"[Ending Week 4] The Final Stretch"

#PokemonGO: XP challenge guy here, way late on updates. Nothing new on that front I guess. Still struggling to stick to my plans :) Sorry I'm late! (my catch phrase)My total XP: 16,227,640/20,000,000Miles tracked using Charity Miles: 314.84 - if you walk and play please play use this app as it's totally free and super easy to use. Edit: For daily mileage updates check out my twitterI want to be very transparent on something - I have had very unique aspirations with this game and I never intended to be the first one to 40. I will tell you now that a lot of the numbers and posts popping up randomly about people hitting 40 seem to be off with me, being a hardcore / math-heavy player.As I've learned from Dorian, social media is extremely telling. If someone really is working towards an achievement, they don't just come out about it randomly and start advertising it like they're looking for a spotlight. To me, it's more likely that the first level 40s are already out there, but they aren't talking, because that's a convincing story - what seems bogus to me are the guys reaching for the spotlight who jump out at level 38 or 39 and stand on a soapbox. I've seen a lot of phishy stuff lately on Reddit (a buffalo player showing screenshots from two different devices, against ToS, talking about rare hunting and all this stuff and then showing like 750k daily xp gains after being silent before level 38.5), a guy with an insanely cracked screen hitting 40 (I couldn't stop thinking about if his fingers were bleeding or not as he threw 150k pokéballs on the way), a lot of discussion about it getting removed and deleted and comments being downvoted as spam etc., and it's hard to tell the legitimacy.As such, I guess I just ask the community to assume level 40 has been hit so we can focus on things that matter, like getting more research and helping this community play better by putting the spotlight back on people doing research (shoutout to the research team, you guys are killing it).Again - I originally wanted to document a personal challenge without doing anything too crazy. I still have a job, I still participate in gym nights and occasional rare hunts, and unlike a lot of these supposedly high level players, I want to largely continue my journey playing Pokémon Go after hitting the level cap, maybe only reducing my cash spend by like 90%.A lot of crazy stuff happened since I last posted an update to Reddit, most notably I got a cold around ~2 weeks ago and the cough persisted until this weekend and it's now down to it's last 1%. Really glad to be over that, and might still be fighting it if I hadn't gotten lots of aid assistance from Dorian/Heather (you guys rock).As an Austinite, since I met my stretch goal of 39 before October, Dorian and I will be going to ACL this weekend so I have been saving some candies to evolve then (if I have service, gulp). I'm a tech cofounder and might be called out for a business meeting in California so I've also been stashing candy for that.Luckily for research purposes, I've been taking a ton of screenshots every day for my daily Facebook updates, so I have a lot of information about my xp markers. Without spending too much time, I threw this document together. Note that I never played before 6:30pm on weekdays (save +ing at work & getting off early on some Fridays), and in the last couple weekends I've been pushing right to softban (950+ each friday, sat, sun for catches this past weekend).Since I've saved candies and been able to invest a few more hours per week, I've set a new goal for my challenge of October 17 when my friend gets back from her sister's wedding. I might be able to hit 40 before then but some things are worth waiting for. I want to plan an event for that day and hang out with people who are close to me - let me know if you have any ideas!As for daily updates, last night I shared a bunch of thoughts about how I felt ending week 4, and if you want to hear more about my actual thoughts on the game, following the FB posts is probably your best bet because I don't think it's terribly relevant here. This subreddit is more concerned with mathematics ;) Note that I still am making Facebook updates daily.FWIW, I sit currently on 16,227,740 total xp, 81% of the total xp there, and about 70% of the way through my challenge. Shoutout to any players who are actually legitimate and have hit 40, you know who you are, and who you aren't.Here's a bunch of random stats that I'm posting live at this very moment. In case you want to pick apart anything I'll be happy to answer questions.MedalsEggs Hatched: 1,665Jogger: 1,083.56Collector: 28,060Backpacker: 29,215Pokémon Caught/SeenPidgey: 5672/6682Zubat: 2668/3264Eevee: 2609/3018 wishpidgeyhadthiscatchrate edit: only 2% betterWeedle: 2481/2882Caterpie: 1366/1605Snorlax: 29/29Dragonite: 11/13Aerodactyl: 7 (all hatches)Lapras: 6 (all hatches)Porygon 3 (all hatches)Heavy Luck-based StuffMy total 100% IV pokémon: 11My total 0% IV pokeémon: 1 (It's a clefairy, and no I don't check for this hardly ever unless it's an imperfectly perfect appraisal)A-Team (not all tops, just highlights)100% SWDC 3450CP Dragonite96% DBDC 3034 Dragonite89% ZHHB 3038CP Snorlax100% FFFt 2941CP Arcanine91% CoSB 2877CP Exeggutor (edit: solar beam, for clarity)91% ISIB 2803CP Lapras96% CoPs 2534CP Slowbro87% BuHP 2425CP Poliwrath98% FAPR 2142CP Wigglytuff via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2dMPWXN