RV Tour

driver's side: with two slides

This post is mostly pictures of our new RV. I only took pictures with the slides in, so I'll do another round of pictures later with the slides out. I talked a little bit about our RV here.

passenger side: no slides

first view indoors

view to the left, from the top of the stairs

doorknob is for the bathroom, mattress folds in half when slide is in, unfolds when slide is out

lots of storage in this RV- those upper two doors both open into the closet (easily 3 or 4x as big as our closet in the trailer)

bathroom, with laundry basket in the shower (isn't that where everyone puts their laundry basket?)

medicine cabinet above toilet

that shelf slides out for extra space for clothes and such

closer view of the bedroom

there's cupboards above the bed as well

there's a convection/microwave oven and a gas oven under the stove 

our trailer only had a regular microwave and no oven

frig/freezer plus pantry. I found a trash can that just fits in the space between the cupboards when the slide is in. I need to rig a padded strap to keep it in place when we're driving.

view from the bedroom, kitchen on the left, door on the right

sofa and storage next to the frig in the front slide

the J-lounge just in front of the door, with the extension in and without the table up

extension out for more seating (the front seats will also swivel to face the rear for more seating)

J-lounge with the table in place and ladder up to the over-cab bed also in place

handy netting for keeping small kiddos from rolling out of the bed in the middle of the night

there's a large tv that swings against the wall of the bed, then swings out for watching

view from between the two front seats, looking back and to the passenger side

view from between the two front seats, looking back and to the driver's side

We're really happy with how much space there is in the RV, even with the slides in. You don't feel super cramped moving about. I'll post more about what we do and don't like as we spend more time in it and get used to using it. One thing I will say: that mattress in the back has got to go. It's hard as a rock and super uncomfortable.

Weekly Mileage

we've had a lot of rain lately, but the sun managed to come out at the tail end of our hike

such gorgeous colors!

Last week was supposed to be my highest mileage week in my half marathon training cycle. It might have ended up that way, but I'm not sure. I had three days where I didn't do any running or walking on the treadmill, but I did lots of walking in other places.

Monday I did my usual laundry/treadmill routine.

Tuesday we walked all around IKEA, getting organizational & kitchen items for our RV. I brought my Garmin, intending to track how far we walked, but I completely forgot to pull it out of my bag and start it. And I don't know that it would have worked in the store, anyway. Regardless, I walked a lot.

Wednesday the kids and I spent an hour or so walking around the RV lot, killing time while they did a little bit of work that they didn't have time to do when we bought the RV. We walked around and climbed in and out of RVs and travel trailers and it was much less stressful than trying to keep the kids quiet and still in the small sales office. We failed miserably at that while filling out the paperwork and I wasn't anxious for a repeat. I again forgot my Garmin.

Thursday we went for a hike, but it was a short one because we got a late start and had to be back before the the four hour window of time when the electrician was supposed to show up, and of course he didn't show up until almost the end of that window. But if we hadn't made it home in time he'd have been there on time, so we hurried.

Ocean loves exploring outside, and he loves being able to walk for part of our hikes, but he does get distracted by wildflowers

Friday I ran 10 miles on the treadmill, with a couple warm up and cool down miles for a total of 12 miles. I discovered that while our treadmill will keep running after 10 consecutive miles, the computer won't track it. I had to turn off the treadmill and re-start it in order to finish my workout. This is good info to know as I still have a couple long workouts to do before my half marathon.

Saturday I intended to go for a run outside, but by the time we finished processing our chickens and cleaning up the mess, I was just too tired. I did lots of walking and lots of standing, and my feet were killing me. So I didn't go for a run. My feet were still sore on Sunday, so it's a good thing I didn't do any more.

As I mentioned Wednesday, I've changed my running plans and this week showed me the wisdom in that. Once I run my half marathon in June I will be giving my poor feet a chance to rest and heal.

Weekly Mileage
Monday- 5.58 miles walked on the treadmill
Tuesday- walked around IKEA for a couple hours
Wednesday- walked around the RV lot for an hour or so
Thursday- hiked 1.12 miles
Friday- ran 10 miles and walked 2 more for a total of 12 miles on the treadmill
Saturday- walked around while processing chickens
    Total miles: 18.70 miles (I'm only counting the miles I actually tracked)

hike #17 towards my #52hikechallenge
270.2 miles towards my #365milechallenge

Sunday Funny

Two months ago we picked up our chicks from the post office. The next day I caught River sitting next to them reading books (that top one is a Star Wars book, the bottom a first words in Japanese book) to the chicks. I love that he thinks they'd be interested in Star Wars or Japanese :)

Should I Run a Full Marathon This Fall?

peaceful gravel road- perfect for a late afternoon run

About a month ago I started seriously considering running a full marathon in November. After all, I'm training for a half at the end of June and another half at the end of August. It wouldn't be that difficult to keep training and run a full marathon.

However.

The last couple weeks have shown me that it's just not a feasible plan right now. As my workouts get longer and longer, I have less and less time to do other things, like run my businesses. Work has slowed to a crawl since my mileage picked up because I just don't have the time or energy to spend on work-related tasks. Since our goal is for my businesses to replace Mr M's income, I really need to be spending more time building them into successful, profitable enterprises.

So I won't be running a full marathon this fall, despite the timing initially seeming good.

In fact, I've decided I won't be doing the second half marathon at the end of August either. Time for work is again a consideration, but so are my feet. The plantar fasciitis isn't going away (not with all the mileage I'm putting on them) and continuing to train without giving them a chance to heal just isn't smart.

I'm not looking at these decisions as failures on my part, but as opportunities to redirect my focus and energy.

I'll keep running, but at a lower weekly mileage and after giving my feet a chance to heal properly. Mr M took our bikes to a local bike shop for much-needed tuneups, which will allow me to do some cross-training as well.

More time and energy will allow me to focus on my businesses so I can really dig in and make some progress. Lately I've been feeling like I haven't been making much progress and as a result I've been feeling dissatisfied and frustrated with my entrepreneurial efforts. I'm not hitting my timeline goals and I have some catching up to do.

It's important to be flexible in life. Changing my goals and adapting to our current circumstances is just one way I'm working on being more flexible.

And I'll be running more half and full marathons in the future, when my schedule isn't quite so busy.

Quarry 5k

the size is deceptive- the tires on this truck were taller than most men

Saturday I ran a 5k that started outside a quarry, ran down into the quarry, then ran (ok, I walked this part) back out of the quarry and past piles of gravel, processing equipment, and really large trucks and through the finish line.

I left the boys home, but they would have been in raptures over the big trucks and diggers they had sitting out for people to climb on

The last two 5ks I’ve run had difficult uphill stretches that totaled a mile in each race. This 5k only had a half mile up hill stretch, but I feel like it was more difficult than the other two. I blame the heat. Not that it was actually that hot where we parked our cars (about 70*), but it was a lot hotter in the quarry. I think all that rock was soaking in and radiating the heat back at us.

towards the beginning of the race, skirting the edge of the quarry

As I was running, I was thinking about why I was doing this particular race. It’s further from home than I usually go for a 5k, but I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to add a quarry 5k to my list of different races I’ve run for my 40 by 40 goal.

running down the half mile to the bottom of the quarry

the guy coming towards me was the lead runner

I knew it wouldn’t be an easy race (though the quarry wasn’t as deep as I was expecting), but I knew it would get me out of my comfort zone. One of the side goals of my 40 by 40 goal is to run a variety of race distances and locations. There’s nothing like facing the fear of the unknown (just how hard is this race going to be?) over and over to get you out of your comfort zone.

almost to the bottom of the quarry

I ran 3.03 miles in 35:20. I maintained a good pace the first two miles, but the half mile uphill in the third mile killed my pace.

1st mile: 10:21

2nd mile:  10:45

3rd mile: 14:01

running across the floor of the quarry, just past the water stop

My running mileage still isn't as high as I'd like, but I'm still fighting my plantar fasciitis and just can't manage more. At least I can still walk my mileage. I'm disappointed though, as it means I won't be as well trained as I'd originally planned.

it was a long walk back out of the quarry

On Monday I crawled around in the chicken run, nailing the fencing to the board supports. It wasn't much mileage (unlike when we worked on it last Saturday), but lots of twisting and bending. Oh, and poison ivy. I now have poison ivy blisters in more places than I'd like. Blech! And all the leaf mold I kicked up went straight to my sinuses and made me feel icky. Double blech!

I had planned on doing my long run on Wednesday so I could get an uninterrupted long run in, but I woke up feeling so tired. Not food related tired (been there, done that, know what it feels like), just tired. Part of it was my allergies still in overdrive, but a good part of it was my mileage. My mileage has been creeping up as my training progresses and I think I've passed my sustainable weekly mileage limit. After I'm done training for my half marathons I'll be keeping my weekly mileage at a lower level. I did manage to get a long walk in on Wednesday, but there was no running involved.

looking down into the quarry, opposite of the first pic looking down into the quarry

Thursday we skipped our usual hike because we had a field trip in the afternoon and I had things that needed to get done in the morning. So much to do, so little time.

Saturday after returning home from my race I hit the treadmill for some more miles. It's not ideal to split up a long run like that, but that's the way it sometimes has to happen.

Weekly Mileage
Monday: 6.14 miles walked on the treadmill
Wednesday: 6.25 miles walked on the treadmill
Thursday: 2.1 miles walked while on our field trip
Friday: 4.25 miles walked on the treadmill
Saturday: 3.03 mile race + 6.37 miles run and walked on the treadmill
     total miles: 28.14 miles

251.5 miles towards my #365milechallenge
race #47 towards my 40 by 40 goal

Sunday Funny

We were at a friends house and Ocean climbed up on this four wheeler. A minute later, River spotted him and immediately climbed up in front of him. In the first picture River's having a grand time, but it looks like Ocean's saying "hold up, what just happened?"

In the second pic, he's tapping River on the shoulder "um, excuse me, but I was here first."

Poor kiddo. Such is the life of the youngest sibling.

RV Shopping

image source

We scoped out some local RVs last April and again in October and did a little more online research in the interval since then. That research yielded a couple more floor plans we were interested in checking out, but we couldn't find them both locally. We thought about going to Ohio or Michigan so we could check them both out, but ultimately decided we just didn't have the time to be driving to Ohio or Michigan, and what if we couldn't complete the transaction in one day?

why we're getting an RV

After more research we were able to find the floorplan we liked the most at a small dealership about an hour and a half away (where we had found our previous favorite floorplan back in October), so we decided to forget about the third floorplan and focus on the two we liked that were actually within a reasonable distance.

We drove up there on a recent Friday afternoon, but traffic was worse than expected and we arrived later than planned. We checked out the RV we liked online (that's the floorplan up at the top of this post) and decided that we like it in person as well. However, we couldn't test drive it because it was jigsawed into the lot behind a couple other RVs and it was 5 minutes before closing.

So we made arrangements to go back a week and a half later (the earliest opening they had available) to test drive it, complete the paperwork, and do the complete run through of how everything works.

In some ways the delay was good, but in some ways it was nerve-wracking.

We'd been planning this purchase for some time and had saved up the money for the down payment, but it's still a big purchase. We'd have preferred to buy a used RV, but this floorplan is only in it's third year and it's very difficult to find used. The closest one we could find was in Louisiana, and the price difference wasn't enough to make it worth the huge hassle it would be to get there and back (Mr M is using all his vacation time for our road trip, so he can't take unplanned trips out of state to get an RV).

Having more time to consider the purchase gave us more time to second-guess ourselves. Should we really be spending this much money right now? We haven't been able to find any used RVs with floorplans that work for us in our area, so if we don't get this new RV, what are our options? We did actually figure out a way to make the road trip work without an RV (a bigger deal for us than for most because of our food restrictions), but it would require a lot more planning and some itinerary changes as we'd have to camp along the way. We can pull over and spend the night in a truck stop if we're in an RV, but we can't do that if we're tent camping.

we managed a 10 day trip to Boston without an RV or travel trailer, but we were in the same hotel the whole time, not road tripping across the country for 5 weeks

It would be a cheaper option, but we ultimately decided against it, because there's a good chance Mr M will have to return home for work at some point during our road trip and I would feel a lot safer by myself with the kiddos in an RV than in a tent. We will most likely use those ideas we came up with for shorter, closer to home camping trips.

We opted for this particular RV because it has the potential of being a comfortable fit for our family for a lot longer than the other floorplan we liked that was smaller. The amount of seating and sleeping surfaces was a huge factor in our decision to go with this RV.

Pictures and a walk through to come!

Hiking in the Rain

We finally had a rainy day that coincided with a hike day, so we broke out our rain gear. I bought Oakiwear trail suits for the boys (Sunshine and I had raincoats already) a while ago, but they hadn’t had a chance to try them out. They wore rain boots with their trail suits, but Sunshine and I wore hiking boots because they're more comfortable and we care about such things while the boys really don't :)

I had a hard time finding small rain boots locally for River a couple years ago, so I knew it would be even harder to find an even smaller pair for Ocean. I bought him a tiny pair of Oakiwear rain boots  and he thinks they're the best and that he's such a big kid. He wore them once or twice before this hike, but this was the first time on a hike and with his trail suit. 

The trail suits worked great for keeping the boys clean and dry. Ocean didn’t get muddy since he was on my back most of the hike, but River laid on the bridge and got his trail suit muddy while keeping his clothes clean.

The boys had fleeces under their trail suits and while it was a chilly day River was too warm- we could have left his fleece in the car and he’d have been fine. Ocean was fine since he didn't do too much walking.

 I like how adjustable the suits are. The boys are both wearing 3t suits (I originally ordered a 3t and a 5t, but the 5t is just way too big for River, so I put it away for when he's bigger and ordered a smaller size. I meant to get a 2t for Ocean and have River wear the 3t I'd already ordered, but I didn't double check the sizes and ended up with two 3t trail suits. Rather than fuss with returns, I kept them both since River can wear the 3t for awhile still and Ocean will be able to wear either one for a good long while.) and the internal waist band cinches in while the hem of the pant legs can be tightened around boots and the sleeves can be adjusted as well. The fabric is light weight enough that it's not a problem for the kiddos to walk around with the extra fabric poofing around them.

It rained earlier in the morning before our hike, but it didn't rain for most of our hike. We got dripped on while under the trees and then rained on during the last stretch of the trail (which was also the paved portion so mud wasn't an issue), but no one minded getting a little damp.

5k through an Orchard

fog at the start of the race

Last week we had two and a half days of rain that only ended about 3 hours before the race started Saturday morning. Which meant that Saturday morning was cold, foggy, and windy up on the mountain, which was just one mountain peak over from my last 5k.

I didn't know what the course was like because there was no course description or map, so I went into it blind, which was a good thing. This was a hard race, almost on a par with my last 5k. I did have a good finish, and I only walked the two steep uphills, but it was still a tough race.

The first half mile was a steep uphill, then we turned around and ran down the hill. From there we looped around over rolling hills through the orchard and vineyard, then back up the steep hill, before running down the hill once more and through the finish.

On the drive to the race I was listening to a podcast episode from Another Mother Runner, and they were talking about the proper way to run trails and down hills. This came in super handy during the race as the gravel roads were in rough shape from all the rain, and there were some significant downhill stretches. I feel like I used the advice to good effect and I was able to run the downhills faster than I might have other wise. I had a good, strong last half mile since it was all downhill.

I ran 3.10 miles in 38:00.
   1st mile- 13:17 (half mile walk uphill)
   2nd mile- 11:20
   3rd mile- 12:36 (half mile walk uphill, but fast half mile downhill)

the fog blew off for some great views

My half marathon training plan called for 8 miles on Saturday, so I needed 5 more after the race. Starting up again after stopping at the end of the race was a bit rough, but there was no way I was running this race backward, so my only option was to run somewhere else.

I had planned on running the trail since it was so close, but parts are still closed, so I was going to be restricted to running 1.5 mile loops. That didn't appeal to me, so I drove to a nearby park and ran on a bike path instead. I ran 5 miles followed by a .8 mile cool down. The bike path was fairly flat, so I was able to keep a fairly consistent pace, despite the hard 5k I'd already run.

I ran 5.00 in 57:28. It wasn't a race, so I wasn't running all out, which is good, since I'd like to bring my overall pace down to the 10 minute range, but I'm pleased with the consistency.
   1st mile-11:07
   2nd mile- 11:07
   3rd mile- 11:36
   4th mile- 12:21(.25 mile walk break)
   5th mile- 11:15

After getting home from my run, I spent the afternoon walking back and forth around the chicken run as Mr M and I worked on the run. I should have left my Garmin on, but I took it off, so I don't know how much extra mileage I put in. A couple miles, I'm sure.

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I ran 5 miles with my friend C on Wednesday. It was her first time running more than 4 miles (we've both run several 4 mile races), but she didn't tell me that until after we ran. She did great though and is now thinking about training for a half marathon!

I've discovered I need to change up my training schedule. As my mileage gets higher, some issues are showing up. Friday is supposed to be a rest or easy day, but it's not for me. This meant that I walked 5 miles on Friday followed by 8+ miles on Saturday and it didn't feel that great. Mostly fatigue is the issue, but I'm also still dealing with plantar fasciitis in both feet and they don't appreciate the higher mileage in such a short time period.

Our Thursday hikes are on the short side right now, so I need to supplement with some more mileage on the treadmill so I can have easier workouts on Fridays. My easy Mondays have fallen by the wayside as well and have increased from 2 miles to 5.

I don't actually mind the mileage, other than when they aggravate my plantar fasciitis. The issue is the time involved- especially when I'm walking instead of running. It's been a few years since I last trained for a half, and I'd forgotten about the time commitment. And of course, time is always in short supply....

Weekly Mileage
Monday: 5.12 mile treadmill walk
Wednesday: 5.08 mile outdoor run
Thursday: 1.18 mile hike
Friday: 5.12 treadmill walk
Saturday: 3.1 mile race + 5.8 mile outdoor run/walk
         total miles: 25.40

hike #16 toward my #52hikechallenge
223.36 miles toward my #365milechallenge
race #46 towards my 40 by 40 goal