Month: June 2005

Why do I wait for the bus, to take me to the gym, so I can then change and go running?

Is my backpack that heavy?

Is the weather that hot?

Am I saving that much energy by doing that?

A completely-made-up person writes in:

How did the race go? That Mt. Tabor thing? Wasn’t that today?

Fig O. Imagination

Thanks for asking, Fig! (Is that your real name, by the way?)

So… yeah… the race…

I’d been really looking forward to tackling this race again. I think I’ve been training hard for it, too. Kinda made it a test to see how far I’d come in the last year.

Imagine my surprise and disappointment, then, to discover that I had mistakenly ran a longer course than most others in the race.

Weather was perfect; sunny and warm. Maybe a bit too warm, maybe a bit too humid. But it sure beat the rain that had been coming down in buckets yesterday.

They had also changed the course a bit, at least the starting line. Instead of starting at the top of the hill and working down from there, the course started by the basketball courts and went uphill. My careful planning was already taking a bit of a hit. However, since I had planned to hold back the first mile, anyway, the more I thought about it, the more I realized it played into my favor.

Standing at the starting line, the race organizer (never got his name) explained the course. I distinctly heard him say to watch out for the chalk “5” and arrows, since the 8K race was being run over the same area and there were differences. For instance, the 8K-ers had to run up to the top of the hill twice; the 5K-ers didn’t. “Got it,” I thought, “watch for the chalked numbers.” The course was a bit confusing because we went past the finish line twice; we had to circle out around the reservoir, then come back to finish.

For the first third of the course, I did really well. Just under a 10:00 pace for the first mile — good. Managed just under a 9:00 pace for the second mile — awesome, and the hills (downhill for this section) helped me tremendously. I only needed to split the difference or slightly under in order to beat last year’s time! When I was approaching the finish line for the first time, I spotted the sign showing the 3-mile point for the 5K, but it was off to the side on another road coming down from the top. I made a mental note of it.

I and a group of other 5K-ers reached a point on the hill where we had been before, and there were the chalked arrows — but no numbers. Just a confusing tangle of arrows. I realized that we didn’t have to go back up, so there were two choices for downhill. One leading out and around before returning and a shorter course. I thought it was the shorter leg, but a group of three girls who had been keeping pace with me decided among themselves that it was the longer route. We didn’t discuss it out loud. I simply went along with them, figuring that if it was wrong, at least we’d all be wrong together. Another lady followed us, also. Maybe others but that’s all I spotted.

As we proceeded along, I realized that this was not correct, since my watch showed 12:00 and counting for this leg. There’s no way that I had been going that slowly! I had stopped a bit to walk but only briefly. It felt wrong.

When I passed the 3-mile mark for real this time, again, I was on the wrong road. Argh. My total time for that segment was over 16:00, which indicated to me that, yes, I had gone much longer than necessary. After I ran through the finish line, I hunted down a copy of the course map and confirmed my mistake. I don’t know exactly how much extra I ran, though. But it makes my time easier to bear. Tough race.

So, um, argh. I’ll do better next race.

Minor annoyances mar the day:

On the bus in to work. Once the bus has crossed the river into downtown, the bus driver stops and waits at every single stop. Apparently she’s running ahead of schedule and has to make up some time. Fine. Annoying. But fine. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’m on my way in to work, where I don’t particularly want to be, and therefore am not in any particular hurry, I’d probably be even more angry.

So. Every single stop. Long wait. Other buses, their drivers having better managed their time, speed past us while we wait. Often we wait through two cycles of the traffic light — green, yellow, red, green, yellow, red, green, go.

Eventually we get to my stop. I’m the only one exiting the bus here. I go out the front door, and as usual, thank the bus driver (I’m a polite boy sometimes). The driver barks out, “Right!” and as soon as I step off the bus, the door slams shut, and the bus lurches into motion and roars through the traffic light as the light shifts from yellow into red.

Yes, she waited until my stop, then ran a red light in her hurry to get moving.

I’m sure it wasn’t directed at me, but, damn…

So, I get to work today, and I’m working like I actually care. I do computer support, so I’m installing stuff, and closing tickets left and right. I wanted to end the day with no work assigned to me and waiting for me. I wanted to clear out my queue. I was within striking distance of doing just that.

Then my friend Ken calls me.

“So… uh… what are you doin’ today?”

“Why?” I ask.

“Well… I have a huge favor to ask you.”

“What?”

“I was kinda sorta hoping that you’d be available to, um, help me haul around some shit.” Turns out that ever since Ken was promoted, he’s been given the task of gathering up all of the county’s surplus computer equipment and getting it to the recyclers. It has not been a happy or fulfilling task, since there are hundreds of different county offices and buildings, and the task of installing new computers and removing the old ones is pretty much an ongoing project. But, hey, that’s what he gets paid the slightly-larger bucks for, right?

And now he’s in a bind because he’s got to clear out some space in the only storage area he has access to, by loading up a bunch of old monitors and taking them to a recycler, then going out to another site and getting all of that equipment into the now-cleared storage space.

Today. He’s got to do all that, today.

I tried a couple of lame excuses, like “I’m not dressed for hauling around garbage” or “but I was trying to close out all these low-priority tickets”. Finally I said, “Hey, management’s lack of planning does not mean… Um… I forget how that one goes. How does that go?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Ken admitted, “but I liked where you were going. Keep going.”

I tried several times to regain my train of thought on that one but failed. It was too early in the day (this was around 9:00 AM or so). Finally I gave in and said that I’d help him before lunch. Ken promised to buy me lunch in gratitude, which I thought was sorta fair.

So I spent the morning loading up a cargo van full of 15″, 17″, 19″ and 21″ computer monitors. You know, the old-school picture-tube ones. Heavy, bulky. We only dropped one, and, contrary to a long-remembered quote from my father from long ago, picture tubes do not, in fact, “go off like a minor A-Bomb” when dropped. However, Ken suffered tiny cut on his finger, a bruised knee, and a scrape on his ankle.

Then, lunchtime rolled around. Ken asked me where I wanted to go; I said I wanted to go to Montage. Mmmmm… Cajun food.

Ken agreed, but, he said, “I’ll have to find an ATM.” Then he remembered it was the day before payday. “Um… how do you feel about Big Town Hero?” I’m not sure what the difference was (Montage is a bit spendier but not that much) and asked him. “How about we go to Big Town Hero today, and I’ll owe you lunch at Montage later?” OK, fine, I agreed. I was wearing my Easy-Going Guy Togs today.

We had found a parking spot at the closest Big Town Hero when Ken remembered. “I need to find an ATM!” Argh. This free lunch thing was getting more and more complicated. I was hungry, though, and Ken figured that there would be an ATM in the lobby of the nearest building (the Metro offices on Grand Ave.) Sure enough, there was.

However, Ken had forgotten his ATM card. How that happened I have no idea, but it seemed awfully convenient. Luckily I had some cash. So I ended up buying his lunch and he still owes me lunch.

I feel a bit like Br’er Fox being tricked into the briar patch… But it’s OK. I know where Ken works.