This time US Airways issued me a “Take Flight Certificate,” rather than a voucher for a free domestic flight in the continental United States. Apparently, they have done away with awarding free flights because the terms of the vouchers were too confusing for most recipients.
What folks failed to understand was that voucher seats work like seats obtained with frequent-flyer mileage, and are subject to (highly limited) availability. Want to book a seat months in advance? Hooray, there’s plenty of eligible seats on the plane, and you have no blackout dates! Want to book a seat for December 24th…on December 23rd? No can do.
So nowadays US Air issues a certificate for a dollar amount that you can apply towards the cost of your flight instead. Which is fan-freakin-tastic! Why? First, the certificate discount effectively nullifies a certain chunk of your base fare — plus all the taxes levied against that portion of the fare. And second, you’re no longer restricted to applying your little bonus gift towards a domestic flight. You can go anywhere the airline flies.
In other words, Santa just dropped a round-trip ticket to Italy in my lap for Christmas. Ho-ho-ho!
When Will Shortz hosts a tournament, I’m there. The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, the National Sudoku Championship, you name it. If he hosted a National Paint Drying Invitational, I’d be right at his side, volunteering my A-Z off.
Why?
Like, duh. He’s Will Shortz.
(For those of you who don’t understand that last sentence, I am told that scrupulously avoiding all natural lighting can help you with the Vitamin Geek deficiency you are experiencing.)
Earlier this year, I was crushed to learn that the National Sudoku Championships, which have been held in Phiadelphia every year since their inception, would take place during the same weekend as Livestrong Austin.
Making the choice between Philly and Austin was painful enough. Now that I’m down in the Lone Star State, the word from Philly is that a major Sudoku cheating scandal transpired in my absence.
Today I received a small set of sterling silver items in the mail that I ordered earlier in the week on Etsy. I was astonished that they arrived so quickly, since they had been shipped all the way from Norway. The leg across the Atlantic was already impressive, but the truly astonishing fact is that the delivery somehow managed to work its way across the city of Philadelphia in under 72 hours.
In other news from Scandinavia: Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today, much to the surprise of observers around the globe. This comes on the heels of Al Gore receiving the prize in 2007, and Jimmy Carter being named a laureate in 2002. One wonders whether domestic issues are as much a factor in these selections as foreign policy positions: globetrotting Democrats from the Executive branch who can manage to keep their pants zipped certainly seem to have a leg up in the selection process.
It’s been exactly one year since I first took up the Couch-to-5K plan. In the past twelve months, I went from being someone who had never run more than a mile in her entire life to someone who managed to run a 10-mile race.
One month ago today, I was also able to finally achieve a longstanding goal and complete my first triathlon. It’s not uncommon to meet competitors who needed to learn one of the three triathlon sports by starting from scratch, despite years of training in some of the other disciplines. Some triathletes don’t really know how to swim when they start preparing to compete, and many have not been on bikes since childhood. I’m the rare specimen who could already bike and swim proficiently, but actually had to learn how to run as my third sport.
“What do you mean, learn to run?” people have asked. “Don’t you just, like, start…running?”
Not really. Not if you’re out of shape. Not if you’re injury-prone. Not if you’re not a natural. Not if you’re not sure. Sure, you can simply start running. But whether you manage to continue running, mile in and mile out, month after month, is another matter altogether.
These days, I’m still not a swift runner by any measure. Yet running makes me happy, in great part because I don’t have a particular talent for it. I spent so many years believing I was physically incapable of running — decades, actually — that I now find myself to be a surprisingly cheerful tortoise.
Who wouldn’t be, if they ran faster and farther than they ever did when they were 21 years old?
From no posts in two months to two posts in a single day, and for the saddest of reasons: After a long and hard-fought battle with cancer that stretched out over several years, Susan Nelson, the inspiration for Team Fat Cyclist: Fighting for Susan, passed away tonight.
Through his blog at FatCyclist.com, Susan’s husband Elden has been able to raise cancer awareness around the world and mobilize a team of participants in the 2009 Livestrong Challenge to raise over a half-million dollars to date.
And we’re not done. Not even close.
Can blogging change the world? Absolutely. Can my blogging change the world?
After repeated requests here for readers to donate to support my participation in the Livestrong Challenge, I have yet to receive a single donation from any readers here.
So I hope you understand why I’ve been away.
I say this not because I’m upset or angry with any of you, but because I committed quite some time ago to dig in and help spur Team Fatty forward. I will do everything I can and must do in order to get myself and others up and over the top of this long, sometimes painfully steep climb.
At a certain point, words become just so much air. I have needed to be out in the world, where I am needed. Because I wanted to Fight Like Susan.
Tonight of all nights, I don’t regret for even a fraction of an instant that I have been doing exactly that.
Wow, several months flew by in what seems like a blink of an eye.
I’m doing fine. As one of my friends commented recently, “Not losing is the new winning,” and I haven’t lost my job, my home, my health, or my mind. In fact, my absence here is a reflection of having more irons in the fire than I can easily juggle.
I’ll also be participating in my first triathlon this weekend, so my gear purchasing has gone off the deep end. Some things never change.
My two cats got into an epic catfight with each other late this spring, and they needed to separated for over a month. (Thank you, friend of my housemate, who came to stay for several days while trailing who-only-knows-what from an eight-cat household with an unneutered tomcat. Thanks, too, for always managing to leave the toilet seat cover up.) Fortunately, things have calmed down and returned to normal, just in time for Alpha Cat and Cat the Second to lie around in dazes from the summer heat.
And oh, it’s my blogiversary today. Now we are three!
Well, I was supposed to be on a plane right now, but once again, I had a slight change of plans. Yes, I am now three for three in getting myself bumped off plane flights during the past year.
I like to joke that scoring free airline tickets is my secret superpower, but it’s really just a wee bit of skill that happens to land atop a heap of dumb luck. Falling with style, if you will.
I grab a finisher’s medal and throw it around my neck.
Then I immediately pull out my phone to determine the whereabouts of my friend, The G.
“I just finished! I made it!” I blurt out when he picks up the phone. “Where are you?”
“I’m sitting at home. It’s dry here,” he chuckles. Naturally, the parking lot attendant never showed up.
Battling a calf injury, knowing the forecast called for certain rain, and unable to locate anyone who could help protect his credit card, The G had waited for nearly two hours before heading home. He managed to turn on the television just in time to see the final battle between the top two race finishers.
As I am speaking with The G on the phone, I pass a table with a large pile of water bottles. I grab one. Then I pass another table with boxes full of Philadelphia soft pretzels. Pretzels that have been sitting out in the rain for several minutes. People snap them up like hotcakes.
I know I’m still keeping it together when I take a complete pass on the Nasty Chow.
I step up onto a curb. My thigh immediately raises an objection. Still chatting on the phone with The G, I find a relatively dry spot under a large shade tree and start to stretch my legs out.
Once my legs feel a little better, I head to the main tent to pick up an official food bag. I see people walking around with different kinds of fruit. Turns out the food bags are all mix-n-match, with some type of fruit, some type of candy, some type of salty snack, and some type of fruit bar.
I peek inside a couple of bags until I spot one with the prize combo: Dark chocolate Peanut Chews and a snack pack of cheese curls. Really, you should just hang a sign on me now: “Will work for cheezy poufs!”
I snarf down my snacks and keep stretching out while resting underneath the porch of one of the buildings in the Navy Yard. Eventually, I walk to the where the gear buses are parked, relieved that I will not have to battle a line to retrieve my bag.
When I locate my bus, it’s completely empty.
“They took away all the rest of the bags,” the driver says, directing me to the bag tent.
When I arrive at the bag tent, my bag is nowhere in sight. Crap. I spent way too much quality time with those cheese curls. Nobody seems to know where my bag might be.
I head back towards the parking lot, where I see several volunteers walking towards me, laden with armfuls of bags. As I had hoped, I spot my bright yellow bag from several yards away, profusely thanking the man who is carrying it.
Then I hop on another bus that is shuttling people to the subway station. As soon as I sit down, I throw open my bag and started layering up my clothing again: I zip up my vest, pull on my arm warmers, and toss on my hooded jacket. And I count my blessings that I did not show up in a trash bag, now that the temperature has dropped and a damp chill is in the air. Once again, my vanity has saved my hide.
When I finally arrive home, I check my official time online. My chip time does in fact register at just below 108 minutes. To my surprise, my clock time comes in under 109 minutes, the result of a new method of calculating times based upon the corral release rather than the starting gun. Both times are under my stated goal of one hour and fifty minutes.
When my brain stops cramping and I do the math, I am also pleased to learn that I managed to eke out a 10:33 final mile. Perhaps my pacing wasn’t so hopeless after all.
Mile 1 — I remind myself not to go out too quickly, and to try to maintain an eleven-minute mile pace during the first six miles. Unfortunately, I have no way to know how quickly I am actually moving until we reach the first mile marker, except for noting my rate of perceived exertion.
On my left, a tight formation of military runners in matching gold shirts is proceeding in formation, complete with call and response from their female drill sergeant. I figure that staying near them is as good a pacing mechanism as any, and it lifts my spirits to hear them chanting, “When my grandma was ninety-two / She did KP better than you.”
I hear one woman remark to her friend behind me, “What are those young guys doing all the way back here with us?”
“I dunno, maybe they’re planning to just pass people all the way through,” the friend responds.
I feel a slight burn in my thighs as we take a mild uphill in the first mile, and I try to back off a bit.
When we approach the one-mile mark, I look down at my watch. To my horror, it reads “10:21″. According to my watch, I cross in 10:28. I am officially a stupid newbie.
I immediately try to pull back on my pace, and I am puzzled by how many people are passing me. Isn’t this the 11-minute mile corral? As sad as I am to see them go, I fall back from the military formation, their chants slowly fading in the distance.
Mile 2 — As we approach Broad and Lycoming, I hear laughter rippling through the crowd of runners on the right side of the road. When I scan the scenery ahead, I discover why.
Six male runners are neatly lined up with their backs to the street, facing a parking lot wall that is grown over with greenery. This location is apparently the central switchboard when Nature calls. I see a couple of runners ahead of me turn their heads in that direction, then make a beeline straight for big green wall.
I realize that I am starting to heat up and I peel off my vest. I use a binder clip to hold it together around my waist, feeling oddly fortunate that my own sheer vanity prevented me from wearing a long-sleeved shirt.
We come up on the second mile marker just past Broad and Tioga. My watch gives me a 10:33 split for the second mile. I officially suck at pacing myself.
Mile 3 — We reach our first water station. Darting, bobbing, and weaving ensues.
The overpass for the train tracks splits the road into lanes, and under the bridge I pass someone folded in half trying to unseize his hamstring while leaning on a support pillar.
“Where is City Hall? Why can’t I see it?” someone asks behind me.
“It’s there,” the person’s running partner sagely replies.
“Do we still have that far to go?” the first runner asks mournfully.
The clouds, the misting rain, and a slight uphill grade obscure the clock tower and the statue of William Penn from view for several more minutes.
I clock a 10:49 split for the third mile. I don’t think I’m getting better at pacing myself, and I wonder if I’m just starting to fatigue, even though I feel relatively strong.
Mile 4 — We pass Temple University, where clutches of surprisingly bright-eyed students cheer us on. Yikes, I never looked that alert so early in the morning when I was in school. (Then again, we didn’t have Red Bull in those days, either.)
One kid sitting on the stoop of a brownstone rings a giant cowbell.
“More cowbell!” I yell at him. Other people behind me take up the call. “More cowbell!”
“More cowbell!” the kid cries back, vigorously shaking the bell.
Another young man holds up a sign that causes people to cheer when they see it: “No rain, no gain!”
By the end of the fourth mile, City Hall is clearly in sight. I fix my gaze on the Divine Lorraine Hotel up ahead to my left. My split time is 10:55, and I have finally thrown it back into the proper gear.
Mile 5 — Before I know it, I am chugging past the stately, careworn Divine Lorraine, whose intricate interior was stripped out several years ago in anticipation of a condominium conversion that never took hold.
I cover the mile in 10:47. I’m excited to be approaching my own neighborhood in the city.
Miles 6 and 7 — The crowds of spectators are starting to thicken, and a group of young women are blowing enormous bubbles and waving goofy fairy wands while standing atop a road median.
Check out the military formation passing through at 1:08…
I’m in there too, somewhere…
We pass Roman Catholic high school, where a small marching band is playing on the front steps. Then it’s up and over the Vine Street Expressway. We have had the entire width of Broad Street open to us from the beginning of the run, but as we approach the Masonic Temple, we are all guided into the southbound side of the street. The pace slows briefly as runners merge together.
I gradually move towards the far right side of the street in anticipation of seeing Governor Ed Rendell in front of the Bellevue-Stratford. The crowd of runners bunches up again as we approach South Broad, and I barely make it between the curb and some wide-elbowed people coming around the bend at the corner of the Ritz-Carlton.
I am so happy to be trotting through the heart of Center City that I completely miss the time clock for Mile 6.
When I approach the Bellevue-Stratford, I don’t see any sign of the Big Kahuna. In frustration, I literally shout (to no one in particular), “Hey, where’s Ed?”
But then I see him. He’s a little hard to spot because he’s wearing a coffee-colored velour track suit. I run up and give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “That’s for Arlen Specter,” I tell him. Gladhanding is no easy job; Ed smells like he’s been exerting himself far more than I have this morning. I potch his tuchus on the way out, adding “And that’s for the casinos!”
In what seems like no time we’re done with the seventh mile. I am at 21:44 for Miles 6 and 7 combined. I haven’t take in any energy gel or Gatorade yet, and I feel my stamina beginning to flag.
Mile 8 — I tear into a packet of gel as soon as the mile starts, and begin slowly taking it down, mouthful by mouthful.
I find myself working harder and harder to try to keep my stride tempo in place. I am starting to count the number of minutes to the finish. “Save it, save it, you still have twenty-seven minutes to go,” I remind myself.
The watch is proving to be a godsend, with my lap times helping me to determine how far I am between mile markers. I wonder whether there is still any chance for me to finish with a clock time of less than two hours. When I realize that I would have to complete roughly two-and-a-half miles in the next twenty minutes, I resign myself to being saddled with yet another bloated finish time.
I pass by Broad and Snyder and I am sorely tempted to make a detour to the Melrose Diner, even if they don’t have chocolate pudding.
My watch gives me 10:55 for the eighth mile. I am definitely starting to run on fumes.
Mile 9 – I’m waiting for the energy gel to kick in, but it doesn’t seem to be happening yet.
A college-age woman next to me turns to her friend and says, “I wonder if I’m going to make it.”
“Don’t worry,” I assure her. “You’re already eight miles in, so you’ve got it.” She considers this, then smiles.
I know that I’ll also finish on my feet, but the rain has really started to come down steadily at this point. I notice an increasing number of people taking walk breaks.
I try to concentrate on my cadence, but there is a woman nearby nailing each stride with the clomp of a Percheron. She is wearing headphones, so she can’t hear her own thunder. (On the upside, her gait is extremely rhythmic.)
I wind up with a 10:58 for the penultimate mile. Will I have anything left for the Navy Yard at the end?
Mile 10 — The sides of the road are thick with cheering spectators. I don’t dare let up for fear that I won’t make my “reach” goal: 108 minutes on the chip, which would be averaging the same pace throughout a 10-miler as I did in the 10K I ran a month earlier.
I know that I’m close to my target time, but I’m not sure exactly how close, given the late start. At this point, my brain is totally incapable of doing any math. (Running the numbers? Hah! Numbing the runners is more like it.)
Much to my surprise, I see the same group of military runners from Mile 1 up ahead, still moving in formation. I slowly make a move towards them, but my legs are toast and I can only close the gap a few inches at a time.
Someone with a megaphone warns us about what I learned very early from talking to race veterans: The finish line is not at the gate to the Navy Yard. You have to keep moving for another quarter mile.
As soon as I pass through the Navy Yard gates, I begin working my way around a number of people, but I don’t have an entire quarter mile left in my legs at that pace and I drop back slightly again. I cross the line just a few seconds behind the military formation.
The clock reads 2:08:11.
I forget to record my final split until I am well past the finish line.
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