My expectations were far too high.
With an open room in my house, I decided to try out my gear for the world race. I popped open my tent, rolled out my sleeping pad, fluffed up my travel pillow, and snuggled into my sleeping bag insert with the hopes of a great night's sleep. I was rudely mistaken. I had expected that I would drift slowly into a deep sleep to awake in the morning bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready for a brand new day. Instead, I woke multiple times during the night, had different body parts falling asleep instead of me, and woke in the morning feeling as though I had never gone to sleep.
Maybe I should have had lower expectations for how wonderfully I was going to adjust to sleeping on a sleeping pad.
I don't write this to complain, rather, I write to critique and examine my equipment choices.
Let me start from the beginning. After a great night of worship at Christ Fellowship's Young Adults service called J1ten, I got home excited to get prepped for my world race. It was dark – nearly midnight – and since the room was empty, there weren't any lights to turn on. I decided this was better anyways, because who knows, on the world race I might not have any lights while I'm putting up my tent. So, I attempted putting up my tent and failed twice. The third time was a charm because I got it up and it looked tent-like. One criticism on the tent I purchased is that it doesn't have any place to plug in the different pipes into the centerpiece. [I don't know if that made sense.] It's very awkward. Then, I opened up my sleeping pad for the first time and inflated it. I really liked how it inflated. Instead of needing me to blow air into it, I pushed on it and after about 5 minutes, it was completely inflated. I sat down on it and my butt hit the floor, but when I layed out flat, I couldn't even tell that I was sleeping on tile floor. It was all air. Then, I tossed my pillow on my pad. It's cute and works. I don't have any complaints about the pillow. Lastly, I opened up my sleeping-bag-insert. I had expected it to be tarp-like material; I don't know why. It was SO soft though. That was a great surprise! I bundled up in it and stayed pretty warm for the most part. I was sleeping in shorts and a t-shirt and got chilly a couple times (we keep our house at 70 during the night), so I think for the future I might wear long sleeve shirts.
Once I layed down my sleepy head, I realized that the sleeping pad wasn't much larger in width than my body, so right away I knew that would be a problem. I like to sprawl and my sleeping pad wouldn't allow for that. So, I had to change positions a few times during the night.
All in all, I'm glad I attempted sleeping. There was one point I almost got up and walked over to my bed, but I'm glad I didn't. I'd rather struggle with these problems now, while I can still fix them, than when I get to the race. No, I didn't sleep great. I had expected it to be just like sleeping in my bed. I was quite mistaken. Now that I know the truth, I'm looking forward to trying it out again tonight. I'll keep you updated.
I also wanted to share my equipment choices with you guys. For the most part, I'm very happy with my choices. I took some pictures of everything, and will get them up here for you to look through. Send me your questions and comments; I'm happy to help you with your equipment decisions!
Here's my setup in our extra room. The tent covering is the grey fabric in the corner. You can also see my backpack.
This is the set up I went with!
I'm bringing this for my sleeping pad – just in case!
Here's the video camera I'm bringing! So excited for what this is going to capture!
And, of course, I couldn't leave out my day pack – a fanny pack! Yeah! Can't wait to wear that in style!
