Whine and (Nickel and) Dime

lack of motivation is a real bitch

Soooooo… much like my on-and-off again attempts to learn the Ukrainian language, I’m suffering through the same fits and starts with running.

Consistency is not my thing apparently.

I decided to register for Wine and Dine because I want to redeem myself and not end the half marathon in tears, wondering when I’ll get swept. That’s totally public enemy number one, that Disney half marathon.

I have a whopping 107 miles under my belt this year. That is not the training of a serious runner…

I can barely consider myself a walker at this point.

Right now, I’m dealing with the aftershocks of a decision I made last weekend. I’m waffling between pride and stupidity.

I signed up for a half marathon that went three loops through a park. In a “safe” park. In a “safe” town.

I managed two loops because during the first two, my bad touch spidey senses were tingling. There were parts where I was the only person on the course for as far as I could see. There were random guys scattered through the park alone and in groups. There were a few in a playground area that were definitely giving off some bad energy, and I’m not normally given to paranoia, but it is what it is. I got to the split for the finish line and walked off the course, bib in hand. I wasn’t going to cross the finish line… I didn’t want the participant medal. I didn’t want anything but to go home.

I’m on the phone with the husband telling him what a miserable time I had when this dude approaches me. Big guy. He will not leave me alone. Asking me if I want a medal or headphones (what?! Seriously! Do you want some candy, little girl? / Why don’t you get in the back of my van. I’ll drive you to your car. / Hello, Lester the Child Molester). I ended up elbowing him in the gut and running the rest of the way to my car. It was a shame I turned my Garmin off - that was probably a five minute mile.

So. Yeah. Happy I didn’t tempt fate, but upset that I didn’t. Damned if I did, damned because I didn’t.

I’ve decided to rerun all my medals again - surprise! But, I’m doing it a little differently. I’m still tracking the original rerun because I want to earn them all, but I decided to also track my medals earned by distance run. Right now, I have an excel spreadsheet that I’m filling in based on mileage alone. In order. So if I run a 5K, I fill in the very first 5K on the medal list. Regardless of which RTI club it is. On the ‘real’ tracker, I’m trying to run races in a way that allows me to finish challenge medals and then fill in the rest of the blanks. Out of the 107 I have on the year, I’ve only run 74 RTI miles. Technically, that’s about 2 miles a day from here to the end of the year.

But anyhoo, I digress.

Marathon Weekend’s registration opens on April 22nd. I priced out the costs of doing the Wine and Dine races separately (5K, 10K, and Half) and comparing it to what I actually spent for the 5K and the Two Course Challenge. Of course, the Challenge costs more, but it’s minimal. You’re basically paying for the cheap race shirt at that point. Pointless math, except…

I’m not sure if I want to run Marathon Weekend if I’m not attempting the Dopey. It’s a lot of money… and I could technically do a half marathon anywhere, except that park. I was thinking about signing up for the three races and avoiding the marathon completely - or signing up for the Dopey if it’s cheaper and selling my medal on eBay, if I accept it at all this time.

I told myself that if I can run consistently through April 1 - 21, I will register for the Dopey again. If I can’t, I may do the three races… or at very least, the fucking half marathon.

I will beat the balloon ladies even if it kills me.

I no make words go good. English hard.

I’m running out of icons and pretty colours on my little sidebar.

I’ve decided to scrap the third draft and start over again…

Welcome to draft 4, which is already filled with random notes like this one.

TBH, I don’t know which one of us was completely shitty when that was written, but my money’s on me. Beka seems like he’d be straight-edge. (When he’s not statutory raping a fucking 15 year old, that is. KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS, BEKA.)

Yeah.

So much shit on my mind and instead, I’m tearing apart a story that I’ve already written three drafts of to play with new point of views and - hopefully - get them to keep it in their pants. I DO NOT WRITE KIDDY PORN, GODDAMNIT.

At this rate, I’m going to have to age them up… and I hate that. I like AUs, but that’s totally not the story I wanted to tell.

Yearning. Slow burn. A love story spread over three years.

That’s the story I want to tell.

And the one I am completely incapable of telling.

Oh well. The 4th time’s the charm, right?

 

- - - - - - - - - -

I’m trying to keep myself distracted.

The pending war in Ukraine. The new job. Life in general.

I’m a big ball of stress right now.

So, of course, the Sims released a new game pack today.

By all accounts, it is buggy as fuck, even despite being held back by a week. (And wasn’t that a week - the short version is, EA self-censored and refused to release the game in Russia. All hell broke loose. EA backed off and held the release a week to ensure that the game would launch globally at the same time. A whole lot of stupidity ensued.)

Still bought it. Haven’t even bothered playing yet.

I probably won’t get a chance until the weekend.

Maybe EA will patch it by then. (Or not. We still have bugs in the game that are several years old and well known by everybody. Like, there’s no way the SimGurus don’t know about them. Why they aren’t being fixed is anyone’s guess at this point.)

Also not helping is the fact that the 2023 NHL All Star game is being held in my backyard. At that place. That I used to work at. Before I got fired for being bipolar.

I’m torn between wanting to go and staying home. I don’t know which option is healthier.

I’m just glad that life is starting to become closer to normal again… I have a half marathon towards the end of March and I just signed up to run a 5K in early March. I have a Boombox concert to go to, and I might head to Universal on my birthday to see Gavin DeGraw.

Who the fuck knows.

All I know is that I’m stressed to the gills….

I need a nap, a cookie, and a hug.

When you lose something you cannot replace

reminiscin’ this ‘n’ that ‘n’ havin’ such a good time… oo-de-lally, oo-de-lally, golly, what a day

I’m in a few Disney running groups, but my favourite is, hands down, #runDopey. The people are so great in there. It’s truly one of the safest Facebook groups there is, everyone is friendly, and there never seems to be any conflict. (Can you imagine that? A Facebook group without the token asshole? I KNOW!)

So anyway, a while back, they created an offshoot, called DFF. One of the mods has had some pretty debilitating depression lately. He’s so open about posting it that it breaks my heart. It hurts to hear what he’s going through because I’ve been there / I am there / I know I will be there.

Behold: twelve years of psychiatric care records.

I haven’t had the heart to go through them - I had them sent to me when I was going to pursue an EEOC violation against that former employer. I didn’t, in the end. The money I would win from the lawsuit (and I was told I had a textbook case) wasn’t enough to justify keeping that wound open for however long it would take to go through the EEOC process and subsequent legal bullshit. In all honesty, I don’t know how much would have been enough… No matter how you slice it, it wouldn’t give me the closure I still so desperately need. I’m not sure that’s attainable. I’m always going to be bipolar. I’m always going to carry that stigma. Getting fired because of it was unavoidable considering how fucked up that job made me. So yeah.

It is what it is.

Acknowledge. Move on.

But, to circle back to the DFF… we may run hills on Tuesday and flex on Fridays, but Mondays are mental health days. So many people unload their issues and we all reach out to comfort each other / share coping skills. It’s beautiful. I’ve been pretty open there. Even more open than I am here sometimes, because they understand in a way I’m not sure you all can. (I don’t even check my stats… I could be screaming into the void for all I know.)

They give me hope when I’ve lost it. When I don’t know how to talk about the noise in my head, they sort through it for me. Nobody tells me I’m crazy. Nobody tells me I’m broken. Nobody tells me it’s all in my head and I should get over it.

Depression is a bad-ass motherfucker and I don’t mean it in the ‘good’, Samuel L Jackson, way. Lately, I’ve been struggling. A metric fuck-ton. That group is my safe harbour. That group reminds that depression lies. That I am a bad-ass motherfucker, in the good way. (I mean, fuck, that man could teach me a thing or two.)

It’s good to find those places online - anonymity is awesome. People just know me from the little bit I share in the group. I love it. Face to face therapy does me more harm than good, because they want to dig, dig, dig until all my wounds open and I bleed out all the defences I’ve built over the years. Plus, half of them want to change my meds right off the bat. Um, no.

I don’t know… I guess all those words just to say that I love my DFF family. They keep me sane when no one else can.

Every mile is magic

I love this so much

I need to vent about this…

My old AR person, at the other company, kept 6 spreadsheets that all had the same information. AND NONE OF IT MATCHED. She had collection notes spread across them and none of them were the same. If you opened spreadsheet A, it had a note that on [date] she talked to the insured and they said blah, blah, blah. If you opened spreadsheet B, it had a note that on [same date] she called and the number was disconnected. The amounts she was trying to collect on were different. The adjuster’s name, phone number. email were all different. Her replacement and I didn’t know which one was right, so we nuked it all and started from scratch.

That was such a miserable experience.

At the new job (a printing company), the woman I’m replacing is just as bad. I plan on consolidating a few of her spreadsheets because I just can’t deal with it.

Maybe it’s my background in construction, or my interest in becoming a CMA, or just the way I’m wired, but work-in-progress schedules turn me on. Why do you need to keep a pending and a sales spreadsheet with you can combine both? I mean, once you have the billed amount on the spreadsheet, you can see if it’s pending or sold. Why not track the costs? There’s so much this simple schedule can do and so many ways you can tweak it… I mean, this is a portion of the final report I built. IT’S SO USEFUL!

 

(Yes, it’s blurry on purpose. Yes, those numbers aren’t real. I’m not THAT stupid.)

So… yeah. They don’t track their inventory. They don’t have any means to compare estimates to actuals except by looking at several different reports. They barely know if something’s been billed. (The Controller doesn’t sit in on the Production Meetings!?! She’s too busy - no doubt, because she’s managing a BILLION spreadsheets. Gah.)

OH! And I am SALTY about something that went down yesterday. I accidentally calculated the sales tax on a job that was tax-exempt. The spreadsheet was deleted and redone, without the tax calculation. Supposedly because I didn’t have the time to do needless work, habits be damned. THEN, I find out that I did need that sales tax number after all (to go on yet another spreadsheet). So I had to redo that. I TOUCHED THE SAME SPREADSHEET THREE TIMES TO GET ONE NUMBER.

How do I always find these places?

I don’t know… she’s retiring in March so I just have to hold on until then.

Gotta run. (HA!) I have a hot date with the treadmill. I’m getting a jump start on Dopey training because I refuse to let the dwarf beat me two years in a row. Now that I know exactly what to expect, I have a better idea of how I (personally) need to train. Most training plans are one size fits all, and well, I don’t fit that mold.

She’s Running the Distance

that is what a half marathon pr looks like

Let’s get the ugly bit out of the way: I did not complete the marathon and therefore, did not complete the Dopey Challenge.

Instead of coming home with six medals, I received four. The marathon’s medal was given to me after I got off the party bus, but I didn’t receive the Goofy or Dopey Challenge medals. I’m not nearly as upset as I could be about getting swept during the marathon. In all honesty, I made it farther than I thought I would.

But…

I PR’d the half marathon.

Shaved 13 minutes off my previous best race.

I got stronger as the race got longer, too. I walked most of the first half and then I started doing intervals -  run the chorus, walk the lyrics - when a good song came on.

The balloon ladies passed me, but I finished a whopping 30 seconds behind them this time.

I may have gotten pulled at mile 4 of the marathon, but at the end of the day, I completed a 5K, a 10K, and a half marathon.

Maybe I was crazy to attempt a Dopey without getting an IRL marathon under my belt first, but I don’t care.

I PR’D A HALF MARATHON.

Woo!!!!!!