Showing posts with label damage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label damage. Show all posts

Saturday, February 27, 2016

Attacked on my run

Ruff running
Today's run (street): 4.25 miles
Yesterday's run (street): 3.2 miles
Thursday's workout (elliptical): 30 minutes

This is not the post I expected to write today. I thought my theme would relate to our experience having dim sum with Runsketeer KWL this morning, or how much difficulty I had during yesterday's run. Instead, I'm going to talk about the curious incident of the dog in the run-time.

Earlier in the day, the Emerging Runner family got together with our buddy KWL for a delicious (and filling) meal at a cool place in Flushing, Queens. Dim sum (per Wikipedia) is a style of Cantonese cuisine prepared as small bite-sized portions of food traditionally served in small steamer baskets or on small plates. We had a great time, tried a lot of new foods and didn't need to eat again for the rest of the day.

Dim sum central
Our schedule was tight this morning and I wasn't able to run before we met up with KWL. Although I prefer running early, I was left no choice but to go out later in the day. As I'd mentioned above, Friday's run was tough. It was a combination of end of week fatigue, 19 MPH winds and real feel of 20°. Today was nine degrees warmer and the winds were somewhat less intense and I got off to a good start.

My goal today was to cover 3-4 miles depending on how I felt. I was inspired by something I'd read in Runner's World that suggested running your usual route backwards to keep things interesting, I did that for the first half and then settled back to my usual direction. It was shortly after I'd passed my third mile that I encountered my attacker.

There were a number of people walking dogs this afternoon and I saw group about a hundred feet ahead of me. As I got closer I realized they had two dogs, one small and the other a large standard poodle. They were walking with traffic on the right side of the road, on the same side as me. As I passed them by, the poodle jumped towards me and, although I shifted to the right, the dog managed to clamp its jaws on my left forearm.

Fortunately, I was wearing my ASICS running jacket that prevented the dog's teeth from breaking my skin. I pulled my arm away and yelled, "your dog just bit me!" The owner said "Sorry" and I went on my way, thinking that it was nothing more than a scare. About a quarter mile further I turned my arm and saw that the dog had ripped a big hole in my sleeve.

I was mad and decided to retrace my route in hopes of intercepting the dog's owner down the road. I really liked that jacket and I wanted these people to be accountable for the damage. The group wasn't where I expected them to be, and I kept running until I caught them on a connecting street.

Dog bite timeline
I was upset and told the guy that he owed me for damaging the jacket. He said, "Absolutely" and offered to pay, saying he'd bring me a check by that night. And he did! So now I get to buy another running jacket and that makes getting chomped by a giant poodle totally worth it.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

The Sole's last laugh

Kicked to the curb
We all know that what goes up must come down. That goes for our old treadmill and it didn't go without a fight. The good news is that our new treadmill was delivered tonight. That was the easy part. The hard part was getting the old Sole down the stairs and out the door.

The two guys who came to assemble our new Freemotion 850 agreed to remove the Sole and carry it to the curb. We were happy about that, because there was no way we could have done it ourselves. I was excited to be just minutes away from having a working treadmill and getting rid of a bad memory. The guys got the old machine out of the guestroom fairly quickly. Then the trouble began.

It was pretty tough to watch. Our hand-built wooden stair rail took a lot of abuse, but it held up well. The other side didn't fare as well. The rollers on the tread bed punched through the drywall leaving a couple of rectangular holes that will need to be patched and painted. It could have been worse, but it wasn't good.

New and improved
The guys set up the new treadmill and called us upstairs. At first I was taken aback by the size of the machine. The Freemotion's console stands half a foot taller than the Sole's and the frame is at least three inches longer. It's a substantial machine that (when you're standing on it) feels a little like a fitness center treadmill.

I ran on the new treadmill for a minute to make sure it worked. I'll wait until I do a real run before sharing my impression, but I will say, so far, so good.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Hurricane damage assessment run

Yesterday's run (street): 3.5 miles

Hurricane Sandy has left most of Long Island a mess. Our neighborhood sustained a lot of damage.Yesterday, I went out for a run for the first time since Sunday and saw the damage up close. A number of roads are blocked by safety tape due to fallen trees or power lines. We, like hundreds of other families in the neighborhood, still have no power and it's not likely that we'll get it back until next week.

My run was interesting because of what I saw, but the run itself, in terms of performance, was not very good.  Without the ability to charge my Garmin, I used my old FR60 as a stopwatch and timed my run which I was able to Gmap at 3.5 miles. I'm hoping to get out for a run today but I'm working remotely and today is (unsurprisingly) busy.

We're planning to stay with my in-laws tomorrow so we'll get to enjoy hot showers, access the Internet and not worry about draining cellphone batteries. This is very much like what we experienced last year with Irene. That took far longer to resolve than we ever expected. Hopefully, LIPA will surprise us and restore our power before we overstay our welcome.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Involuntary phone slaughter

How not to clean your phone
Today's run (street): 5.25 miles

I thought my story for today's run would be how I covered 5.25 miles at a pace that handily beat my expectations. But it turned out that the real surprise was discovering I was still wearing my SPIbelt when I jumped into the pool following that run. I had carefully removed my Garmin and Road ID before hitting the water, but I'd forgotten about the SPIbelt and the contents within.

SPIbelt - definitely not waterproof
The great thing about the SPIbelt is that you literally forget that you have it on. I've discovered a number of times that I was still wearing it, even after returning my other running gear to storage. While in the pool, I'd re-checked the pockets of my running pants, thinking I might have forgotten to remove something. It occurred to me (too late) that I was still wearing my SPIbelt that contained my LG VX8300 "running" phone.

I noticed that my phone was vibrating in the SPIbelt pouch when I brought it to the surface. I'm not sure why it was vibrating, but I knew it wasn't good. I tossed the belt and phone on the deck and finished my swim.

I've kept that phone for almost eight years, using it primarily as a backup to my smartphone. It's been great to carry on runs because it's compact and light. I hope Verizon offers a similar model because I don't think this phone is coming back.

Hours after I pulled it out of the water, the phone is still not working. I'll give it a day to dry out and I'll try it again to see if it comes back to life. In the meantime, I'm happy that I was able to get out for a decent run on such a hot and humid morning. It may have cost me my phone, but perhaps it's time for a change. I did learn an important lesson that I won't soon forget: Look before you leap!
 

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