On The Move

Geez, well, hi there, hello. I know, hardly recognize me, I look so different. Yeah, been, what, 2 weeks? Something like that? Good, good. Yup, just been busy. How's things with you?

So here's the deal. I have a major announcement. We're moving. Amy and I have had in mind since last spring that a move was in order - just...ready for something new and different. We've given this a ton of thought (even though it's the first I'm sharing it here), and New Mexico was high on the list for a long time, but then we got to considering a multitude of other factors, and - you'll dig this, I promise - decided that we would make our new home in...Madison. Home of the Ironman. How dope is that?

Lots of reasons, I won't bore you with all of them, but some of the most important are - we love the area, are familiar with it from years of visits, and we have family there, which is important to us. That there's a great triathlon community is just a huge bonus. That there's an Ironman is just stupid bonus. So.

Not probably Madison specifically, actually - more like Madison-and-the-surrounding-areas. We actually have a community pretty well picked out, but stand by on that until more develops. There are lots and lots of little towns around Madison that, to call them suburbs is inappropriate, because they're old towns themselves, with personality and history and originality, but that happen to be 12 or 20 minutes away from Madison. Anyway, that's where we're looking.

What this means, of course, is that we'll be selling our home. And this is where my two-week absence comes in. We've been cramming 6 years worth of home improvement projects into 2 weeks, and it has been totally insane. Painting, staining, fixing, moving, organizing, storing, replacing, demolishing, building, on and on and on. Our house is beautiful - I mean, before the projects, it's a really great house - but the long list of "little" projects - the stuff that takes 3 hours on a Saturday - was piled pretty high into several days' worth of 3-hour projects. We want to get the house listed soon - as soon as we can (next week?) - so that means hard work now to address the little things that we think will help it sell. Along the way, we've been sending boatloads to Goodwill and sending tons of other stuff to storage, which means we've been really purging the house of years of accumulated clutter and stuff. It feels so good to start to clear one's path of that stuff, you know? Not just because physically there's more space, it's just nice to toss away irrelevance.

Anyway, we're almost there. The list of projects is shorter, and the projects themselves are shorter, and soon it'll be down to cleaning up, and then it'll be ready for showing. Meanwhile, this has had to be top priority in life. My training came to a screeching halt. I've not run in 2 weeks, have ridden my bike once, and not swam at all. Amy says it's making me crazy - and I feel out of sorts, weird, and off-kilter because of it. It's also pushed me back behind schedule for a triathlon in 5 weeks and a marathon is less than 2 months, nevermind moving towards race-weight; meals have mostly had to be what's convenient and when's convenient. But hey - such is life post-Ironman, you know? I gotta steer the ship, lest the ship steer me. Alas, there is more to life than triathlon.

So, it leaves me here: For any training program, I build in two weeks cushion for illness or injury - never thinking I take those two weeks all at once. Well, cushion gone. This means, of course, I can't get injured or ill. I'll have to spend the next couple of weeks regaining lost fitness, when I was just starting to chisel into a machine. Starting today, I'm back to regular schedules, even if I have to tend to some of my projects later in the evening - I think things are far enough along where I can prioritize as such. I'm on my bike this afternoon come hell or high water, and with a high of 75 forecast, it can't come soon enough.

Anyway, that's my story. I'm back now, though, so thanks for waiting. I'll keep you posted on the move - we don't have specific plans yet as far as a timeline - there has to be movement on our house selling, first. We know that by the time school starts in the fall, we want (need) to be moved in. Beyond that - anytime between June and late August could see us moving, depending on how selling the house goes. Crazy times, these. Best managed with bicycle and running shoes close at hand.