Races of another kind.

The other event that happened to me this weekend was unplanned, and hardly in the holiday spirit.

Returning to my apartment building from the Hot Chocolate race on Saturday, I saw my building super, Dex, outside on the corner chatting with someone. I'd have said hello, but didn't want to interrupt, so I just walked by. I then fumbled with the front of my shorts, unpinning my key ring from the inside band. As I approached the door, someone started speaking to me. I hadn't noticed that I had walked past one of my neighbours, Crazy-Lady-Down-the Hall.

CLDH: "Oh, so you just can't even look us in the face, now, can you?"

Me (looking up, surprised to see her there): Huh?

CLDH: "Y'all just walk on past and don't even look us in the face. Y'all come by and see a black face and y'all go runnin' in your shorts and wearing your music in your ears and talkin' with your cell phone in one ear like you're talkin' to yourselves and don't talk to none of us. You know - you bring you're white faces around here but can't bother to look at our black ones and you don't ever talk or say anything."

Me: "Huh?"

CLDH: "Say, what did y'all do, anyways? Did y'all have some meetin' or somethin'?"

Me: Wha...?

CLDH: "Yeah, you white people go and have some kinda meetin'? Musta, 'cause I don't know what y'all is doin' here, so you musta discussed it. Tell me now - what is it makes a white boy to come on out and decide to move to Harlem anyways?"

At this point, Dex was walking by and just by virtue of his intrusion, it somehow broke the deer-in-headlights trance that I had fallen into. I was strangely mesmerized by her totally outrageous racist accusations, and for those 60 seconds or so, I just couldn't break free.

I don't know how much of the conversation Dex heard, if any. I turned with him as he entered the building. If Crazy Lady was still speaking, I had shut her out at this point. "Oh my god," I said quietly to Dex as we walked through the doorway, "That's really crazy."

"Uh-huh," he muttered under his breath, and as the door clicked shut behind us, he continued out loud: "We gotta get her outta here," and he went upstairs as I went into my apartment.

I've never been accused of racism before like that, and so blatantly and so obviously by someone who is so clearly a racist. And to top it off, I hadn't done anything. I hadn't made any Mel Gibson style or Michael Richards-esque comments or anything like that. It was really, really disturbing, and it's been hard to shake that filthy, filthy feeling that comes with such an exchange (if you can call it an exchange).

It's not the first time this has come up with her, though. When I was returning from the Staten Island Half Marathon in mid-October, I saw her on the corner of 8th and 123rd chatting to someone, and I smiled to say hello. When she saw me, she said to the other person: "See - now this one's smiling at me, but I can't stand all these crackers comin' round here." I just kept walking.

The following Friday morning, I was at home in my apartment and I could hear all three neighbours in the hall discussing how bad the neighbourhood had gotten "since all these crackers started moving in." It was a bizarre conversation - the racist remarks didn't even make sense. At one point Loud-Momma-Next-Door said that she wanted to move out, and if she did, she wanted to sublet her place to a family member, or "a cracker Columbia student." At that point I really wanted to poke my head out of my door and ask why she wouldn't want to sublet to a black Columbia student. I was smart enough to mind my own business, though, but it seems that hasn't helped me any. When I've tried to say hello in the past, they've basically just ignored me. I won't be making that mistake anymore.

I thought about calling the management company and complaining about the comments that Crazy-Lady-Down-the-Hall made on Saturday, but I figured that if I do, she'll just end up complaining about me more when I see her. I don't want to start a war at home. All three neighbours are obviously insane, and the less they're involved in my life the better.

Nuke 'em all, I say!

You'd think that getting a microwave repaired would be a simple task: Drop it off at some kind of a service depot, and pick it up a few days later, repaired.

Nope. Apparently a ninety-dollar General Electric microwave requires that you give up a half day of employment income to book a service technician to personally come to your home to service the unit. If he decides to show up, that is.

I called GE the week before last and arranged to have the technician come by last Thursday afternoon (Oct.5th). They told me they didn't do weekends, and I was a little miffed that I had to give up half a day of work, but figured I could combine it with preparing for my trip to Montreal... or at least that's how I mentally justified the inconvenience anyway.

Anyway, here's how the events transpired:
My window is 1-5 PM and when I call at 1:30 to confirm, a recording does confirm that the technician would be by "between now and 5 PM". Fine. I wait.

I call again at 4:30 and get the same recorded message.

Five O'clock comes and goes. He's a no-show. Now I'm pissed. I call again and the computer automatically (well, via hold) sends me to a service rep. Turns out nobody knows where the tech is, and apparently none of his appointments show up as completed. The rep tells me that he will speak to the dispatcher and the dispatcher will call me back within the next five minutes to make alternate arrangements, possibly to still even get the work done that evening. This sounds hopeful. I hang up and nobody ever calls back.

The next morning, I'm at home waiting for my friend to pick me up to drive up to Canada. I call GE back and speak to another rep, Kim, who offers me this Saturday or next. Well, apparently they do weekends after all! Since I'm going to Montreal this weekend, I ask for next Saturday. Kim sets me up: "Ok, Mr. Skylight, you're all set for the 21st, between 8 & 12 AM", and I hang up.

But wait - that's not next Saturday. That's the Saturday-after-next. Apparently Kim got her calendar mixed up. I call back; a new service rep tells me that they don't have anything until the 21st. Now I'm fuming, I review the mistakes that GE has made with me so far: a no-show, no one calling me back, and promising dates that they can't deliver on. "I was told I could get this Sat. or next Sat.," I say, not accepting no this time, "so just give me next Sat." She tells me that the technicians get 6 appointments per half-day session and the computer won't accept any more. I tell her she needs to make an exception that day. She says she can't because the computer just won't let her. I ask for a supervisor.

I review with the supervisor all the incompetence thus far, and direct her attention to the lack of professionalism GE has demonstrated to me over the last two days. Again I ask for the date that Kim promised to me, Saturday the 14th, and the supervisor gives me the same "the computer won't let me" excuse. "Just make it happen", I insist. We go back and forth discussing this. My logic: if I had to give up an entire afternoon of work, as well put up with getting the runaround from GE over this, the tech can put in some overtime to add an extra appointment that day. Her argument, which hasn't got a leg to stand on, is that she just can't put it in the computer. So, I guess those people at General Electric just aren't very savvy when it comes to electronics, eh?

Meanwhile my friend's arrived and is waiting in the car outside.

I ask for the supervisor's name and title (Diana, Supervisor of Blah Blah Blah Scheduling) and inform her of what she needs to do: "Well, Diana, I have many other more important things to do today besides waste time with you on the phone. So I'm going to let you go, and you're going to figure out just how you can get a guy to stop by and fix my microwave next Saturday, otherwise I'll be calling you back next week and we're going to figure it out together." Then I said goodbye.

Fifteen minutes later in the car on the way to Canada, my cell rings.

"Hello, Mr. Skylight. This is Sylvia from General Electric. I just wanted to call you and let you know that we've scheduled your service call for Saturday, Oct. 14th, 8-12 AM." I thanked her and hung up.

Now, let's see what happens tomorrow...

The Mile

I got into a strange debate at nyflygirl's b-day bash last night with a fellow flyer regarding the 5th Ave. mile. Two other of our teammates were also involved in our discussion but became silent during the forthcoming exchange. He simply stated that the mile and the marathon were the most difficult race distances to run. Seeing how blatantly rediculous the statement was, I tried to express my disagreement softly, by just mentioning that it really just depends on the person and where that person's strengths are. He retorted that he read it somewhere so it must be true (This statement in itself just seemed stupid, but I kept to the topic at hand). I pointed out that it might be true for that one writer/runner, but not necessarily true for others. Then he said he'd read in multiple places so it must be right. Recognizing that the debate wasn't about the distance anymore, and just about this guy wanting to be right, I poked fun, indicating that apparently this (nameless) writer had written multiple articles expressing his opinion. My fellow Flyer didn't see the humour and didn't let up. Determined to be right, he then said that even our assistant coach said that the mile and the marathon are the toughest distances to race, "so it has to be true." So at this point he had lined up two people that thought the same as him: a nameless writer who wasn't necessarily any type of expert on the subject, and our assistant coach who had conveniently left. I stopped there. The other flyers were quiet, and I wondered if they agreed with me or not. I wanted to keep going with poking holes in his arguement, but some people just lack the ability to see the point the other person is trying to make. Kind of like Right-wing Republicans. It seems strange that anyone could be so narrow-minded about such a topic -- something so based on individual ability. He really just wanted to hear, "OK dude, you're right. The mile and marathon are the most difficult races." Conversely, I just would've been happy if he had said "Well, I see you're point, in that there might be other race distances that some people find more difficult, but I really believe that those two distances are the most difficult."

The mile is of course a tough race, just as, but different from, the marathon. But in the same way, the 400m is also difficult race, and so is the 10k, 5k, 100m, half-marathon, etc. Not to mention Ultra-marathon distances. Every race takes a different kind of preparation, and a different strategy in execution.

That said, my mile this morning sucked, even though I set a P.R. for the distance. Two years ago, only six months after joining the competitive running community, I ran it in 6:10, and even at that time I felt I could've done better. Today, on my way back from injury and mildly hungover, I ran it in 6:08. My expectation was more like a sub-5:45, so I'm really disappointed. I have also been coming off a cold this week, so that could've factored in. On the way back on the subway, I had a coughing fit that just wouldn't quit, so that indicated to me that the cold wasn't quite gone yet. I was also late for my heat, so mentally I just wasn't focussed either.

Or maybe my Flyer pal was right. Maybe I just didn't know any better.


As for other things, my watch broke this morning while I was resetting my splits, so now I need to get a new one, which is a bummer. It also made me late for my heat this morning, as I tried to fix it before I left, and got there just about 30 secs after the gun. So I ran with the next age group. The watch thing is even more of a bummer, because I know I'll spend way too much time trying to decide whether I should step up my technology and invest in a HRM-GPS thingy or stick with a basic watch that just records splits. I'm not good with these kinds of decisions.

Also my microwave, which is still under warranty, stopped heating this week, so GE's sending someone by to look at it this week.

nyflygirl's party was a blast, and although I stayed out later than I expected, I also stayed sober enough to keep myself from leaving Manhattan, and eventually made it home in one piece. I saw nyflygirl get carted away, and it was apparent that she definitely enjoyed her transition into a new decade. (Whoa... you're how old now?!)

Easter Sunday

A couple of strange things happened on my run in the park on Sunday. Of course, when you're in the park for that long (23.4 miles takes awhile), something is bound to happen. First, I think some girl was trying to race me, which reminded me of a friend's blog entry a while back. Each time I would just casually pass her, she would suddenly pick up the pace and cut in front of me. I guess she didn't know I was doing "long, slow distance" and so after the fourth time or so I just picked it up and lost her easily.

Second, as I was on my third loop, I realised there was someone running close behind me, so I stepped aside to let him go by. He followed me. So I zigged over to the other side of the rec lane and he did the same, and when I zagged back again, I believe he became aware that I was now onto him... He was drafting me. Coming up to a water fountain when this happened, I stepped off to take a drink, and more importantly, let him pass. When he went by, he waved an gave me a look as if to say, "no harm done, right?" I didn't wave back. When I passed him again a short distance later, he stayed behind.

Now, I've never tried to use anyone for drafting before, and wouldn't without their permission. I also don't see any point of drafting during a training run, because in a training run you're not suppose to be trying to cut back your time by lessening your exertion. If you wanted to do that, just knock a quarter mile off your run. If you're trying to practice drafting on a training run so that you can use it in a race, do it with someone you know, otherwise it's just rude. blah.

And that's my rant for the day.