Back to Running

[JamieLogical 8,727]

I hadn't run in almost 5 months. My last 5k race was August 15, the same day that my husband and I first looked at a new house. We weren't actually in the market for a new house. We had purchased some land a couple years ago and ultimately planned to build on it in another couple of years. But somehow I stumbled upon a listing for a house that seemed to have almost everything we wanted in our "dream house" with the added bonus of already existing in this world. So we went to check it out in person.

From that day forward, my life was a chaotic whirlwind. We decided we wanted the house. A couple of problems there. First of all, our current house was in no shape to list for sale. We hadn't intended to sell it for a few more years, so there were lots of little updates and repairs needed to get it ready to list and show. On top of that, my sister and her four children were currently living with us! Two of those children were todlers (2 & 3 years old) and it was summer break, so even the older ones (7 & 9 years old) were home all day.

My husband and I worked like CRAZY to try to get the house in some semblance of order. We had professionals make repairs to the porch, seal the driveway, and carpet the living room. But we did tons of other projects ourselves... scraping and painting the wood on the exterior of the house, weeding, landscaping, power washing and sealing the deck, power washing and sealing the patio, electrical work, and SO MUCH cleaning and packing! One weekend we put TWENTY SEVEN 30-gallon trash bags out for the trash, plus tons of other big, loose items! We packed up everything we could live without for a couple of months and moved it into a storage unit. We also paid for an helped move all of my sister's stuff into storage (she had been storing it in our garage).

We put in our offer for the new house before our house was even officially listed, but they still accepted it with a contingency for the sale of our house by Oct. 2. Luckily our house sold in exactly one week! Technically kind of less than that. We listed our house on a Monday. The people who ultimately bought our house submitted their first offer on a Wednesday. But we went through a couple of counter-offers with them, so their final offer wasn't accepted until the following Monday (Labor Day).

We helped my sister and her kids move into THEIR new house on Sept. 19. Then it was tons of packing and preparing and fixing the things that had come up in the inspection up until we were set to close on Oct. 30. We didn't actually close on Oct. 30th though. It got delayed until Nov. 6. That first week of November we had already been scheduled to go on vacation to Virginia, so we were only down there a couple of days when we got the call that closing was set, so we had to rush back up here and hire movers, call all the utility companies, and scrable to do our final packing push.

Once we were in the new house, it was non-stop projects to get the house exactly as we wanted it before we unpacked and settled in. Remember how I said this house was already close to being our dream house? Well that didn't mean there weren't a million projects. I worked us until 2:00 am most nights trying to get everything done as quickly as possible. We painted every room, replaced every light fixture, replaced every single piece of door hardware (so many doors!), replaced nearly all the faucets and drains, replaced all the towel rings, towel bars, and toilet paper holders in ALL FOUR bathrooms, put up a chair rail in the office, put up beadboard wainscoting in one of the bathrooms, hung up pegboard rails in the garage, replaced the garbage disposal and all the kitchen appliances, put together all the new furniture we bought.... the list goes on and on! Plus we had to decorate for Christmas!

Anyway, by the time we were done with all of that madness, it was the Holidays. My parents came for Thanksgiving then again for Christmas. We had a housewarming party just after Christmas. And now things are FINALLY settled down. We finally got a workout area set up in our finished basement. And I ran for the first time in FIVE months on Tuesday.

It went much better than I thought it would. I had visions of having to start back over in like Week 2 of Couch to 5k (maybe even Week 1!). But, I did a little self-assessment run on Tuesday after work. I managed to run for 10 minutes straight without stopping to walk. I then went on to walk for 3 minutes, run for 7, walk for 5, run for 5, walk for 4. So a total of 26 minutes of running. MUCH better than I had hoped. So tonight I'm actually going to pick up in Week 6 of C25k and I am really hoping it won't take long for me to be running a full 5k again without stopping. I want to be doing races again come spring.

[VSGAnn2014 12,992]

Whew! I'm exhausted just reading that!

You young whippersnappers are living life fully. And your re-entry into running is awesome.

Congratulations on everything.

[Miss Mac 6,262]

You wore me out, too. If nothing else, you got in a steady workout with both aerobics from the puttering around and resistance from carrying stuff all over the place. It all sounds like a labor of love.

[JamieLogical 8,727]

Yeah, I may not have been having a dedicated exercise time, but I certainly did plenty of physical activity. I didn't gain any weight at all, even through the Holidays. So I must have at least been burning off all the calories I was eating!

[IncredibleShrinkingMan 437]

Registered for a 5K next month and for once I am excited. Great story, thanks for sharing.

[JamieLogical 8,727]

Registered for a 5K next month and for once I am excited. Great story, thanks for sharing.

Next month? Where do you live that running in February isn't horrible?

[IncredibleShrinkingMan 437]

@@JamieLogical

Virginia...it's Cupid's run, held on Valentine's Day in all conditions. So far the winter's been very kind to my outdoor workouts.

[jess9395 5,450]

Yay!!! Glad you're enjoying getting back into it, and congrats on the house!!!

I don't know how you all do those winter runs in cold states! I'm in CA and complain when it gets in the low 40's!

[JamieLogical 8,727]

Yay!!! Glad you're enjoying getting back into it, and congrats on the house!!!

I don't know how you all do those winter runs in cold states! I'm in CA and complain when it gets in the low 40's!

I can't run outside in the cold. I get a horrible cough for the rest of the day whenever I try. My lungs HATE the cold air! That's why I don't schedule any races until April at the earliest. Even in April, it's sometimes only in the upper 30's or low 40's in the early mornings. Why are races always at ungodly hours like 7:00 am?

[mngreeneyes 674]

Congrats on getting back to running and the new house and everything that went with it. I started back to running on Tuesday. I am doing W1D2 tonight after work. Listen to your body. Starting at week 6 maybe physically possible for you, but your body may not be ready for the mileage jump. It can lead to injuries. I hope I am wrong. Just want to put it out there.

Good luck and keep us posted!

pam

[JamieLogical 8,727]

Congrats on getting back to running and the new house and everything that went with it. I started back to running on Tuesday. I am doing W1D2 tonight after work. Listen to your body. Starting at week 6 maybe physically possible for you, but your body may not be ready for the mileage jump. It can lead to injuries. I hope I am wrong. Just want to put it out there.

Good luck and keep us posted!

pam

Yeah. I'm still a little stiff from Tuesday's run so maybe I'll only do Week 5 instead of Week 6. I'll definitely be repeating the Week 6 workouts a few times at least, because Week 7 just has you running for like 22 minutes straight or something like that and I KNOW I'm more than a week away from being able to pull that off!

[Chrystee 838]

Yay!!! Glad you're enjoying getting back into it, and congrats on the house!!!

I don't know how you all do those winter runs in cold states! I'm in CA and complain when it gets in the low 40's!

I can't run outside in the cold. I get a horrible cough for the rest of the day whenever I try. My lungs HATE the cold air! That's why I don't schedule any races until April at the earliest. Even in April, it's sometimes only in the upper 30's or low 40's in the early mornings. Why are races always at ungodly hours like 7:00 am?

They want the race crowd out of the way for the bulk of the day.

I got a face mask that helps me with my runs in cold weather.. I'm good until it hits about 35..