Just an update

I said I’d try and update before my next race and would really like to get in the habit of posting on a more regular basis, so here’s a little progress report. We’ll see how long I keep these up.

The weeks since Accenture Chicago have been packed. I know it was only just over a month ago, but the race feels like a distant memory now. In the middle of my recovery week from Chicago, we finally made the move into our first house. The wife and I had been anxiously awaiting this. Her parents came down with a large service truck to help with the move early on a Wednesday morning. I was at work when they arrived, but luckily my job allows me to flex my schedule when I need to, so I took off at noon and headed to join the moving party. We also had a small but effective support group consisting of Susan’s cousin, and my two best men from the wedding. All three are rather strong guys, so they were able to move a lot of heavy furniture before I even got there (and then gave me hell about it). We worked all day until about 6:00 making trips b/w the apartment and the house and finally got the apartment cleaned out (mostly). It was exhausting, and the house now looked like a mess with boxes and bags everywhere.

We picked at the boxes, unpacking a little at a time throughout the rest of the week until my parents and sister came in to see the place on Saturday. Needless to say, we put them to work. They had been warned, so were good sports about it. We worked all day and basically got everything unpacked with the exception of one room. To reward ourselves in the evening, we cooked out (on my new grill) and relaxed outside with the fire pit. Hurray for wedding gifts.

Since then, we’ve been working through the early joys of homeownership. It certainly keeps you busy, especially at the outset. In less than a month, and with the help of some hired college students (for a fundraiser) and family…we have successfully unpacked 99% of the house, removed wallpaper and mold from bathroom, redid entire bathroom (light fixtures, faucet, and paint) with the exception of décor, removed wallpaper from the kitchen, cleaned the garage, and bought/assembled our new dining room set. Not too bad, eh.

In the more active side of life, I had my parents bring my old hybrid bike up from Louisville. I retooled it some by replacing old rusted parts and adding a rear rack and lights to turn it into my commuter dream. I have only ridden to work twice unfortunately so far since my work schedule has been somewhat erratic of late, but I’m still glad to have it. It’s also my little project, since I’m no bike expert. I feel like I can work on this bike to teach myself how to be a good enough bike mechanic to do most of my own maintenance.

Also, I’ve been riding more hills and think I’m addicted. I never knew bike riding could be so painful, it’s awesome. Hopefully my future bike splits will pay me back for the hard work. And the payoff of long descents is pretty sweet.
Most importantly, though, I’ve been running getting ready for DC in just over a month. I’m up to 16 miles for my long run and feel pretty good about where I am. I could/should probably be getting shorter runs in during the week, but overall I’m pretty confident. I did, however, skip my most recent 18 mile scheduled run to do a 45 mile bike ride instead. It was about the same amount of time to complete, but obviously easier on the legs. So, I will do 18 this weekend instead of the 20 I hoped to be at by this point. I’d still like to get 2 20 milers under my belt before this race, but it’s more important to have a good taper, so I may drop one. We’ll see.

Anyways, that pretty much catches things up. So, until next time…