The journey to the 2012 NYC marathon was interesting. I
started the refinance of my home loan a month before the marathon. 2 weeks
before the marathon, I start getting calls about needing estimators and
inspections on the house. That was no big deal except then there were
complications. (which turned out to be minor but felt like a big deal to me at
the time). I knew it was bothering me because instead of my typical zen’ed out
state when I would be out running. All I could think about were these problems.
To add to my worries, when I signed on to my online banking
Saturday, the normal login page was gone. In it’s place was a notice from the
FDIC. The bank had been closed by the FDIC and they would be mailing me a check
for the balance of my account, which I received about 11 days later. Thankfully
I had a 2nd account with some cash in it and that my mortgage
payment was paid just before the bank was closed down. I did end up having to
pay interest on my credit card because I didn’t have the funds to pay the
entire balance from the other account. Stress and Frustration.
Then there was the fact that a hurricane was on the way.
I did have a bit of good fortune in the fact that a
generator I ordered a number of weeks ago, happened to be delivered the Tuesday
before the Hurricane hit. My biggest mistake was not going out to buy extra gas
cans to fill during emergencies. I was hoping that because I had actually spent
the money on this, that the hurricane would spin out to sea rather than head towards
NJ and it wouldn’t be needed.
I spent the better part of 3 days preparing for the storm.
Last year’s storm had so much rain that we spent the majority of our time in
the basement running a shop-vac to get the water off of the floor. Eventually
we just had to pull the floor drain and mop everything towards that. So we
spent time taking important stuff out of the basement, just in case.
Well as I’m sure you are aware, the hurricane brought a lot
of wind, created a storm surge for those that lived on or near the coast but
fortunately, there wasn’t much rain, a couple of inches. So our basement didn’t
have any problems at all. We did lose power for a couple days. Actually 80% of
our town was without power. We were probably one of the few houses in the area
that didn’t lose a tree. I was amazed at how many trees fell and ever more
amazed at how little damage they caused on our block. Only one person had the
roof of their garage damaged. A few others had wires torn from their house.
Compared to the damage that occurred along the coast, the mess and what damage
we had on our street seemed like a minor annoyance.
My place of work in NYC was out of power Monday night until
Friday Evening.
Here is a video of the sky from our house. The flashing lights are electrical explosions from transformers. The video is cut short, it continued for about 2 and a half minutes like this.
Seeing all the damage on TV. Then hearing from friends and
co-workers that have been without power for days, my stress about my refinance
and banking issues were gone. Perspective can do that for you I guess.
Unfortunately, that stress was replaced by my feelings about
the fact the Marathon officials and the Mayor of NYC kept saying that the
marathon was still going to be run. There were so many people in need of help.
Using any amount of city support to run a race, rather than helping those
people seemed very wrong to me.
Then to as I started to read the social media (twitter/facebook)
to find that people were saying that they would go to the race and Boo the
runners as the went by. (mild). Find an overpass and spit on runners as the
passed. (medium). Take their fire extinguisher and spray the runners. (ANGRY).
Now I was even concerned for my safety running this event.
I spent way too much time stressing on this. When should we
get our race number? They are telling us not to go into the city unless we have
to because of the traffic and such. I hadn’t heard from Todd who was also
running. I kind of figured that if he still wanted to run it, that I would go,
rather reluctantly…. I think. It’s just so wrong tho’.
So when they finally cancelled the race, (I received a
number of texts and phone calls almost immediately as it was announced on TV)
I’m not sure that disappointment was the best way to describe my feelings. In
fact I probably laughed about the fact that NOW they decide it’s probably best
not to run it. I finally got a message from Todd. “Race cancelled, You can’t
make this stuff up!”
I received messages from friends regarding other Marathons
that I could still sign up for. The one that probably made the most sense was
to drive up to New Hampshire and run in Manchester as it was the same day as
NYC. I could have stayed with my brother
for the weekend. But my work had been closed for a week. I’d have to get back
to NJ immediately after the race AND, it’s not the NYC Marathon.
I appreciated all the offers, kind of made me wish that I
could do all of them. Instead, I’m looking forward to going back to my normal
triathlon training and leave the challenge of the marathon out there for a
while longer. It’s good motivation.
Unfortunately, I haven’t done a single workout all week. My
commute to the city was already a 3 hour chunk out of my day. With all of the
problems with the train lines, I’m now dealing with 4.5 to 5 hours a day
commutes. Which made me realize just how tight my schedule was. That 1.5-2
hours extra is basically my window where I fit my workouts in. I was speaking
with a transit worker today and he feels it’s going to be quite some time until
the entire system is back to normal.
I guess I’m going to have to make a plan to get my workouts
done in the morning again. Which means I’ve just got to get to sleep earlier
and putting my alarm clock further away than my nightstand. (I can hit snooze
for a long time without realizing I’m doing it). I just need to change some
habits. I’ll let you know how it goes.
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