The "Moving to Laguna Niguel" Ultramarathon

A couple of weeks ago I shared a picture on social media of the view from our new home.  Samantha, Aidan, and I recently moved from Sunnyvale to Laguna Niguel, a city in southern Orange County not too far from the beach.  In addition to being a charming, suburban city with cool people and lots of places to eat, Laguna Niguel is topographically composed of several hills and canyons, which add to the beautiful ambiance.  We live right at the top of one of these hills, which offers stunning views of the neighborhood from the edge of our group of townhouses.  One of our friends from the Bay Area commented on the photo asking how the move went.  I'll get into the story of how it went in a minute, but I replied that it went pretty smoothly.  Little did I know that in the upcoming week, that simple reply would spark a light hearted Facebook debate between me, Samantha, and our friend about what it truly means to have a move go "smoothly".

Before I get into the move, let's take a step back.  This move has been talked about and was in the works for quite some time.  Even though Samantha and I met in Mountain View, both of us knew that we didn't want to make Silicon Valley our permanent home.  When she became pregnant with our son, Aidan, those feelings became more pronounced.  Living in Sunnyvale had served its purpose in both of our lives, and we were ready for something more long term.  Now that we had a kid on the way, we had a strong desire to move somewhere more quiet, more suburban, and more family oriented.  Samantha spent some of her childhood in Los Angeles, but mostly grew up in Irvine.  Her parents still live in the area, and I love Southern California, so Orange County seemed like a natural choice in terms of where to move.  We originally intended to move in May of 2023, but as the months carried on, it became apparent that we weren't ready to move just yet.  After a few lengthy discussions, we decided to renew our lease in Sunnyvale until September of 2024 so we had more time to coordinate the move.  Samantha and I did some searching with my in laws, and with their help, we found a charming, two story townhouse in a quiet neighborhood of Laguna Niguel.  Once we had our new living situation nailed down, we had a couple of months to enjoy Silicon Valley before the move.  There would be a lot of things that we would miss about the Bay Area, but we knew this move was right for us.  

As the summer carried on, moving week was approaching quickly.  In early August, Samantha and I were discussing the move and how we wanted to go about it.  We had some options, and we narrowed it down to two potential plans.  The first one was to hire movers to load up our belongings, drive them down to Laguna Niguel, and unpack them at our new house.  The second option was to rent a U-Haul truck, load it up on our own, drive it down to Orange County, and unload it ourselves.  Sure, the first option would have been convenient, but anyone who knows me well is probably not all that surprised that I was pushing for the second option.  Why you might ask?  Well, hiring movers is pretty expensive, but the price wasn't a total deal breaker.  In most cases, you get what you pay for, but I wondered if we could save money by executing this move in a more do-it-yourself fashion.  Another thing that was pulling me in that direction was my ultrarunner mindset.  I'm used to long periods of endurance.  I know what it's like to struggle in the moment, mentally and physically, and experience the satisfaction and reward of putting my body and mind through hell.  I thoroughly contemplated the two options, and after crunching the numbers, option two was a no brainer from a cost perspective.  Yes, it would be more work, and I would be physically exhausted.  But I like saving money, and I like challenges.  Samantha was skeptical of my plan.  "How are we going to get the U-Haul truck loaded up? she asked. "I'll load it up on my own".  I replied.  "I think the best plan is for you and Aidan to drive down to Orange County a day early so I can get the truck loaded up without any distractions.  Then I'll drive the truck down on my own, and I'll meet you guys at the townhouse on Tuesday".  "How are you going to load up all our stuff by yourself, then drive the truck all the way down there on your own? That's crazy".  It was a valid question and her concerns were justified.  I had never moved with a two-year-old before, so I was navigating this for the first time the best way I knew how.  I just stood up beside her, put my arm around her shoulder, looked at her with a big smile, and said "did you forget you're married to an ultrarunner?"  She knew what that meant.  

After some convincing and assuring Samantha that I had this in the bag, she reluctantly agreed to the plan.  But the truth was I wasn't entirely sure what I was doing.  Sure, I had moved a few times, but I had never moved four-hundred miles with a toddler before.  This was going to be a new experience, just like all of the times when I ran a new distance in ultrarunning for the first time.  I didn't quite know what to expect, or how it was going to go, but I was up for the challenge.  Some people might ask the question of why I insisted on loading up the moving truck and driving down to Orange County on my own as opposed to having some friends help me.  There's a logical explanation for that.  My take on these types of situations is I love teamwork and collaboration.  But if I'm in charge of the project, I feel much more comfortable working with a team if it's a project that I know well and have done before.  If I know all the steps and I can tell people exactly what I need done and when I need it done, and they can rely on me to give good, solid guidance, then I'm one-hundred percent onboard.  But if it's something I've never done before and I don't really know what I'm getting myself into, and there's a lot that can go wrong, that creates a sense of uncertainty.  And when there's uncertainty, I'm reluctant to get other people involved, and I would rather just do the job on my own, even if it's a lot of work.  I don't want to let other people down or waste their time if things go wrong.  Something can probably be done about that, but that was my mindset.

Before we knew it, moving day was upon us.  By this point, we had several boxes packed up, and we had "dejunkified" our apartment quite a bit, including ditching some old furniture.  My Sunday morning started off at the U-Haul center in Mountain View to pick up the truck.  Judging by the dimensions, I thought a twenty foot long by eleven foot tall truck would be suitable for our belongings.  It wasn't until I hopped into the driver's seat that I realized how different driving a twenty foot long U-Haul truck would be compared to my Rav4.  I drove painfully slowly out of the parking lot and down the highway back to our apartment, trying to be careful.  Every turn needed to be executed widely and I needed to take a couple of extra seconds looking in the side mirrors when changing lanes.  When I arrived home with the truck, Samantha was packing up everything her and Aidan would need for the next couple of days.  The plan was for the two of them to drive down and stay at a hotel in Laguna Hills, not far from our new place for the next couple of nights while I loaded up the truck and drove down to Orange County.  Once they were all packed up, they hit the road, and it was time to start moving stuff.  There are a lot of things I liked about our apartment building, but moving out of there was tough.  Our unit was located at the very end of the hallway, as far away from the elevator as it could possibly get.  Additionally, there was a secure door that I had to go through in the lobby of the leasing office, and the truck couldn't be parked right outside by the door because it was too big to pull into the parking garage.  I spent the next ten hours loading our belongings up on to a dolly, making numerous trips down the hall, down the elevator, out the lobby door, and to the moving truck.  I drank lots of water, took a lunch break, and ate lots of snacks to keep myself moving.  By 11:00 PM, I called it quits for the day.  I was about halfway done loading up our stuff, but I began to worry about what could potentially go wrong from a logistical standpoint.  I was concerned about leaving the moving truck in the parking area outside overnight, mainly because the staff at our building told me that I'd be violating their policies by leaving it there.  Additionally, I worried if the truck had enough space to move all our stuff.  It seemed like space was getting tight in there, and I thought about how much of a disaster it would be if the truck were towed or if I had to unload everything, return the truck, and get a bigger one.  Samantha and Aidan made it down to Laguna Hills safely, but it was a long and treacherous rally to get there.  Aidan is normally a great traveler, but it's a different ball game when only one of us is in the car with him.  Samantha had to stop a couple of times to let him unwind and be out of the car, which normally would be fine, except it was over one-hundred degrees Fahrenheit outside.  At one point, she was driving down a remote stretch of the 5 freeway through Kern County when she spotted a California Highway Patrol vehicle on the shoulder.  She pumped the breaks, but it was too late.  He pulled her over and wrote her a speeding ticket while Aidan cried his little butt off.  Not fun.

Even though it was a tough, eight hour drive, I was glad they arrived safely.  Apparently Aidan fell asleep right after Samantha received her lovely present from the California Highway Patrol, and slept for next three hours until they arrived at the hotel.  Shortly after I spoke with her on the phone, I decided to move the truck to a parking area outside the leasing office and out of the fire lane.  Once I went back upstairs, I threw together a quick dinner with some random food we still had in our freezer.  Our bed was already in pieces in the truck, so I plopped down onto our two-person love seat and laid down to get some sleep.  The first thing I did when I woke up at 6 AM the next morning was I went downstairs to check on the truck.  I was relieved to see that it was still right where I left it.  As the day went on, and as the truck became more full and our apartment became more empty, my anxiety gradually decreased.  I realized that everything was going to fit into the truck just fine as long as I packed it properly.  As I was getting towards the end of packing, the realization that we were leaving began to hit me.  I thought about the last five-and-a-half years that I spent living in the Bay Area and how much had happened since then.  It was a different era than it was five years ago.  Things had certainly come a long way.  I would always cherish the years I spent living in Sunnyvale and the good things that came with them.  The fact that I was saying goodbye and starting a new chapter felt like a wall of emotion, but it was mostly happy thoughts.  By 10:00 PM on Monday night, the truck was loaded up, the apartment was cleaned out, the keys were left on the kitchen counter, and I was ready to go.  I was feeling confident that the move was going according to plan, but I still had one more big hurdle to clear:  Getting the truck full of our belongings down to Laguna Niguel.  It was going to be a long haul.  A straight drive without stops and no traffic is a little over six hours, but there was no way I was going to make it down there that quickly.  It was late at night, and I was going to need to stop and sleep for a least a few hours.  Late at night in the dark is when things usually start to get interesting during ultramarathons.  The same could definitely be said for driving from Silicon Valley to Orange County.

As I drove down highway 101 I felt a strange combination of emotions.  I felt at ease because the truck was all loaded up, we were out of our apartment, and I was on my way down to our new home.  But I also felt anxious because I was driving a massive moving truck that contained virtually everything that me, Samantha, and Aidan owned.  One careless move, and that could all be gone in an instant.  Not only that, but one wrong move could also total another car on the road if I didn't see them in the mirror when I changed lanes.  There was no rearview mirror, so I relied solely on the large outside mirrors to see other cars on the road behind me.  I wasn't used to driving such as massive vehicle on the highway and I found it to be a little intimidating.  There was a lot that could go wrong.  I tried to just relax, not think too much about it, and enjoy the drive.  When making the drive from Silicon Valley to Orange County, the route that I travel is along highway 101 to highway 152, which crosses over Panoche Pass, and deposits me onto the 5 freeway.  I've made the drive so many times, it's almost like second nature at this point.  The first town that appears along the route on highway 5 is the town of Panoche.  When I arrived there, it was just past midnight, so it seemed like a good opportunity to pull over and get some rest.  As I exited the freeway, I piloted the U-Haul down a remote backstreet past some fast food restaurants and gas stations, and parked on the roadside.  Outside, there were gas stations on either side of the street from me and one in front of me.  Beyond the gas station parking lots were darkness and miles of open fields and farmland.  Over the last several hours, I had been fueled by trail mix and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, so I was pretty hungry.  All the restaurants were closed for the night, so I headed into the gas station and bought a couple of Lunchable packages.  They weren't hot meals, but salami, cheese, and crackers were better than more trail mix and PB&J.  

I managed to get about three-and-a-half hours of sleep in the driver's seat of the truck.  When I woke up, my back felt stiff, but I felt slightly more coherent.  By this time, it was around 4:00 AM on Tuesday morning.  When I stepped out of the truck to stretch, the area was dead quiet, except for the occasional semi truck pulling into a nearby parking lot.  Even though the establishment was dimly lit, I could see that the gas station I visited earlier was still open, so I headed back in to use the restroom.  I exited with a piping hot cup of coffee, and felt ready to hit the road once again.  I was almost certain that I would hit the morning commute traffic in the Los Angeles area, so I figured I'd better get moving.  The road was pretty empty as I continued making my way south on the 5 freeway.  As time went on, and the coffee kicked in, I felt more comfortable driving the truck, and at times it felt like driving a car.  Within a couple of hours, the early dawn began lighting up the eastern skyline, and the morning was upon me.  It reminded me a lot of running through the night, then watching the sun come up in the morning after hours of darkness.  There was something very powerful and exciting about the arrival of a new day, and I felt a sense of optimism and renewed energy.  I was cruising along pleasantly and enjoying the ride, until I hit some traffic going through the Grapevine, a long stretch of freeway that passes through the mountains and connects the Central Valley to the Los Angeles area.  I was happy that I was only within a couple of hours of Laguna Niguel, but as the traffic cleared near Six Flags, I began feeling drowsy again.  Not wanting to take any chances, I decided to pull over again for another nap.  After about an hour of snoozing in the driver's seat and another coffee purchase, I was back on the road again at around 9:00 AM making my way through highway traffic in the San Fernando Valley.  This trip was starting to feel quite grueling.  Eleven hours had passed since I left Sunnyvale the night before, and I was now in the final stretch of the journey.  I was about seventy miles from my destination, but it seemed to be taking forever.  I guess it wouldn't be Los Angeles if there wasn't a shit load of traffic as far as the eye could see.  I love LA and I tolerated the traffic when I lived there, but at this particular moment it was driving me bananas.  I guess that's what will happen after eleven hours on the road with only a few hours sleep in a moving truck.

When I finally pulled into our townhouse complex in Laguna Niguel shortly after 11:00 AM, I clapped my hands in celebration.  Even though I hadn't done any running, and the only steps I took over the last thirteen hours were to and from gas station convenience stores, I felt like I had just crossed the finish line of an ultramarathon.  I was hungry, sleep deprived, and dirty, but it felt like a big accomplishment. I wanted to celebrate the fact that I had made it through this trek in one piece.  That celebration was just me in the cab of the truck alone clapping my hands and saying "holy shit, I made it", but that was all I needed.  It felt like a nice way to make up for those two ultramarathons that I DNF'ed earlier this year.  Even though I insisted on loading the truck up myself, I welcomed the help when my father in law and Samantha offered to help unload the truck.  With their help, we unloaded our belongings faster than I thought we would, and returned the truck that night.  It had been an incredibly eventful and productive couple of days of moving, but I don't even remember going to sleep that night.  I think I passed out within thirty seconds of my head hitting the pillow.

Now that we've been here for a little over three weeks, and we're pretty well settled in, I've had time to reflect on the move and write this blog post.  Did this move actually go smoothly?  I guess the answer depends on people's interpretation of the story.  Even though Samantha and Aidan arrived safely, she felt horribly for most of the day on Monday due to dehydration and heat exhaustion.  Orange County was experiencing a crazy heat wave that week, and it took some time for Samantha to feel better.  But I was glad we all made it safely, there were no vehicle breakdowns, no car accidents, etc.  It was definitely the most memorable move I've had yet.  I wish I could have been there for Samantha when she was struggling, but she pulled through.  We're planning to stay in southern Orange County long term as Aidan grows up and makes his way through school.  When we move again, it will likely only be within a few miles of where we are now.  But we have a good set up here, so we're not planning to move for a while, which is a pleasant thought.  I'm just excited to be here and continue this next chapter of our lives, so let's see what's next!