Trip number 47 around the sun is complete.
After this year’s strange but enjoyable Vancouver trip, I decided to lay low. I chose to scale back on life a bit more, focus on work and recovery. So, you did not hear from me from then until now, which incidentally marks my 47th trip around the sun.
I also decided at some point this summer not to run a single race this year, the first year since 2015 that I have not run a single race. I actually feel super good about this decision, so don’t feel bad. Though I took it easy on training for a couple spells this summer, I have not been injured and am not dealing with any ongoing pain. But, working on a personal reset, I eventually felt better deciding not to race at all, focusing instead on getting myself in better order.
Fair warning: This is going to be long and more of a personal post than a running post, as this year’s mostly been about scaling back and getting life in the order I need it so I can train to my abilities, rather than constantly working against everything to do so. I’m not going to get too granular about details with the why before getting into the what-next, but there’s a lot to go over and none of this was taken lightly. Be prepared for walls of text.
First, over this past year I have had increasing issues with ongoing and occasionally disruptive health problems: My first go-around with Covid in March, the recurring skin rashes on my arm that led me not to run Vancouver, regional food staple allergies, trouble finding regular foods that didn’t disrupt my sleep, and speaking of which… consistently sleeping through the night. These issues have followed me over the years and (for a variety of reasons I won’t get into) Vegas is clearly a key contributor to several of them. I realized this year that I needed to move to a better climate, certainly one with better food quality.
The work commute (25-30 miles by car both ways) was also a huge chore, and started wearing on me… not to mention wear on my car, which remains well maintained and still runs great but had piled on a lot of miles over the years and required a lot of gas and recurring maintenance. I wanted to put a stop to that while my car still runs great and isn’t approaching the end of its engine’s or transmission’s service life. This is not to mention the compounded stress of dealing with the streets, the constant insurance- fraud attempts and other spite-driving of Vegas locals, as well as the heavy traffic and constant construction closures all over town. Getting to and from work safely was an everyday battle that I did not want to foreseeably continue.
I also had some growing problems at work with colleagues in the office, and actually had a blowup with one during August that, along with all of the above and some other resulting issues, led me to decide to quit at the end of the month. I actually went to our big boss the last week of August to tell him I was resigning. He proposed letting me work remote, rather than the other way around. He and the office brokered a deal with me to allow me to work remotely going forward. I was previously convinced that I could not do this job remotely, so I never considered proposing it and always figured that once I wanted to move away from Vegas, I would need to leave this position.
Thankfully (I do honestly like my day job, probably the best I’ve had; the issues in question weren’t with people I work with regularly), I did not need to quit. While a bit clunkier than a typical remote setup (I’m working off a desktop unit rather than a laptop, so I can’t exactly take it to a coffee shop), I comfortably can and now do work from home.
Since going remote in early September, my life has gotten a lot easier (especially eliminating the long commute), even if many of the other aforementioned problems remain a recurring issue. My skin conditions have improved some (I have way more control over diet and sun exposure being home) but I’m still working on sleep issues, and despite resuming regular training after a break I have gained a bit of weight.
This is currently a temporary situation. Originally, I intended to move out of Vegas later in September. But even the simple process of moving out of my work office (after 4.5 years there) struck me with how much more difficult than expected the moving process can be, not just physically but even emotionally, just moving a simple collection of items out of one office. Imagine the greater magnitude of moving my entire life out of a living space, leaving family behind once again, changing locations and finding a new home, moving in (not to mention safely transporting all my stuff during a long inter-state drive).
Plus, even given ongoing issues living on my family’s now crowded property (a couple of my siblings had to move back in over the years for various reasons), I still love them and would also have to figure out the complication of visiting at least for the holiday season, if not more often.
So, once settled into my current remote work situation, I decided to delay moving out of town until the end of this year. Staying in Vegas still makes diet and training a challenge, but making adjustments I can manage for a couple more months. Plus, Vegas will cool off for the fall and winter, and I’m remote with no commute required, which makes training somewhat easier.
I can be here in Vegas for the holidays with minimal complication, then have a full year after moving to figure out travel logistics. This also gives me ample time to clean up at home and figure out what I need to take with me. Plus, even though financially I’m in good shape (debt-free!) and could comfortably move now, this allows me to save some more money with very low overhead. I can also take my time finding a rental home (though buying a home is a real possibility in the next year, I’ll rent for at least a year).
So, here’s the big question I’ve dodged for several paragraphs: Where am I moving to? It helps a lot that I won’t be looking for a job (my employer as shown is super loyal to a tightly knit staff and I’m basically assured my job as long as I want it and do my job), so I thankfully don’t need to worry about job markets.
While I’d start with a 1-2 year trial residency, I’m looking for this be a long-term if not permanent move. I’ve pondered this question for about a year, even knowing it wasn’t happening in the foreseeable future (at the time). So, none of this is an off-the-cuff impulse decision. I’ve spent a regrettable amount of time reviewing Redfin and Zillow.
Milder running-friendly weather and good pedestrian infrastructure is obviously a top concern, which eliminates the vast majority of the country. I want to get back to living and training like I did in Chicago, walking (safely) a lot, easily being able to go outside and train, instead of having to constantly plan and go out of my way to do it. The weight I’ve gained should easily come off after a couple months of living like that.
Living in the humid South or another desert climate isn’t happening for what I hope are obvious reasons. Even though they have big running communities, major markets back east (NYC, Philly) don’t have great running terrain, their weather is a problem most of the year, and any air travel would be a cross-country nightmare through bad airports.
A lot of the Midwest just gets too dry and hot too often, and/or has dangerous storms throughout the year. The Mountains’ altitude is more of a recovery and health problem than a training benefit, and many potential homes don’t have great running routes (even the 2300-3000′ in Vegas is a low-key ongoing problem). And don’t hold your breath on me being allowed residency in Vancouver Canada (as much as I love visiting, living there leaves a lot to be desired), not to mention I’d be giving way more of my income away in taxes there.
So, that leaves me with a few mostly-familiar locations.
I actually considered moving to the Twin Cities (Minnesota), in which I’ve never lived. I’ve had general interest in living there over the years. Many friends had moved there as well as my brother and sister-in-law. Living in the right locations, you actually have some terrific running corridors (especially near the big trio of lakes near the center of Minneapolis). The brutal winters are only a tick worse than the Chicago winters I lived through in 2015-2019. Their real estate is actually somewhat cheaper than other options.
However, travel to Vegas and Vancouver from MSP is a bit tougher and more expensive. Those brutal winters can derail training more than Chicago’s can. Few places have A/C, and their humid summers are rather brutal. Their supermarket options are a bit more limited than other cities. While not bad, they do have a bit of a crime problem and you need to be careful about where you go/live. Minnesota and the Twin Cities also have fairly high sales/income taxes, so it would be a sizable pay cut for me (NV has no income tax).
The Twin Cities are not off the table, but right now it’s not what I want or need. This is a similar problem with a similar location like Milwaukee, which I’ve visited a few times and could generally work.
I actually considered moving back to Chicago. As long as you live near the Lakefront (as I did most of my time there), it’s far and away the best town for running. So many of my friends (especially running friends) are still there. Their coffee options rival Seattle’s nowadays. Their supermarkets are terribly run but the selection is pretty good (their food rarely gave me any health problems). I can tolerate the tough winters and stagnant humid summers (A/C while lacking is a little easier to find there). Chicago also has far and away more running races during the year than anywhere else, on flat easy terrain.
However, the harassment (and at times violence) I dealt with everyday on the streets there is a bigger problem than ever. Obviously, the crime there is bad and while you can go a lifetime without a serious personal incident it’s always a problem everyone has to plan and work around. Buying a home there is initially affordable because the home insurance rates and property taxes there are very high and climbing, making home ownership there low-key expensive. Not to mention, one of the city’s strengths is its nightlife, and I don’t drink anymore nor like going out to big events or shows. Also, though Chicago is a central travel hub, traveling into and out of Chicago’s two major airports is mid-level of Hell nightmare that I don’t miss at all nor want to re-live. Oh, and of course the traffic is always awful (the Kennedy Expressway is the City’s biggest parking lot), plus CTA transit has gotten less reliable since covid and should decline further with looming budget cuts.
Most of all, and a lot of locals don’t realize this because go figure the City is actively covering this up, but… Chicago is planning to completely tear up and re-build the Lakefront between The Loop (Downtown) and Edgewater while they rebuild Lakeshore Drive (aka Redefine The Drive). So Chicago will lose contiguous access to much of the Lakefront trails and parks, one of the city’s biggest benefits. They might be a couple years from that, but once the City begins work it’s going to ruin training there (not to mention anything people like to do on the Lakefront) for at least 5-7 years.
So as much as I miss Chicago, going back is probably not a good idea. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot more of my friends there moved away in the next few years.
Then I’ve considered moving back to Seattle. I lived there during 2004-2014, and still have a lot of friends there. Though I didn’t seriously train before 2016, I did run regularly during a couple of periods I lived there, and the hills there help training a lot (plus they have a lot of public tracks!). There is no income tax in WA.
Obviously the climate is mostly overcast, often drizzling rain with the occasional wind storm, but otherwise very mild. No one has A/C but it gets too-warm maybe a few days out of the year. Some parts of the city have great running routes and some parts are not great at all for running. Their supermarket options are excellent (as long as you stay away from Safeway, which has always been mediocre garbage), as is their general food quality, and of course their coffee options. Unlike other options, Seattle is fairly easy driving distance to Vancouver (maybe 3 hours including the border crossing), so I wouldn’t have to fly there and would have a lot more flexibility for traveling there (I could visit way more often!). They’re serious about recycling and composting!
While the relative cost of living improved over the last decade (COL is a big reason I left Seattle), Seattle real estate is still not cheap. The quality of most apartment rentals are also kind of bad, poorly maintained with bad property management (though still more honest to deal with than Vegas landlords and brokers), so you need to hunt carefully for one. Parking is a serious ongoing problem (worse than Chicago!) if you don’t make sure to live somewhere with a dedicated parking space: They have a strictly enforced rule that you must move a street-parked car every 72 hours. As mentioned, not every desirable location has reliable running routes: Poorly maintained sidewalks, sometimes a lack of sidewalks, and dense busy street grids make a lot of neighborhoods unworkable, e.g. Capitol Hill may be the best neighborhood for proximity to cool stuff, but it’s also a bad neighborhood for safe distance running unless you enjoy running half-mile circles around Volunteer Park or Cal Anderson.
All of that said, I decided that the positives to Seattle outweigh the negatives, especially the easy proximity to Vancouver, many old friends living there, and relatively easy travel to and from Vegas when applicable. So I decided that, once I move, I’m coming back to Seattle.
I’m also open to living in smaller regional towns between Seattle and Vancouver with decent running routes (there’s some real estate in Lynden and Bellingham that looked like it could work well), though preferably for now I’d rather rent a place in Seattle, and owning a Seattle home might be in reach in the next year or so.
Unlike the other options, moving to Seattle in the dead of winter is easier than moving into the potentially icy, snowy climates elsewhere. Seattle occasionally ices over but usually there it just rains. The mountain passes required to get between Vegas and Seattle are minimal with the correct routing (I’ve not only done that before but also experienced taking the incorrect routing before!). I also wouldn’t have to begin a residency by mitigating training through likely snow and extreme cold after 6 years in the desert. Snow and ice in Seattle during late winter is always a possibility, though at worst it ruins maybe a couple of weeks.
They certainly don’t have as many races as Chicago. In fact, they may run fewer races than Vegas. That doesn’t really bother me given I’m in reach of Vancouver BC, Portland, and other regional locations that also host races. I also am more training and marathon focused these days anyway, so I generally am not looking to run as many races as I did in 2017-2018.
So that is the current plan for trip #48 around the sun. I not only fully intend to run the Vancouver Marathon next year, but like 2023 I’m looking to run the full RunVan slate (First Half 21.2K, the Marathon, the Granville Island Turkey Trot, and the Great Trek), as well as possibly the summer Vancouver Half Marathon, maybe the Sun Run, and others.
Seattle of course has its own marathon on Thanksgiving Weekend. I’m obviously not running it this year, but I’ll look to run it next year. It’s a tough one. It actually makes Vancouver look a little mild, though the much cooler weather mitigates some of the challenge. (It’s also an argument for picking a home on South/Lower Queen Anne, since the start/finish line is in Seattle Center and it starts super early in the morning)
Seattle obviously has other races throughout every year, but I’ll look into maybe running those as they come up. They also have an active running community out of a Fleet Feet store in Ballard (formerly Capitol Hill). How involved I get with that will honestly depend on how close I live to them.
Meanwhile, for now, I’ll keep working, and I have a lot to clean up and sort out before I make the trek. More to come somewhat later as things sort out.