if people are scouring my search history, they should be very concerned
Two weekends, two races, two very different results.
Last weekend was a 10K and I was Dead Fucking Last. So far in the back that they left the timing mat down and one girl stood there with one solitary medal for me.
This weekend, I attempted a half marathon and Did Not Finish. In my defense, I really had to pee.
This race was two loops, so I passed the starting / finish line twice before looping back for the final crossing. This is important.
Well.
There was not a single port-a-pottie on the race course. NOT. A. SINGLE. ONE.
It wasn’t bad enough that I was so far in the back, they had pulled down the timing mat at the halfway point. I was so far back that the cops forced me onto the sidewalk (Which, thanks, Doral. You’ll be getting my bill from the ER for the broken ankle.) I was so far back that near the halfway point, all the water stations within three miles were poofed. I was so far back that the cops were gone after I turned back for the final five miles.
I was so far back that I decided to pee instead of crossing the finish line.
Hear me out.
When I got to the finish line with three miles still to go, the clock read 3 hours and they were starting to tear it down. I finish in 4 right now.
Near the finish line is the one and only public restroom on the entire course.
My choices were absolutely ridiculous:
1) pee my pants, finish in four hours, but not cross the timing mat (DNF)
2) step off the course, take my pee, finish in 4:15, but not cross the timing mat (DNF)
3) walk down the finisher’s chute, pull my bib off, head to the bathroom before crossing the timing mat, pee, and go home. (DNF)
Option 3 was my best one, I’m sad to say.
Did I say I really had to pee?
I went over to the official timer - after I went to the loo, of course - and told them if they were waiting for me, I wasn’t finishing.
Do you know what he said?
He said that they could leave the timing mat down if I wanted to finish, but they had to clear the road. That’s why they were tearing everything down.
Well, fuck me.
Honestly, I don’t regret my decision. I made it based on the knowledge available to me 10 miles in and with a full bladder.
I am writing to the race director, though.
1) I know I’m slow, but tearing down the finish line at the three hour mark of a half marathon AND NOT POSTING THAT THERE IS A TIME LIMIT is just rude. I would have never signed up if I knew I had to run a 3/3:30. That’s not possible right now. (Maybe they don’t actually have a time limit, because I was allowed to continue. I just lost all race support.)
2) You honestly can’t expect people to go 13 miles without a bathroom break. The 5 and 10Ks at Disney always have lines at the port-a-potties and public restrooms and those are less than half of a half marathon.
The funny / sad thing about this is that I never have to pee during a race. NEVER.
Well, never say never.
But on the flip side, my PHRC shirt made me a new friend. She was an Eagle, but she didn’t make the transition to the FRC. I can’t say I blame her, but it was nice to put the name to the face. We run a lot of the same races, so it will be nice to know someone at the races, even though she smoked me right off the start line.
Aaaaaand, speaking of the FRC, I’M GOING TO DETROIT!
(Who the fuck is ever excited about going to Detroit?)
I’m meeting up with my pocket friends and we’re going to run the Freep Marathon Weekend.
I posted a picture of my renewed passport with the caption: I’M GOING TO DETROIT! and um, yeah. There was one comment on the status questioning my sanity, but I actually received several DMs asking me if I was OK.
Oh, I am so far from OK… but that’s not related to this.
Also related to FRC - I just did a Battle. Finished with 89 miles over 10 days. I capped three times. We won the race (wooo!!!!), but the best part of all of it was my team. I haven’t been on a team that gave me the warm and fuzzies in a long time.
Oh, did I mention? The course for Battle took us from Erie, PA through Canada, Detroit, Northern Ohio (Toledo, Sandusky, etc.), and back to Erie. Toledo was… fun. Nothing like reliving some of the worst years of my life.
I have stories about stuff and things and I’m not in the right headspace to talk about them right now.
Seems to be the story of my life.
I can part with this, though:
March 18th was the 32nd anniversary of my mother’s death.
She died when I was 16.
She has been dead for double the amount of time she was in my life.
Next up is a 5K in Boca tomorrow, then the Live Like Bella 5K at the same place the Miami Turkey Trot is held, and then the A1A Half Marathon in Fort Lauderdale, and THEN, it’s (virtual) Princess Weekend.
God, I really hate running.
Seriously.
Why the fuck do I do this to myself?
Apparently, I’m a masochist.
Here’s how absolutely fucking ridiculous I am:
I signed up for the first FRC Rumble of the new year. A Rumble is different from Battle of the Fandoms - Rumble is a month-long event where there are small teams and every member has their own cap. Battle is a 10 day free-for-all with a 15m/day cap. I’ve also signed up up for Fans Run the World, which is year-round, 366 mile loop, with a 15 mile cap.
I’ve got the 10K cap right now. I’m almost done with my first week and I have done a 10K every single day so far.
I ended January with 100 racery miles. 111.2 in real miles. (I couldn’t count the extra 11.2 of the marathon because it wasn’t done IRL.)
I’m aiming to continue at least a 10K every day in February because it’s hard, and we aren’t afraid to do the hard things. At least, that’s according to my DFF Fam.
I’m already burned out. The only thing that is pretty much keeping me going right now is I want to hit 200 miles in February. It is highly possible. If I stick to the miles as scheduled, I’ll hit 193. I can find an extra 7 miles in there. 2 extra miles a week…
I mean, fuck, if I’m doing 6 miles a day, what’s another 2 during the week? I already did that once to hit the 100 mile mark for January.
I’ve managed to put on a bit of weight and forgotten how to breathe. Either one would spell trouble for my running ‘career’, but both is…
Well, let’s put it this way: if I want to finish a Disney race, I will have to run it somewhere that is NOT Disney.
So, I got the absolutely ridiculous idea to sign up for ALL the Disney virtual races this year. (Bye-bye Christmas bonus.)
The first race weekend of 2024 is Marathon. This is the first Marathon Weekend I have not run in person since 2020 and it sucks.
But, the flip side?
17 hours on the treadmill (TEN HOURS JUST FOR THE MARATHON. TEN HOURS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and 48.6 miles on my feet mean that I have, finally, killed the Dwarf.
I have now officially completed the Dopey Challenge and can die a very, very, very happy (and very, very, very tired) person.
I still can’t believe it.
As if Dopey weren’t enough of an endurance challenge, I ended up doing the Disneyland Half Marathon weekend as well.
Dopey to Dumbo.
So I went from 48.6 to 22.4 - the Disneyland 5K and the Dumbo Double Dare Challenge (10K + half).
That’s 71 miles on the treadmill on back to back weekends.
That’s…. a lot.
Next up is Princess - all three races again.
I can guarantee that even if I ever get back into running shape, I will never run that one at Disney.
I also have three IRL runs scheduled for February: 2 5Ks and a half.
I keep saying that I hate running and I never want to do it again, but apparently I don’t listen to myself.
When it’s smoking it’s cooking. When it’s burnt it’s done.
December 09, 2023 ::
9:40 AM
#selfcaresaturday looks a lot like death by food poisoning
I may have inherited a lot from my mother’s side of the family… except a woman’s innate ability to cook.
Nope.
My failures in the kitchen are all my father’s DNA.
Let’s put it this way, my favourite breakfast growing up was Super Duper Eggs.
How does one make Super Duper Eggs, you might ask.
Two eggs, half and half, salt, and a LOT of whisking. You want the eggs beaten within an inch of their life. Really fluffy and ready to be put to death in a frying pan drowning in butter. Preferably a cast iron skillet, but I don’t have one of those. (I can barely season food and you want me to season a fucking pan?)
Dump the eggs in and let them set like you’re making an omelette.
Walk away to make toast / coffee / whatever. As long as you forget about the eggs, you’re golden.
Remember the eggs. Try to flip the omelette.
When it falls to pieces, flip every bit over and behold the amazing, burnt, mess.
Let the other side burn.
Dump in a bowl and cover with ketchup.
Feed it to your daughter like it’s gourmet food and not eggs you fucked up.
I decided to do him one better and trust the auto setting on the microwave for the bacon.
Yeah. I probably should have checked on it at least once, but I, uh, forgot about it.
Burned eggs, burned bacon… at least the coffee was good.
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Chrome continues to be the bane of my existence.
First it broke the public view of my blog.
Then it broke the back end.
Apparently, you need to use https:// in the file path to the CSS file. And it can’t be a relative path. It has to be https:// myblog dot com/I hate the internet/style.css
The back end is still broken. For whatever reason, it is absolutely fucked in Firefox right now. Chrome and Firefox on a PC are equally fucked. It’s working on Chrome on the Mac at the moment, but I can’t upload files. Nothing I like more than messing with an FTP app while eating Super Duper Eggs and, um, extra crispy bacon.
I did get the file upload to work. Finally.
But, whatever Chrome is doing lately is also fucking up the work shit. Because, of course, everything is fucking web based now.
We can’t download files without Office 365 continually opening in safe mode.
We can’t access files that are stored on our local server via Dynamics365 - the link to the file needs to be the one to OneDrive in order to open them within the app. (DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY FILES WE CANNOT ACCESS?!?!?!)
IT’s answer is to use Firefox.
Um, OK. Not a fix that anyone even wants to try, so yeah. Good luck with THAT.
Any way, I refuse to spend the day troubleshooting the back end of the blog, so I decided to upgrade Expression Engine.
(While I may adore the person who named it - yes, I know her - I hate WordPress with an intensity I reserve for spiders.)
FYI, Expression Engine is on version seven. SEVEN.
I am running v2.6.1, build date 20130506. Yes. 2013. The software is a decade old and has finally shit the bed. I’m pleased and amazed at the longevity of what Rick built. He should be proud of himself. (I’ve been using Ellis Lab products to run my blog forever; we’re talking pMachine and being invited (!!!!) to beta test Expression Engine. Ellis Labs doesn’t exist any more, sadly, but again, this will always be Rick’s software. (I say that like we were besties…))
This is not going to be fun and it is definitely not a project I’m in the mood to take on today.
Eventually.
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Speaking of things I’m not in the mood to deal with today, EA just released a new Sims pack.
The Sims 4 For Rent. (If that’s not the stupidest name, I don’t know what is.)
Guess what?
It changes the entire back end of the game again.
It broke build mode and it broke normal game play.
It was to be expected - the pack now allows you to build multiple lots on one. You can build rental units now - and manage them as a landlord or live in them as a tenant.
That’s a major change.
Just like when Growing Together was introduced.
The majority of my important mods are completely borked. I’ve already spent several hours trying to update them and I’m half way done.
Two of the mods I love are broken and no ETA on when they’ll be fixed. One has been broken for a while - the modder has health issues and can’t continue coding right now. The other mod’s main programmer died a few weeks ago. Cancer. He was young. Too young. They’re working on finding a replacement, but how do you replace the reason that mod even exists? They have a death mod where you can have a funeral instead of just the grim reaper… obviously that’s not going to be updated for a long time. I was thinking about trying it before the news and now I don’t know if I can.
I’m bummed I have to put my legacy on ice again while I wait for all the bugs to be fixed. I was thrilled that I got to pick up with Nathan and Bryce and their kids / grandkids. So weird to think that if my legacy founder were alive, she’d be hanging out with her great great granddaughter!
I play alphabet legacies and we’re on generation E.
Bryce and Nathan had kids via the same surrogate, so the kids are half siblings.
Cora married a vampire and had a vampire baby. I moved her out and let story progression do its thing. SP is absolutely crazy bananas. She had moved out to live with Caleb and when I went back into the household, she was no longer a vampire, no longer married to Caleb, and had a shitty relationship with her daughter. And she was shacking up with a townie. What the fuck?!?
Chase was a bit of a manwhore and had three kids with three different women.
I unalived one of them testing out the Sims’ version of the Bloody Mary urban legend. Whoops.
Then, because that wasn’t enough drama, there was the woman he married, divorced, and remarried. Then he cheated on her with baby momma number three. What can I say? I love chaos.
Dayna became Dylan and moved out, Daniel and his girlfriend just had baby Emily (teen parents because why not?), and Derek’s just aged up to a teen.
All this because Johnny Zest brought fruitcake to Aubrey.
Thank FUCK you can only have eight Sims on a lot.
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In other news, I still can’t make the words go easily, but they’re coming.
After I crashed and burned in November, December is going to be the month I hit 50K words.
