Another blog about me plus some other stuff

I said “I’m slow.” Fletcher said, “save it for the blog.” So here it is. I’m slow. By slow I mean flat-out, fast-twitch fiber speed, like 100 meter or 40 yard dash speed. At the end of our fifth 1000 meter repeat tonight we decided to kick it for the last 200 and I got dusted, like 10 seconds back in 200 meters. That’s what I mean by slow. During our post-repeat 200s I was all elbows and awkwardness. Finally on the fourth 200 I asked Bernard what I should do to not run so ridiculously. He gave a few pointers but his basic instructions were to kick my butt (literally) with my heels. So I tried that and felt somewhat smooth. Sure, I died after about 75 meters but even Andre said he could tell a difference in my new-found fluidity. Thanks Bernard!

The rest of the 1000 repeats were fine. Something like 3.40 down to 3.26. I was feeling really, really fatigued on the warm-up and the first one, but after that something came around and I felt pretty good. They were still hard, but during that first one I thought I might just call it a day. I could feel Wilke in my legs, and the doubles, even though it’s still relatively low mileage, are starting to wear on me a bit. Good.

So I was planning to go to the PBJ yesterday and here’s my story….

I took our van yesterday morning to get an oil change, drove home, and when I came out at lunch to go to the PBJ the back left tire was flat. Coincidence? It seems rather odd that this tire is 18 months old and has had no problems, yet just three hours after these guys “just air it up” it is flat. So I change to the spare and drive it back over to the oil change place and talk to the owner. He’s nice enough, even airs the flat back up to see if he can find a leak. He doesn’t find anything. He says, “well, we can’t do anything anyway since we don’t deal with tires. Sorry.” Ugh. I’m not a strong personality so I just slink away. Took it over to the tire place and they couldn’t really find anything wrong either, the case of the mysterious deflating tire.

Did I say deflated? I’m so deflated by incompetence and people who just don’t care. I deal with this kind of thing all the time at work. Here are some actual conversations and email exchanges:

Coworker: Do you know what IP address 266.44.55.39 points to?
Me: 266.44.55.39?

Coworker: Why doesn’t this work? do_some_function_with_file(‘/path/to/file.txt’);
Me: Does ‘/path/to/file.txt’ exist?
Coworker: Ah, right.

Coworker: I don’t see the email in my inbox.
Me: The email was never sent. There was a server error and the email was not sent out, nor will it be resent.
—Two hours later—
Coworker: I still don’t see the email. I asked Bob if he got it and he said he didn’t. This is a head-scratcher. Any ideas?

Coworker: Has the IT department done X?
Me: I don’t know. You’ll have to check the help desk ticket.
Coworker: Can you check it for me?
Me: Uh… (thinking: “It’s your question, your ticket, and will take exactly the same steps and time for you do it as me, but then I’ll have to relay the answer to you. And you’ll ask me again next week, and the week after, and for the next ticket …. what am I, your bitch?”)
Coworker: Thanks.

And always a favorite:

Coworker: I can’t login.
Me: To what?
Coworker: The application thingy. I click the blue “e” on my desktop but it doesn’t work.
Me: But what are you trying to log in to? What application? And what do you mean by “doesn’t work”? Do you get any error messages? What normally happens when you click it?
Coworker: I don’t know, I always just follow this job instruction sheet with the steps I have to follow, and a box pops up and I click “Ok” three times and “Cancel” once but it’s not working.
—(So I go over to their desk and they have a popup blocker on or some virus installed or their whole desktop is hidden or the “box” is minimized or they changed their password and forgot or IE offered to remember it and they click “Ok” but they had typed it wrong so now it’s wrong every time and they don’t bother to try to retype it…..) —

Sigh. I could go on and on. But I guess I sound like the whiny bitch.

Here’s how much I knew about running before a couple years ago: I thought the Capital 10,000 was so-named because it had 10,000 participants. Even though I would see some other number in the paper I would just think, “well they started with ten thousand so they’re keeping the name.” Pretty stupid I know, and I guess it says less about my running knowledge than my general moronability.

I told Andre I wanted to put it on record that there should be no expectations (yours or mine) for the 5K on Saturday. My body feels tired, my legs feel slow, and I’m fretting the impending pain. Glad I got that out of the way.

Whataburger A-Frames. My Grandfather built the first one in Odessa.

I’m happy about the new Chuy’s 5k location (3/4 mile from my house). Andre says “um, it’s in May.” Yes it is. I’m still happy.

Bloggers are depressed.

Yay for State holidays.