided in me that his mother had been the one to put a stop to the London VIp event. Out of order because the amount of times she will take my husband places and leave me and the children at home.
As well as this revelation being told to me, my brother in law came to the house while me and my children were inside and began kicking and punching the door and making threatening and racist remarks.My husband wasn’t home and our youngest at the time was under 3 months. He left when my MIL came to the door and she told me while I was holding my youngest in my arms that we never should have came back. And she defended my brother in laws behaviour saying it was down to his bipolar and when she left the house she smiled into the ring camera sweetly as if she had been comforting me, I just burst into tears. I had come back home with my children and this happened.
My mother in law came to the house a second time but my family who had heard how she was carrying on advised me not to open the door and let her in again.
Later on in the year my brother in law came to the house wrote a note and posted it through the letterbox. My mother in law came to the house and opened our front door with a key I knew nothing about her having,and removed the evidence. Then miraculously the video footage disappeared. The footage showing my brother in law coming to the house, posting the note through the door and my mother in law coming and leaving. But you could see it had been deleted as it jumped,then there was a huge time lapse. Thankfully I had downloaded the footage moments beforehand. So when the the police came around they had that footage. As this was the second time the police gave me a crime reference number to link the incidents together.
It was my mother and brother who checked the house for me the second time around before my children stepped foot into the house. With me.
Other things….
*I went to a plant show and I had told my husband before hand. He claims that he didn’t know and on the day while I was there at the plant place my mother and I had invited him to come along. He refused. We were also going to see some poets performing there and I love plants and poetry. I wrote poetry and love gardening. My husband didn’t come to see the beautiful view with us and he wasn’t home when I got home at 10pm at night. He didn’t answear any phone calls or texts and I stayed up worried that he was laying dead in a ditch. I had my life360 app on so he could see where I was at all times an app he got everyone to join and yet his location was off. I was pregnant with our second child and I stayed up all night. In the morning he came in briskly without a care in the world and he behaved like he had done nothing wrong. He went to work and he blamed me for him not coming home. I went to see a plant show….. (PoliNations) and he punished me by not coming home. He didn’t care about me our or unborn childrd child.
A*My husband has sent me poo emojis when I have sent him hearts.
He has waited for me to pack the car up with bags and our children and drove off, taking my purse with him. And telling me on the phone while I am begging him to come back to ask my Mum for money if I need it. That day I was meeting my Mum in town and I was so late as a result of this I had to beg my husband to come back as he had my purse and everything in the car.
Yes he still speaks to that female collegue in fact he is getting her a job at his new workplace he has also told me that she wanted to cook for him at her home. Any concerns I have he makes out like I am possessive and paranoid. She has even gone so far as to go to Pakistan to get him t shirts for some union stuff they were doing together.
My husband has also tried to tell me that I am autistic, on the spectrum and mentally ill if I try to remind him of something he has done he will say I’m imagining it or hearing things or am Mad.. Randomly I found an article showing you how to retrieve deleted messages and I found texts where he told me if I died it would serve my mother right for banning him. Other things like that.
We attend many places with his side of the family like museums and family zoos but now as well as this it has become a habit to be out and hear my in laws running down my mother or my side of the family I have asked them not too.
My mother is fearful that if anything were to happen to me and my children. My in laws would cover it up. Am I the arsehole?
The internet is down it took 3 hrs to upload this Thank you for reading.