Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

Welcome back.

First things first.  The last time I'll talk about the moving process from Ohio to Virginia: The going away party.

My wife and I belong to an amazing church body, full of authentic people, that we genuinely enjoy being around.  On top of all that we have a family that supports us in everything we do.  This made the move even more difficult.  Having a going away party wasn't to say goodbye for the last time, or an excuse to get gifts (thanks to all those who did give us gifts, even though we told everyone it was not necessary).  We wanted to spend time with our family and friends because that's what we like to do.  The turn out was great.  More than I expected.  The weather was also great.  We filled our church's coffee mill area and a good majority of the picnic tables outdoors.  Members of our church, other friends who don't attend our church, and family all came with food and we had a pot luck style hang out session.  It was an all around good time.  Eating, joking, chasing kids, saying our see ya laters, and a good amount of emotion.  It was a great, yet kinda sad, event.

We've started going to a different church and are starting to meet new people but the friendships we have had over our years in Ohio will not soon fade away.  Once we have a more reliable car we'll be making trips a plenty.

OK, that's it about the move.  I promise..ish.  

I'm back to running!  My first run since the Akron Marathon!  A nice 3.16 mile run around my new neighborhood.  I also restarted my use of the Nike running system (with my iPhone instead of the watch that I sold earlier this year)  Welp, that's it for the recap...

OK a bit of a let down, in terms of blogging recaps, but the run felt good.  While I may have only run once over the past couple weeks, I've accomplished some logistical running/tri goals:

1. Visit a local running store.

To complete this task I went to a store called Lucky Foot.  Lucky Foot was brought to my attention by a new co-worker of mine.  A fellow marathoner.  She's completed a couple and is running the Marine Corps marathon this month and the Richmond marathon next month.  Yikes!  She's admitted to me that she's always busy but if you start talking about running it all goes out the window.  We've had a few good conversations about running styles and our race histories in the few short weeks I've worked in Richmond.

The store has a Facebook page that you should check out.  They occasionally give out running shoes if you share their photos.  One thing I knew about going into my visit is that they give away finisher magnets for all race distances.  The only catch is you have to show them your bib/medal/finisher shirt, which really isn't a catch at all because I've been wearing my Akron marathon jacket pretty much everyday.

It was a good 20 minute drive to get to the store but it was worth the trip (since driving from Ohio to Virginia all car rides feel extremely short).  I brought my oldest, Savannah, with me.  Much to my delight they had an area full of kids toys so parents can freely spend their money.  In Lucky Foot I also fulfilled another logistics goal:

2. Buy reflective gear.

I live close to a main road and the only sustainable runs are along said road.  To get to the sidewalks I need to run on a busy ish road's shoulder.  I bought a couple reflective arm straps and picked up my 26.2 magnet.  The sales associate also had answers to my questions regarding the release of the new Nike Structure 17 and that the Nike Lunar Glide and Structure are about the same shoe except the Structure is mostly at specialty running stores and the Lunar Glide is at the bigger stores.  BTW, I love the finisher magnet..

Not my car.  Took this pic from their Facebook page.  The Irish in me is definitely smiling

 3. Find Tri stores

There are a lot of Tri shops/training groups in this area.  I stopped at a shop near my townhouse called Endorphin Fitness.  It's an extremely nice shop with great equipment.  Computerized bike trainers, bike fitting, endless pool (with camera equipment to record your form), personalized training, weight training equipment. In other words, it's way too expensive for me.  If I had the money I'd absolutely pay to get the training but I'm not that hardcore (and I'm po).  I'm definitely a recreational triathlete.

4. Join a running/tri club

At Endorphin Fitness I talked to the knowledgeable staff about the Richmond Triathlon Club.  It's a group for other recreationals, and competitive triathletes I'm sure, to come together and enjoy the sport.  Membership was 40 for the first year and 30 annually.  Price was right down my alley so I joined.  Plus you get a lot of local discounts at shops.  Hazzzah!! Now if I only had a bike....

5. Get a bike

Haven't gotten one yet.  That should be fulfilled when I go back to Ohio.  My buddy Bryce is selling me his old road/converted to tri bike (that I had used from April till the move).

6. Find a local marathon.

This one has been tough.  I want to find a close marathon for early next year but the only one within an hour is the Richmond marathon and that's in November.  Being in Canton was great because they have their own marathon (seems like they have 5 million of them), Akron has one, and of course, Cleveland has one.

I've scoured many sites and even thought of doing a rock and roll series race.  I THOUGHT of it.  I can't bring myself to do it though.  Call me an elitist but I like running races put on locally (even if they have huge sponsorships ala Chicago Marathon).  I really like big races put on by non-profits (see: Akron Marathon).  I'm leaning towards the Shamrock Marathon in VA Beach in March.  I'm still registered for the Hall of Fame marathon in Canton at the end of April but I don't know if I'm going to do it.  It'll be on the same day as the Richmond Tri Club sprint triathlon.  Decisions decisions...  After March I'm going to focus on triathlons and possibly do the Richmond Marathon at the end of the year.  Book end my 2014 schedule with Marathons and do the Williamsburg Rev 3 Olympic Tri in the middle.

Well.  That's enough out of me.

Thanks for reading.

Maybe I'll actually have a few more runs to talk about next time!

Moving Story

Hello!

Welcome back!

It's been a quiet couple months on my blog.  Not without good reason though.  To sum things up: have a new job in Virginia, moved there, ran a marathon.

Bloggers aren't really around to sum things up though.  So here's the longer version...

Before the Akron marathon recap, I last left you with news of a new job, two states away, in Richmond, Virginia.  A week after getting offered the job my father-in-law and myself took a one day road trip to find a place to live...

But before all that, the wifey and I did some research online, found a place, filled out an application, and paid them to hold a unit.  Soon after we took those steps we found an apartment review site.  The past tenants did not give it a glorious review.  D'oh.  We went back online to scour all the townhomes and apartments that Richmond had to offer.  Searching for that diamond in the rough.  Many stressful days of thinking we found a place, only to find that no one has enjoyed living there.  Aimee alerted me to a place that had great reviews and was only ten dollars more than what we'd pay at the location that we already applied to.  She asked me if I wanted to see the reviews.  I did not.  The search had gone on long enough.  If it was good enough for her it was more than good enough for me.

Which brings us back to the trip.  In an 8 hour drive we didn't have much silence (may have had one too many caffeinated beverages).  It was a quality drive down.  I was driving down and he would be driving back (he drove to the West Virginia line and I took back over (Thank youuuuuuu Starbucks!!)).  We arrived at the newest place we liked and they gave us a tour.  Bingo!  The townhouse was a go.  So for those who are playing along at home, here's a recap: 8 hour drive to look at 1 townhouse for about 20 minutes...

One trip to Applebee's and Wal Mart and we were back on the road.  Ohio bound!

Thursday came and it was time to load the truck.  My new position would be starting the upcoming Monday (between the 14th and 19th I didn't run once).  Thanks to my friends Adam, Brian, Derek, Austin, and Jermaine chipping in it took us no time to pack the truck.  Due to the size of the truck we had to get rid of our love-seat and an extra dresser.

All held by a little blue rope.  Nothing moved!

The following morning (at 3:30 AM) I drove the truck, all of our "treasures", and our towed car down to Virginia.  Since my wife can't drive on the highway she opted to stay with the girls at her parents for the week.  The trip down was uneventful.  There was no CD player or tape deck (to use my iPod tape plug in) so I had some good quiet time and time flipping through country stations trying to find good music.

Driving the hills of WV and VA is nothing short of beautiful.. Just don't stop in WV...

I arrived in VA and I had the task of unloading the truck by my lonesome.  Leading up to this moment I told myself it wouldn't be too bad.  I mean, I had a dolly.  I can do this.  Merrrrrrp.

Unloading that truck suuuuuucked.  Early in the unloading I texted my wifey and told her I didn't want to do it.  The thought of torching everything and driving to Ohio had crossed my mind.  The dressers were towards the back, and ended up being the toughest part of the move.  I couldn't get them with the dolly so I managed to get them upstairs.  Not of my own strength.  I hadn't eaten much on the drive.  I dragged the heaviest of the two dressers up the stairs one stair at a time.  Towards the top of the stairs I was getting confident.  Overly confident.  "I can move it up two stairs!".  Bad move.  I cleared the first and part way through the second I lost the strength.  It started to slip.  I envisioned the entire dresser crashing to the floor and into hundreds of pieces.  Adrenaline kicked in and I managed to save it at the last second.  Think of Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger.  My hope is that you haven't seen that movie to get the reference...

Saving that dresser and putting it in our room pumped me up.  After that there's nothing much to report.

Only goal was getting the stuff off the truck.  Took me a while to get the place livable

That night I went to BW3 and ate like a king.  An exhausted king.  The only items I unpacked that night were the bed comforter and pillows.

Saturday I did some more unpacking and dropped off the moving truck.  The 20 something leasing office worker, Logan, followed me to the drop off site and drove me back (where were ya when I was unpacking?!?)  Apart from the brief convo with Logan I hadn't had much human interaction over the weekend.  I was already drained from unloading and not talking to people made it worse.  I sat around thinking about all the stuff I had to do.

Sunday I made my way to a local church.  A couple of our friends (who live a couple hours away near Norfolk, VA) told us that their church had a satellite campus in Richmond.  I imagined a big thousand person congregation.  When I walked in I quickly saw that I was way off base.  Everyone was uber friendly.  I stuck out like an NBA all star at a lollipop guild meeting.  Speaking with human beings, who were not myself, put me on cloud nine.  Side note: Aimee, the girls, and I went back to Wave RVA this morning and it was still good.  People had remembered me and I even remembered a few of their names.  Score!

There isn't much else to this story.  I went to work the week that followed and ran a marathon that Saturday.  My family and I are now in Richmond.  Everyone has been sick at one point or another this week (except me) but we're still excited for the future.  We also have a new TV.  So that's something.

Now onto the running portion of my blog.  I haven't run since the marathon!!  I'm planning on getting out there to start the week off right.

Next post I'll go into the final moving related post.  That one will be about the going away party that followed the marathon.  I'll also hopefully have some current news about running I've done in the great state of Virginia!

Till next time!