Moving edition part 1: How to dry 3 baby socks

So we're all kinds of crazy up in here these days. We are waist deep in the move. Literally. The house is piled with moving boxes at pretty much every turn. That's the short version. But let me give you a slightly more turn-by-turn rendition of one runner's move.

Thursday

My parents are the Rock Stars of Moving. They drove 726 miles, packed my house, then took me out to dinner. Totally unjustified. This is Pepper packing my kitchen. This woman could pack all of East Asia in under 90 minutes.

Also on Thursday, our house officially sold!! It's such a relief. And the family that bought it is really nice, from what we can tell. As I told The Beastie, I knew God had called us to our new town, but I was still prepared to be shipped there in the belly of a whale. But the Big Guy's arranged for so much more for us than we could ever have asked for. No hitching rides with whales. Everything is, miraculously, coming together.

Friday

We packed like completely insane people. And learned a few things. Did you know, for instance, that the newspaper office will give you, for free, as many rolls as you can carry of unprinted newspaper (well, the ends of rolls that they didn't use) to wrap stuff in? It works pretty well! Lesson #2, when you all of a sudden have 3 wet baby socks and you don't know how that happened, there is no need to put them in the dryer. No! Hang them on a curtain rod in an east-facing window. Effective. And adorable. Ah, the things my parents dream up.

Saturday

My last Team run, at least until I feel like I know enough people to fundraise with the Team in our new city. It was an odd last run, too. Parts of our course were flooded, forcing us to find ways around, using access roads and stuff. It was crazy humid out, so my miles were slow (the fastest was 9:33..the slowest was close to 10 minutes).

mileage update: 287.7 + 5.6 = 293.3

We had a going-away picnic at a park on Saturday evening. I hate to say it, but I have no pictures. FAIL on that front.

Sunday

Father's Day. Today was some forced relaxation. We took the time to hang out and enjoy our church picnic. I have to say, I'm incredibly blessed to have one of the coolest dads I've ever even heard of, and I'm married to a man who is beyond fabulous with our little boy. Great Dads to celebrate Fathers Day with. Here's a picture of me with my Dad, today. He knows those sunglasses are crazy looking. The hat--that's just him. He's a guy with a straw hat. And I love him for it. Not the best picture of me, but it's what I have for today.

And this is me signing off for a while. I leave Tuesday morning to close on the new place and commence the Paint Like It's Your Job portion of this move. I may or may not have internet access while that happens. If I do, I'll post some pictures as we go. Keep blogging and running everybody! I'll catch up with you next weekend. Hopefully then I'll be able to share some new running paths I will have found around the new place. I can't take a lot with me this week (Moving Day is the 29th, and everything will go then), but you know I'm taking my running shoes and The Vengeance.

Just to be clear....we're frenemies

Frenemies

I have a short story to share with you. It's changed my world.

Last Wednesday at the track during our cool-down, I had the following conversation with RunningFirst.

Me: "So, just to be clear, are we competing with each other at Lewis & Clark?"

RunningFirst: "What do you mean? Are we?"

Me: "Well, our goal times are pretty much the same. And we're both a little competitive. And we tend not to race together. So, to be totally clear, are we competing with each other? I'm perfectly happy if we're not, but I want to know it if we are."

RunningFirst: "Maybe on the inside I'm gunning for you. On the outside, we're friends. But that's all surface level. Deep down inside, though..."

Me: "We're what, frenemies now?"

And then, as if in a subliminal bid to solidify this new status, he blogged me out of town. I am in fact, still here. I am here for 8 more days, which includes 2 more Team workouts. Mr. Joanna tells me that I have to accept the apology proffered in the comments section of his post. So, apology accepted, RunningFirst.

Running update

The appy appears to be a thing of the past. I did get to do my short run last Friday, but unfortunately had to do it at 11am...when it was 91 degrees and insanely humid. I had hoped to do 3.7ish, but decided it was unwise and headed home. Then Saturday I did a 6 mile long run with the Team. No pain at all!! It was hot and humid again. Sticky, really. But I just felt tougher for having done the run.

And today--I just came in from a 3.9 mile run. This was officially the first training run for the L&C training cycle!! I am SO excited about training. I think I can blow my standing marathon time out of the water.

mileage:

275.2 + 2.6 + 6.0 + 2.9 = 286.7 miles

Our growing box collection

The house is slowly making its way into boxes. We have packed boxes everywhere. In the kitchen. The hallway. The babe's room. Our room. The basement. And yet I feel like I'm never going to get to the end of the unpacked mountain of stuff. This week is going to be a pack-a-thon/hang-out-with-my-kid-because-I-can-a-thon. My parents arrive Thursday to help finish the packing and I leave next Tuesday morning to go to the closing! (Moving Day itself for the household comes a little later...it's complicated. We started a pool for bets on when my mom will start making flow charts to map out the move) I will keep you all updated with pictures as all this craziness unfolds.

Indignant/Love

First, a rant:

I just watched the movie "Marie Antoinette" after taking over a year to read the book it's based on. The movie is so bad I am almost indignant about it. And I am not a movie snob! Really! C'mon, I love Talladega Nights, Dodgeball, all the stupid humor. And some serious things. Not a snob! They should have called the movie "All the Pretty things Marie Antoinette Lived Among During Her Time at Versailles." That would have been a more accurate title.

Second, running:

I went to track practice last night. It was the fall Team's first track workout, so it was meant to be pretty easy. We did:

1 mile warm-up

6 x 400

1 mile cool-down (of which RunningFirst and I did half a mile)

It was generally believed that I should take it a little easy, it being my first really serious workout post-appy. The more senior Team members (i.e., people who have watched me run now for 3+ years and know my running habits sometimes better than I do) were sure I wouldn't be able to keep myself in check. But I showed them! Reality: I took May as an "easy," "between races" month, then had an appendectomy. I'm a little out of shape. And yes, eventually my stomach started to hurt a little. Spin: I totally kept myself under control and really intentionally slowed down a few seconds per interval. I ran them each in about 1:46.

Which brings me to my first totally intolerable Garmin gush-fest. I FREAKING LOVE THIS THING. I just synced it to my laptop when I got home and boom all my intervals, total time and distance, everything was just there. And easily transported into my runningahead log. No need for anyone to write down times at the track. Or email them to me. Or for me to then manually copy them from email into runningahead. It's just done.

272.0 + 3.2 = 275.2 miles

I have an easy run planned for tomorrow and a 6-miler (assuming compliance by my abs) for Saturday. Tomorrow's could get ditched though depending on how the babe is feeling in the morning. He had immunizations today and had a rough evening. Poor little guy. Keep your fingers (a word I invariably type first as "gingers" and have to delete) crossed for him!

Fabulous and....Fabulous

Today was such an exciting day in my running life. I'm so excited to share. Why you ask? Two HUGE reasons.

1. My first post-appy run

I ran! I RAN! I am so happy to finally fill in a day in my runningahead log. I'm so happy to STOP LOSING ENDURANCE and start pre-training for Lewis & Clark. I'm SO happy to be healthy enough to run and not hurt. I made it 2 miles before anything hurt. Then there was a little soreness, so I walked back home.

Officially, my post-appy check-up is tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure the doctor is going to tell me things are looking good.

269.6 + 2.4 = 272.0 miles (barely 20 miles in the whole month of May. FAIL.)

2. The Vengeance

That's what I named my new Garmin! Yes, I love saying those words--MY GARMIN! It is a graduation gift from Mr. Joanna and my MIL. The name is that of a character in Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities (I heart Dickens). It's a woman who knits messages into cloth to foster the French Revolution. She is one of the many Dickens characters that has made me laugh over the years. This short woman who knits power into her life. Plus, it sounds motivational.

I wore it today to try it out. I love that it records per-mile times and the total pace. I'm still figuring out/getting used to the desktop software part of it. I also love that it records the path I took. I know it will automatically update my runningahead profile, but I haven't hooked that up just yet. I also haven't tried putting training workouts into it yet or setting the training partner. All this lies ahead.

It just tickled me pink to finally have a Garmin!

And so it begins

While I'm not actually employed, I'm at work right now. I came in to organize some data sets and get them to my old supervisor before I head out of town. Of course, my former employer's tech support has made that task impossible, and so while I wait for them to figure things out I thought I would post some updates.

Appendix Updates
The IV bruises on my arms are finally fading. The three sets of stitches on my abdomen appear to be healing, although my belly button is still QUITE the hot mess. My range of motion and ease of motion has steadily improved since the big event. I'm planning to go to the park this Saturday to at least walk a few miles while the Team does their long run. I might, *might* run a little bit. Slowly.

Move Updates
I reserved our moving truck yesterday! I also packed a box from our closet and a small box from the babe's room. I've filled out the online form to have our mail forwarded starting in a couple weeks. Utility companies on the other end will be called tomorrow. I've made a list of everyone that needs to be notified of the move. The list keeps growing, of course, but at least it's written down. A folder of receipts has been started. Things are slowly but very concretely coming together. It's exciting and still a little surreal. My parents are giving us their dining room furniture. Getting THAT moved to the new place is a whole separate debacle.

Ok--gotta go. Hopefully I'll have a running update on Saturday!