Weekly Mileage #66: Trying to Find a Waterfall

Last week was the 11th week until my half marathon, so it was past time to buckle down and get training. I pulled out last year's training schedule since it worked pretty well, and adjusted it to fit this year's timeline. I'm doing a lot more cross training this year as I'm keeping my two days of biking each week- it's been helping my foot, and it's a nice change for my joints and muscles.


Monday I walked on the treadmill and Tuesday I rode my bike. Wednesday I walked on the treadmill and even ran for a bit. I don't love running on the treadmill, but it didn't feel too bad, all things considered.

Thursday we went for a hike, trying to find a waterfall that the boys and I set out to find last year. Last year we didn't get very close at all, due to lack of preparation on my part. This time I read up on the hikes in that area and I thought I knew how far we needed to go. I thought we found the waterfall, though Sunshine and I thought it a bit odd that we couldn't get a good view of it. We hiked back down almost to the trailhead, where the map was, and looked at it a little closer. Turns out we needed to go another .2 miles to actually get to the waterfall. I'd taken a picture of the map, but not the description below it that mentioned the .2 mile spur trail that you needed to take. Just a bit disgusting.

River crossing the stepping stones all by himself during last year's attempt

That same crossing, this year. River was standing on one of the rocks about half way across in the pic from last year.

It wasn't a complete loss though- we got to cross the river four times, which meant wading in the water each time. On the way down the kiddos splashed in the water a bit as well. So we missed out on our waterfall, but we got to play in nice, cool water on a hot day. We'll repeat this hike again soon, and finally find the waterfall.

Friday I was supposed to ride my bike, but I had another migraine, so it didn't happen. I've been getting a lot of migraines lately, and I'm really hoping it's just because of my hair. I think it's the longest it's ever been, or very close, and every time it gets close to this length I start getting headaches because of the weight. I've got a hair cut scheduled for this week, so we'll see if that makes a difference.


Saturday I was supposed to go for a run, but we got sucked into one of those yard projects that take way more time and energy than you think it will. Though it was actually two projects. We rented a stump grinder to grind down the four stumps in our parking area/future carport site. Two of the stumps were quite large in diameter, and one in particular was deep and had an extensive root system that had grown around large rocks. Add in about 4 hours of the grinder not working, and Mr M was working until dark to get the stumps taken care of.

the little boys were so excited that we got a new tractor :) we kept reminding them that we were just borrowing it

the tree in the center of the driveway was the most stubborn and had rocks all through its root system.
now it looks like a volcano of sawdust went off in our driveway. 

large rock we couldn't dig out of the root system- the grinder started grinding it down, which I'm sure wasn't good for it.
we're hoping the Bobcat we'll rent next month sometime will be able to handle it.

the other two tree stumps from the trees we took down this spring.
the fourth stump was to the side of the parking area, leftover from the first tree we took down in our driveway, years ago.

While he was working on the stumps, the kids and I decided to tackle the wood chip pile next to the RV. A year and a half ago I signed up at Chipdrop.com for tree companies to drop loads of wood chips at our house. It's free for home owners and tree companies pay to access the info. The previous Saturday was the first time we got a load delivered, and it was larger than I'd expected. And smellier. 

the original mulch pile

still a lot of mulch left at the end of the day

So we shoveled chips from the pile into the trailer, then hauled them down to the treehouse area, where we unloaded them and spread them. We managed 8 loads before calling it quits. It was hot and humid and physically demanding work- my shoulder blades haven't been this sore in I don't know how long. I did 95% of the shoveling and some of the spreading, Sunshine did about 60% of the spreading and a little shoveling, with the boys helping here and there with shoveling and spreading, and Mr M jumping in for some spreading while waiting on the grinder to start working again. An excellent upper body workout, and there's still a lot more mulch to move, but we'll take a break for a few weeks before tackling it again. In the meantime, the treehouse area looks so much better- less weedy and bare dirt-y.

the boys helped unload one trailer load :)

Sunshine helped spread all the mulch 

before we started spreading mulch

after spreading 8 loads of mulch

Weekly Mileage
Monday- 2.10 miles walked on the treadmill
Tuesday- 10.00 miles on the bike
Wednesday- 2.25 miles walked and run on the treadmill
Thursday- 4.50 miles hiked
    total- 18.85 miles

9 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
1.10 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

102.88 foot miles towards #365milechallenge
190.00 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
293.98 miles total