Buying a house is tiring

Started off last week with a 40 minute fartlek run on Tuesday morning. And that’s where it ends until the weekend. Seriously. This week we made another offer on another house. And after 4 months and 4 offers, we are finally in contract on a house. So last week was spent writing an offer, accepting a counter offer, signing piles of loan documents, gathering all sorts of evidence for the loan, and trying to suppress our excitement. So not only was the “house thing” time-intensive, it was also a huge emotional drain on energy. I just couldn’t get up in the morning early enough to workout and the evenings were spent going to the house, working on the paperwork, etc. It was a very lame week, but Kyle keeps telling, “It's OK, we’re buying a house!” and I keep saying, “But I don't think they have an I-bought-a-house-during-training shortcut in the HIM.” So from last Tuesday, my next workout wasn’t until last Saturday, a 40-minute run.

On Sunday, Kyle and I drove up to Sonoma so that I could ride on the HIM course. The middle 15 miles or so we’ve biked before unknowingly. Kyle dropped me about 5 miles from the start and then drove to Healdsburg. At the drop-off:



I biked the 13 miles to Healdsburg and then Kyle joined me for another 25 miles. I’m hoping that this time on the course will be an advantage for me. The first 12 miles that I did alone were pretty rolly. There were a couple good downhills that led into turns with big signs for cars to slow down so I did too but I know for the race that I don’t need to slow down as much as I did. I discovered some fun landmarks to use like these two HUGE white horses that were just chilling and a field of “happy cows” and an old tin shed just before a hill that hurts a bit.


Where Kyle joined me, the course is on a bigger road, the ups and downs are longer and more gradual and I’m very familiar with that stretch. As we were coming up to where I knew from past rides that there was a big hill, we agreed to stop at the top for quick water break since it was tough last time we were there (a few months ago I guess?). But when we got to the cemetery that I thought was the top of the hill it didn’t seem like the hill was nearly hard enough. I actually asked Kyle, “Was that IT? I remembered it being so much bigger!” So I guess riding in the Berkeley Hills is paying off. Around mile 35 of the course (~30 miles into my ride), we turned off back to Healdsburg. Total ride was 38 for me, 25 for Kyle. I’m going to try to get to Sonoma at least once more, because I need to do the infamous Chalk Hill at mile 45.


Monday and Tuesday off. What? Yeah, I know. Back in gear Wednesday though. 38 minute run with 3 3-minute intervals that I did on a hill just to punish myself for sucking so much over the last week.