It’s been a productive few weeks in the shop. The upper cabinets are in, mattress is back in and stowed with the folding bed. Lights are now on separate circuits with dimmer switches on each.

I built a custom switch panel for the Espar heater controller and installed it in the upper cabinet along with some spare switches for future lights… LEDs in the garage or in the upper cabinets.

Next week I’ll install the first iteration of the electrical system. Just 100Ah of lithium ion and a few Victron parts. I’m trying to keep it simple as we don’t have a fridge or induction cooktop yet, power will be for the diesel heater and lights.

Oh. And I copied a design that I liked for a composting toilet. It’s a separating toilet (separator from Free Range Designs). I used 3/4 birch and kerf bent on the front radius. I changed some of the dimensions, but it’s a copy of a Trobolo. It’s made to fit on a shelf in the rear cabinets.

The intention is to laminate the cabinets, but things are moving quickly through the (very small) shop, that I just don’t have room to keep long running projects. And it’s winter here (rain) so I can’t work outside. Next spring I’ll pull all of the cabinets out and laminate and finish the interior. For now, it’s form follows function – with speed of completion. I’ve been trying to work really fast – it’s been really challenging making fast decisions. Definitely YOLO’ing some things. I often don’t have time to set up a tool for the slow way, so I improvise with another tool. Example: My Bosch router motor burned out – it used to be my plunge router… and I keep a Triton in the router table and use a hand held router for small jobs. It’s a pita to take the Triton out of the table, so I’ll just use the little trim router like a plunge router… results vary wildly.

We’re in a Pineapple Express weather pattern, warm and wet. So no skiable snow quite yet. Once the heater is hooked up to electrical – I’m calling it good for the year and will pick things up again in the spring. It’s time to go skiing.

Fondue and beer après ski. That’s the vision. Some random pictures from the last couple of months.

Some observations:

• As with most things that are well-done and look effortless – this is really fucking hard.
• Setting rivnuts with a pneumatic rivnut gun is very stressful. More stressful than glueing up a big piece of furniture. Definitely more stressful.
• A lot of effort gives very little satisfaction, e.g. the initial work: sound deadening mat, insulation, rivnuts, l-track, rough-in electrical… A ton of work that doesn’t bring the van anywhere near the end vision.
• It’s a massive project that needs to be project managed. Everything has to be done in the correct sequence (I’m skipping some steps because… yolo). I’ll deal with them in the spring/summer.
• Every step forward is a massive design and engineering challenge. Example: I can’t drill into the ceiling supports surrounding the pop up roof, so the front panel is help in place with NASA grade velcro and an overlapping panel that pins it up. I have 100’s of other examples. Nothing is plumb or square in a van.
• As with most things that seem at first daunting, you gotta break it down into little steps. As someone wiser than me once said, “work ain’t hard, you just gotta do it”.
• There have been many occasions when I just went for it – and it turned out A O K.

What’s been rewarding:

• I used Duramax fabric and upholstered the walls with 1/4 birch, 1/8 foam and then fabric. Super rewarding and it looks decent. (I know how to upholster now).
• The ceiling is 1/4 shop ply, 1/8 foam and marine perforated vinyl. It looks great.
• The rear cabinets/desk/folding bed is coming together.
• The next few weekends should be big gains.. then I tackle the power system.

Next up:

• finish the bed cabinets
• laminate the upper cabinets (already built)
• build the power system (200ah of lithium with DC to DC charging to start.
• go skiing and make some cheese fondue – https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/classic-swiss-cheese-fondue

I’ve been busy.

It’s really a life philosophy. And I’m well-suited to it. The bathroom is (mostly) finished. Remaining are the cabinet shelf, doors and countertop. There is a backlog of projects in the shop… and I need to move the van project along as ski season is upon us.

I’m pausing to post some pictures because I’m beginning to hear the finish line. It looks like this: Skiing all afternoon and then après ski in the van with some fondue and a beer with the heater warming up my toes. It’s my vision goal. And I’m going to make it happen. I digress. This is how the bathroom turned out. It’s been “done” for a couple of months. It took longer than anticipated as I ended up moving the shower wall after it was initially constructed (the boss made the call).

I like:

• The shower is curbless, you just walk around the corner
• tankless toilet, the tank is in the wall Euro style
• Massive tile wall

I need to move some projects through the shop and then I’ll wrap up the cabinet doors.

You love

are going

to

burn.

Phone pics from Prague last week.

Creeping up to the magical 40 miles / week running right now. There are always those things you wish you could tell your younger self – I’ve been thinking a lot about that this summer as I close in on another decade. I’ve rediscovered the joy of long, slow runs. My training has historically been spotty except when training for a race, where I’ll get more disciplined about periodized training and making sure the build is coming on slow and I’m “generally” prepared (physically) for a hard effort.

I wish I had run more slow miles in the past 20 years.

It’s a really hard concept to grasp, when you train hard, you get results, no pain no gain. It’s true to some extent, but there is another way.

In May I started running just base miles. Keeping an eye on heart rate only, not pace. At all. I’ve changed my primary routes to be relatively flat. It’s boring. It’s painfully slow. But then things started to click.

My Heart Rate Variability jumped and has been consistently balanced. I started sleeping better. My overall “productive” indicator of fitness load (according to Garmin) stayed in the Maintaining state. I haven’t had any fatigue after 7 – 10 miles runs. I’ve been following up a 10 mile run with a 5 miler the next day.

On the long, slow runs I would think about building the aerobic base. Building a big engine. And musculoskeletal adaptation. Most of May I ran in the MAF zone (maximum aerobic function), for me about 131 bpm. I could read a book out loud at that pace. It’s slow.

In the past 5 weeks I started to mix it up by climbing up to aerobic threshold (Zone 2). If the terrain was a little hilly, I would allow my system to jump up to threshold, north of 155, then on the descent, pump the brakes and bring the system back down to 130 bpm.

Over the next few weeks I’ll start to mix in some anaerobic threshold work – probably hill repeats, and continue to increase the long runs. The long term goal is to polarize the training, 80% slow Zone 1 engine building. 20% hammering VO2 Max expanding. Nothing in between.

Last Sunday I set out on an empty stomach from my house to the top of Council Crest – 14 miles round trip. I carried with me a collapsible water bottle and 2 gels. Around 6 miles at the start of the long climb up to the park, I filled my bottle up and ate one gel. The volcanoes were socked in at the top, so I didn’t get any views. A quick turnaround back to downtown and then I filled by bottle again near PSU and ate another gel (caffeinated this time). It was like rocket fuel. I felt great climbing back out of the valley to home. It was the chillest 14 miler I’ve ever run. I thought about taking a lap around Mt. Tabor, but I needed to get home. Heart rate was in Zone 2 most of the run, until I started to open it up a few miles from home on the hills.

I’m not sure what to do with this fitness. Maybe a Fall marathon, maybe something bigger. I feel the pull of another 100 miler. I know I can PR my second one. There is some wisdom coming to bear. We’ll see.

I didn’t even know Tool released a new album (2019?). I’m a sucker for prog rock. This song makes me think of warfighters in Ukraine. Or maybe old rock stars, or old adventurers.

Hey you! You should do that thing you’ve been putting off – start tomorrow when you wake up. Slava Ukraini! Memento mori.