Garrick's body destroyer hike test session.

Garrick and I scouted out a route and trial run for his 15km hike with 40kg load. We tried 10kg(Dad) and 15kg(Garrick) weights as trial starting points and shot off to Lysterfield. We did a few laps 'till we did the distance in the time. 15km's between 2h30m to 2h45m. We hit 2h38m, right in between the goal times with a short break to bandaid a blister and hit the toilets (while the timer kept running). We took sammiches, crackers, cheese, mars bars n drink.

I borrowed Dave's 10kg vest and Garrick took my weights-plates backpack with 15kg load. Garrick did really well. His only complaint was some foot discomfort, this afternoon he's pulling up really well. My body on the other hand is absolutely ruined. I actually died. I'm writing this from the grave. The 10kg vest I borrowed seemed a little heavy, it felt wrong every time I lifted it. I couldn't shake the feeling, I'm wrecked after doing the hike. I started weighing the sand-bags from the vest and they're 900grams each. There's 20 of them... With the vest weight it's clearly a 20kg pack! :( No wonder I died. I'm crushed that I sent Garrick with only 15kg. :(

Lots of Roo packs out. Many 1yr old lil' ones about with their mums, some late season critters in pouches still. Fun hike. We'll bump up the weight for Garrick next time.

Mindy sent a great photo of Oreo. :)

Misc Camper n Long Service Leave stuff

I took four weeks off work for a break. The plan was to finish off the van, but being July rain and cold that plan kinda went south. I coulda'...but didn't... I've knocked out some rough work with the wall skins, the bed, and started on the clothes cabinets above the bed.

I took Garrick with me to the wrecker so we could get some misc parts for my car that were worn. Brake pedal rubber boot, floppy sun visor, wheel well plastic guard, mud guard, seat belt latch etc... While we were there we fished out some nice seats for the camper. They're from another Magna like mine. They were in great condition for a 1998 model car. They're gonna be super comfy in the van. They're dining chairs...not passenger/driver seats. They'll mount on top of a box with drawers underneath.

The brad nailer I bought a few months ago is proving usefull as a clamping device. I'm shooting brads through some 3mm MDF prior to the work piece so the head is always proud enough to comfortably get a nail puller onto them and yank the brads out after glue is set. I just hate seeing brads, or filler for brads in furniture - hence removing them. The hole will self heal with time, sawdust and varnish. The hole is micro because the head never enters the material.

I picked up a nice AEG compound mitre saw that I've been eyeing off for years. It has a primo' 70 degree mitre in both directions of one plane, and a shadow line instead of a laser line. The warranty period is ludicrous. It's a great saw. I also finally bought my own RivNut gun (M3 to M12 sizes) so I don't have to steal the one from work all the time.

Garrick and I have continued his training for the ADF. He's gone through a few more application phases with them, did the medical, and has further confirmation that he's fit for his two primary chosen application roles. He's really just waiting to finish Yr12 now. They may offer him a position prior but that can be deferred easily. Garrick smashed out a fitness requirement today of 2.4km in 11:18 that I previously thought was a 14min requirement; I must have read the wrong column for his age group or just messed up, dunno. I'm still 30s behind him, but I'm over 2.5mins faster than my required age-time, so I guess I'm keeping up sorta. We've been completing his requirements once a month mixed in with other training, so we'll see if I can catch up before end of year. Next challenge is some absurd 15km hike with 40kg's in 2.5hrs or something. We'll tackle a test run of that challenge on the next weekend that's not raining with a 15kg pack starter. I figure we'll go 15, 28, 35, 40kg before beating it. I've been pushing him heavily to eat eat eat eat eat while he's at this premium age so he doesn't end up a skinny dude like me. Unfortunately fattening him up means there's cookiees, crackers, cheese, cornchips, licorice and all kinds of snacks in the house...there are repurcussions for my old man bod'.

Misc unsorted photos below.

Garrick's early Christmas

Garrick's christmas present came early. All prelim' applications to ADF have been passed, he's received written unofficial confirmation he'll be accepted, and has received information on what to bring to training. Notably the information is very specific about bringing no electronics, and that they'd be locking up phones on day 1 to be distributed at brief intervals for phone calls home. I'm sure there are a variety of security issues and social-media-habits they're trying to kick.

In any case...this laptop was purchased two months ago on a ludicrous sale and was waiting for end of Yr12 as an early christmas present, but given the electronics restriction I've decided he might as well get some premium-new-tech use out of it now before he has to abandon it early next year; at least for the twelve week initial training. After that we're pretty sure restrictions ease substantially. (they get their own rooms at that point etc)

He's pretty pleased with it. I won't bore you with specs, but it's a very high end laptop.

Beep Test pre-training completed

Further to our previous achievement of jogging 5km in 30mins in prep' for Garrick's ADF training, we completed a score of 7.5 or higher on the Beep Test today. You can go find information about it yourself, but it's a standardised jog and sprinting fatigue exercise which starts slow and increments to murder speeds while the participant runs back and forth between a 20 meter span. It's been used as a baseline indicator for a variety of sports and industry fields in Australia for decades.

Prior to doing the 5km jog training, Garrick and I made two beep test attempts. Garrick scored 7.1 then 6.8 a week later. I got 6.8, then 6.5...neither of us were up to snuff.

So today we made another attempt and voluntarily stopped at 8.0. We both definitely could have gone further, but the goal was met. We'll go to absolute fatigue another day. It's difficult to continue at max-effort when you're excited about reaching a previously unobtainable level.

Next step is to get Garrick up to par on the PushUps and SitUps. IMO they're waaaayyy too easy compared to the jogging and running requirements, but Garrick has done no weight training in his life, so I guess we'll have to get him there. I've done sets of 50 strict form pushups while doing my 300/day routine, and could rip out 100 situps if pushed, so I know we can achieve the same for Garrick in no time.

Garrick's ADF fitness training progress

This evening Garrick and I completed our first C25K (Couch to 5km fitness progress tracker) run together achieving the final goal of an unbroken 5km jog within 30 minutes. (I've done it in the past, this is Garrick's first time. Keep in mind I'm eying off my 50th birthday in 18 months.)

https://www.sports-tracker.com/workout/mashee/628639a76bc79d24908aa3da

Click on the "show graph" in the bottom left and mouse-over the graph to indicate the realtime location at any given moment. Notice we nailed the pace and barely wavered during the entire run. Right on the money.

The ADF fitness criteria stipulate 2.4km in 14minutes; 10.3km/hour, which is close enough to 10km/hr. We doubled the requirements by meeting the C25k goal. By sheer coincidence we nailed the 2.4km in exactly 14 minutes anyhow as it was the start of the jog and our pace was marginally faster. Win Win.

So now that we've smashed that we'll just revise it once a month to stay on track while we move onto other goals like hitting 7.5 on the beep test, and then tying in the pushups and situps during the same session.

Sprinter camper sunroof install summary

There's a sunroof to install above the shower and bed. Both have reversible fans for extraction or fresh air, and LED lighting built into the inner shroud. This van quite surprisingly doesn't have a selection of locations to install such things, unlike the cruddy old Ford van.