Days 353-357: Suburbia Blur

Day 353:  As my last few days as a city girl were approaching, nostalgia hit like a ton of bricks with every city block I crossed.  With all of my reflecting I realized that most of my favorite city things involve working out- Washington Park, Karma Yoga, Wash Perk coffee house (which I go to as a treat after I sweat) and Cherry Creek Trail.  For my loving city farewell I decided to take advantage of all of those things and some of my newer budding friendships.

Thursday I met up with an old friend, Katie, and a new friend, Jessica for a 90 minute flow at Karma Yoga.  With an old friend and a new friend (who both happen to be beautiful yoga instructors) practicing so close I realized how yoga has helped me cultivate some of the greatest friendships in my life.  For that, this city gal is ever grateful.

Day 354: Friday was closing day on the house!  I got up at 6:30 and ran to and around Washington Park for a total of 5.5 miles.  I could talk about how at every turn I said “ahh, this is my last time taking this turn while living in the city,” but I won’t bore you with that.

Day 355:  Moving Day!!  Mike and I got up at 5:30 a.m to pack, pick up a moving truck, load up our storage unit, then load up our apartment, stop for a pizza break with our saint friends who helped us all day, and finally unloaded everything at the new digs.  Throughout the day I think the moving team got really sick of me saying “this is what real crossfit is baby!”  Seriously, I said it a lot and nobody ever laughed.*

*Not even when I was doing “wall balls” with bags of pillows and throwing them in the truck.  Shocking…really.

Day 356:  Unpack, unpack, unpack and cleaned the old apartment from floorboards to the ceiling.  I was one stinky kid.  Again, “this is what real crossfit is baby!”  Did you laugh the second time?

Day 357:  Although the house is still not done, I decided I needed to take a real workout break this morning.  I laced up my kicks and headed out for my first suburbia run.  It’s definitely different.  No panhandlers, just kids.  Lots of speed walkers and very few runners.  Bunny rabbits every where I look and no stray cat to greet me at the door…just my own blissed out Jack.  After my run I went to my basement and setup my “home gym,” that will probably get a lot of use this winter.  Life really is different, but I think I’m going to like these rabbits and lots of sunlight that fills the entire house all day long.

Days 102-104: Cross Country Move

Days 102 & 103:  Although I have lived in Denver for four months, my fiance (and our belongings) were still stored in Washington, DC and Columbus, OH.  On day 102 my fiance and I moved a 16 foot Penske truck from Salina, KS to Denver, CO.   We arrived in Denver early evening and unloaded the jimmy-jammed truck into our apartment.  Now I am not sure if you’ve ever tried this, but I highly recommend trying to fit two large one bedroom apartments (we have not lived together before) into a small 650 square foot two bedroom apartment.  It was a lot like playing life-sized tetris for two days.

Therefore my workouts were moving beds, dressers, boxes and night stands from one room to another time after time, after time.  It took more effort to do this for seven hours on day 102 and twelve hours on day 103 than any other day of working out.  I can honestly say that these two days of constant moving, unpacking and organizing exhausted me more than any other day of working out so far.  Please feel free to yell at me at the top of your lungs and say “THAT DOES NOT COUNT AS A WORKOUT!,” but I would scream back louder and with more gusto than I thought possible, “Hells yes it is!  You try it!”

Day 104:    I have been counting down the days until Michael came home for a lot of reasons; one of them being so that I could share Washington Park with him.  Today was the big day.   After we played belonging tetris for the first few hours of the day we headed over to the park for a short three-mile run, after all, he needed to slowly get acclimated to the altitude after spending a year in the Navy out at sea.  I was so prepared to impress his socks off and smoke him on the run (secretly, I want to do that at some point in our lives).

We ran the first half together and I set a pretty decent pace.  Halfway around the park I could feel him wanting to pull ahead so I said my typical, “you can go faster if you want” and he said, “I’m just so cold” and took off.  I met him back at the car.  So much for my theory on altitude and my dream of beating him running (for now).

Day 93: Nostalgia

Typically my workouts consist of a yoga/running combination, but due to a long trip across the country my version of working out is going to vary everyday.  This morning I went on an hour-long walk with a friend through downtown DC and past the White House.  What I love about this city is all of the historical buildings, unique architecture and the thousands of companies headquarters.  It just makes walking seem more fun since my mind is busier than the multiple Occupy DC sites we passed. 

After the walk my fiance and I picked up a 16 foot moving truck and emptied out the storage unit that my life has been sitting in for the past seventeen months.  I was feeling very nostalgic for parts of my past while looking at my belongings covered in cobwebs and dust.  However, the nostalgia quickly passed when I glanced up and saw my fiance carrying all of my heavy boxes.  My future, carrying my past.  It was actually a comforting thought to think about and a beautiful thing to watch- and not just because he was carrying the heavy things.   Tomorrow we leave for a stint in our hometown of Columbus, OH before making the trek back to Denver.  More friends, family and loved ones to come and I could not be more thrilled.

*A tip to Denver readers:  if you have been wanting to tryout a barre class then checkout today’s Groupon for Purre Barre:

http://www.groupon.com/deals/pure-barre-denver-2?c=all&p=5