Tears…
…they are assholes
Cherry Blossom 10-Miler Race Report
My third Cherry Blossom. It was not my worst and not my best.
I think my time will shake out around a 1:38 or so. Under 10-min miles, but nothing like the blistering (for me) 1:29:31 of last year. This was expected being that my hamstring scar tissue issues started wreaking havoc on my left leg and calf back in Jan. In fact my last run of any significant distance before this past Monday’s 8-mile training run was back in Jan! So it wasn’t until Monday that I was even confident I could finish this distance.
I tied my damn shoes too tight and had to stop around mile 6 to loosen them. By then the damage was done though, my feet were absolutely shot so I was really just using grit and determination to power through the back half of the race.
I have to say that the Cherry Blossom folks are not doing much to gain favor over packet pick up … I spent an hour in line yesterday and risked getting a parking ticket (I didn’t thank god!). Outside of my ire, the only people hurting from that cluster*&#% were the expo vendors. Because I was so worried about getting to my car before the metermaids, I booked out of there after grabbing my (super cute) t-shirt. Then, because I was feeling spendy, I headed to Dick’s Sporting Goods and dropped $85 on new running gear. Totally would have spent that at the Expo had I been able to stick around.
This was actually my second race of the weekend. I signed up for the Pacer’s Crystal Run 5K Friday series – a 5K every Friday evening in April. I figure I’ll have a three mile run on the training calendar every week, why not run one at tempo or race pace? I tried to hit this one slow in light of the CB on Sunday and still did sub-10′s. My time was 3o minutes even I think…goal for this month is to do one under 26 minutes. I think I can do it, though it would shatter my PR by a couple of minutes I think. Dream big?
Happy Birthday Mama. I miss you.
Me v. DC cabbie
Guess who won?
Yeah, that’s me not winning that match up if you couldn’t guess. Fucker. So I’m all minding my own business just gaining some speed after being stopped at a light and as soon as I come up on the intersection. Bam! Crunch! Break! Screech. Silence.
My window is down, as it’s a super nice day out, and I now find myself a few short feet from the face of a DC cabbie.
Me: “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?”
Cabbie: ” … “
Me: “I MEAN WHAT IN THE FUCK DID YOU THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?”
Cabbie: ” … “
Me: “No, really, what in the hell did you think was going to happen when you tried making that right from THE GOD DAMN MIDDLE LANE?”
Cabbie: [Pounds fist into steering wheel] “UUNGH!”
So yeah. Last Sunday, after driving close to 249 miles starting at 4am, I was now within a mile (like, exactly one freaking mile) from home when idiot taxi driver makes a right hand turn into the front of my car…from my left. MY LEFT! WTF! How do I avoid that? Asshole.
Do you know when the last time I was the driver in an accident? Like, ANY accident? Hmmm…maybe 19 years ago. Seriously. The last I remember I was a teenager and I rear ended someone at a stop light. I freaked out and made him mail me an estimate to my house so I could pay him cash and skip reporting it to my insurance agency. I think it cost something like $150.
Me v DC Cabbie occurred late afternoon on Sunday, this is how the rest of the week went:
Sunday evening: I call Laura and Buggie after researching the cabbie’s insurance company on the internet. They do not have a website. This is not going to go well and now I want company as I drown my sorrows (here is where I disclose that the reason I had driven nearly 250 miles that day is because I dropped my family off at the Richmond airport so they could attend a funeral), it’s been a bad week. We down two bottles of wine and eat lemon cous cous salad.
Monday morning: I call Geico in hopes they can help me. They are more than willing to help me as soon as I fork over my $500 deductible that they will attempt to recover from the at-fault driver. Key word: attempt. I decline that offer and they say they will help me in trying to file the claim with Amalgamated Casualty.
Monday afternoon: Amalgamated is closed. It’s Columbus Day. 24-hour service is not on the table here.
Tuesday morning: Talk to Amalgamated. They tell me it could take up to a week to just get things started and I should go ahead and fix my car and then seek reimbursement. Yeah, right. I am not that stupid. I call 5 times pushing them to start a claim. This should not be hard, the driver was cited at the scene for being at fault and was issued a ticket.
Wednesday morning: I call first thing for the status of the claim. I get bounced around, end up talking to manager who tells me they can’t help me, they don’t “operate that way” (“that way” being servicing a claim in less than 7 days) and then hangs up on me on purpose. I end up in tears about an hour later. Straw. Camel. Ugh. This is now day 3 of no car.
Wednesday later: I talk to Geico, explain the rudeness and ask them to help me as much as possible in moving this along. I weigh my options with an underwriter to see what happens if I have to use Geico to fix my car afterall.
Thursday morning: Amalgamated has moved to step 2! It only took four days! They are now planning to assign an adjustor to the case. Key word “planning”. Double ugh. Day 4 of no car, I don’t understand how is this happening when I have a police report!
Thursday later: Geico and I decide that if we can present Amalgamated with an estimate there is a chance they will just claim liability on the case to get rid of us — essentially promising to pay the damages. Geico assigns a claims adjustor and OMG, he calls me later that day and schedules something for morning. What? Moving.too.fast. Or rather at the speed in which an insurance agency should when presented with an open/shut accident.
Friday morning: Meet with Geico. Car will cost $3000 to fix.
Friday afternoon (early): Send estimate to Amalgamated. Call to confirm they received it. They try to claim they were sending an adjustor. “When?” I ask. They admit it would probably be Monday. Not good enough. I tell them to issue a check for the damages. They tell me they can’t, they have not finished their investigation. I don’t understand what they need to investigate, there is a police report. They admit they haven’t even talked to their driver, still…5 days later. Idiots. After explaining how none of that is my problem, I am the victim, and unless I can swing by the office to pick up a check for $500 in the next 10 minutes I will keep calling every 30 minutes to check on the status of the claim. They tell me I should just file through Geico. I tell them if they give me the $500 for my deducible I will. They tell me they don’t have $500 dollars. I tell them that what do you know, neither do I!!! I say fine, just tell Geico you are responsible for the damages and I’ll leave you alone. “Have Geico call us” they say.
Friday afternoon (minutes later): I call Geiceo, give them the update and ask them to call Amalgamated. They are more than happy to do so. They call me back twice, they have left two messages over the past 40 minutes and called three times — no one is answering. This too has been my experience this week, I have just been relentless in leaving messages, up to 10 in one day. On multiple phone lines. So I start again. Calling every ten minutes. Finally they pick up. “Geico has been trying to get a hold of you” I tell them. “Really? No one has called” they say. I ask “Really? Because I’ve left 5 messages in the past hour and I know they’ve left at least two. We’ve been calling”. “Oh.”
Mutherfucker, oh? Yes, we’ve been calling. They offer to call Geico back after they listen to the voice mail. I say there is no need, give them the number and what to say and I hang up and wait. It’s close to 4pm and I know Amalgamated is going to close up shop for the weekend any time now, so I give them 10 minutes before I call Geico to see if they have called. As soon as I reach for the phone, it rings. It’s Geico. They have them on the line and Geico is confused. Amalgamated is talking circles to them. I tell Geico what’s up, how Amalgamated has treated me, and fill this new person in on the plan hatched to get them to accept liability. Geico circles me on the call with them. After some legal mumbo jumbo spewed from the Geico operator, they admit liability on the phone, Geico waives my deductible and we send Amalgamated on their merry way.
And hour on the phone with Geico and I have a body shop to fix my car, a tow scheduled for 9pm later in the evening and a rental car pick up for the morning.
Current status: Car was sadly towed away a few hours ago but am happy about being a free (to drive) woman this weekend.
Easy, breezy, beautiful
Runner Girl.
A 72-hour work week, travel to/from NYC, a girl friend’s book party, bad news from Minnesota, a 4am drive to Richmond and an idiot DC cab driver hell bent on turning right from a left lane all meant I did not work out for a week and a half. Nothing, nada. So today was my first foray back into the world of physical fitness after a fairly grueling hiatus. I settled on hitting an easy, slow 5 mile run…long enough to count as a real workout, but if run slow enough I knew it wouldn’t kill me. Well how nice does it feel when you have a week “off”? Mighty fine I tell you. The legs, they were light. The breath, it was easy. The gait, it was slowly increasing the farther I went. It was beautiful.
Now to hit 5 more beautiful workouts this week and we’ll be back in business.
You know you are sleep deprived when…
I have recently taken to drinking a glass of chocolate milk before trying to go to sleep because, well they say it helps with the sleeping (trytophan maybe?) and because it is tasty. So tonight, my Friday night that I spend at home eating a good dinner and trying to get some good sleep before my long run on early Saturday morning, as I crawled into bed with a magazine for lights out, my mind quickly flashed to that yummy bedtime treat. <Chocolate Milk. Mmm.> It just as quickly reminded me that there is no dairy on Friday nights (it can cause some digestive issues on long runs). So where does my mind go next? It tries to convince me to make chocolate water. What the?
Word to the wise, and this is just a guess, chocolate water would not be nearly as tasty as some ice cold chocolate milk.
I’m in the mood to run
Finally…after weeks, nay months, of motivation issues I am again feeling the workout vibe. Though when it comes to the running I might be doing too much too soon. After suffering through several overuse injuries over the years I am pretty anal about ramping up my mileage with a conservative 10% rule. This is my current mileage graph:
See those big, short gaps between the blue bars? There should be less gaps and those green and yellow bars should be taller. The blue bars are my long Saturday runs, and those are nicely incrementing upward, but the in between runs should mirror those and they are not which means I am probably running toward another injury of some sort. Joy. All is not lost however, I am planning to dip down the long run next week which should give me some wiggle room to up the ante on the short distance runs and get this graph back on track.
On the non running days I am hitting David Kirsch’s boot camp workout which I love because it makes me sweat, sweat, sweat. A few more weeks of this and I should be ready for the BCOR Boot camps that Buggie and I signed up for through Living Social for all of $20.
In other news, while looking for a pic of some twisted ass body to portray how tight I am feeling, I stumbled across these. Too bad they are from last year, because, um, WANT!
I miss me
Not being conceited, but just was looking through some old posts trying to date a photograph and, well I miss me. I miss this. I know, I say that all the time. So write already! OK! Maybe I will try again with workout recaps?
I fell off the P90X wagon at week 10 due to travel and extreme exhaustion (also maybe a little over training syndrome). My mojo was gone most of the summer but I feel it creeping back and I’ve signed up for a free week of yoga for yoga month, and bought both pilates and boot camp classes on Living Social — so there should be a whole lot of activity goin on ’round here. You up for it?
Is that a long enough title? At least you know how I feel.
Seriously, I have been looking forward to running this race again for years, but it’s like they are doing everything in their power to make it a pain in the ass to run/enjoy it!
First of all, I signed up for the lottery with someone and they got in, but I didn’t. So that sucked. If you are going to totally upend the registration process, make sure it goes smoothly.
Later though, I was actually able to get a bib transfer from someone, meaning I was going to be able to run the race all legitimate-like. But the process was so screwy, confusing and sucky that they overcharged me and have now ignored my pleas for a refund for nearly three months now. This is AFTER they admitted I should not have been charged the amount I was and AFTER I have provided proof that the extra money was taken from my bank account. Jacked, right?
So earlier today I was feeling good/still hoping for a good race and I start getting my little ducks in a row for this weekend…prepping, figuring out when to go get my packet. And that’s when I see that packet pick up is downtown. Why? At the National Building museum, why? Why hold packet pickup for THOUSANDS of people in a place where there is limited parking and is only served by one Metro line. Why? So now instead of spending 30-60 minutes of my weekend at packet pick up, I now have to spend 2-3 hours? Maybe more depending on the unpredictability of our nation’s Metro. Joy.
Or rather, not so much. Beginning to dread this friggin race. It can’t be easy to plan a race, I get that (I plan for a living, I know!), but if you’re going to do it, do it friggin right and do it well and don’t fuck with people’s time and money.
At a loss
It’s my mom’s birthday today. I am at a loss at what to do, what to say, what to think…hell, even what to feel. Birthdays are a big deal in my family. You don’t miss them, you don’t forget them, there is always cake and a special dinner and presents — sometimes wrapped and sometimes not, but presents nonetheless. So it’s been weird. I would usually have been stressing these past two weeks over the perfect dinner, one that would not upset her sensitive system, and still be healthful and full of good-for-you things, but yet super tasty and liked by the rest of my family too. I would be pulling out my hair over finding a gift for the hardest person Ive ever shopped for and eventually finding something only to second guess its appropriateness the morning before giving it to her. Instead of doing those things, I am just thinking about how I am not doing those things. And when I let my mind even approach grasping the why of that, it makes me really, really sad.
26 + 99.5 = 47/42
How’s that math work you say?
Well, 26 P90X workouts + 99.5 miles run around the streets of DC, Arlington and Boca Raton = 47 workouts in 42 days. In the forty-three says since I started P90X I have hit 14 two-a-days, shit that’s crazy even for me! I feel good though, strong and tight and sore in all the right places. Plus I totally nailed Chaturanga this week! I mean I have never been able to hover like that, ever…EVER!
To be honest though, I would like to be seeing a bit more muscle definition by now. I suppose my slow progress on that front could be attributed to my travel schedule (poor sleeping and eating habits) not to mention my drinking needs. I just won’t ever be able to give up booze for the prospect of fitness — sure I can curb it and drop happy hours here and there depending on what’s on the workout schedule, but give it up entirely? Blasphemous.
So not only in yoga, but the strength training is really making an impact on my running. I breeze up hills now, I have trouble keeping a slow pace on easy runs and just generally feel “springier”. It’s awesome. I had a 10-mile training run last Saturday and damn I wish my watch was working! It felt amazing, and using what the clock said when I left I am guessing it clocked in somewhere around 1:35 or so…which would be faster than any 10-mile race I’ve ever run. Makes me excited for next weekend’s Cherry Blossom 10-miler, fingers crossed I can keep it up and hit a good race.
