A Costly Half Marathon

In all fairness, I signed up for the Nike Women’s Half Marathon again this year because I was excited to run in it. The Tiffany necklace was also an added bonus. It turned out to be one of the more expensive necklaces I have in my jewelry box, both in emotional and actual costs.

Training surprisingly wasn’t as difficult this time around, as I didn’t have the fear of the unknown. I just kept my eye on the prize and worked backwards from the date. However it would have been helpful if I remembered the actual date. While I knew the race was in October, I temporarily forgot what weekend it was and accidentally booked a girls trip to the OC for the same weekend. Good thing Jet Blue change fees haven’t increased as much as some of the other airlines.

With the flight rebooked, the outfit picked out (yes, I needed a new one for this year´s photos) and the big run of 10 miles behind me, I was finally ready for the weekend! I was even so relaxed I decided to head up to Ukiah with Martin to see Dana, Ray and Cassidy and pick out Halloween pumpkins. The day was perfect: a nice long lunch, afternoon stroll through the pumpkin patch (where Cassidy picked out her own pumpkin) and a few treats back at the Geimer house before heading home.

It wasn’t until Hopland that things turned sour. My ever so reliable Volvo started to make a weird noise and it got worse when the wheel was turned. We made it to Cloverdale (approximately 100 miles from SF) before pulling over to a gas station for another look. What we found didn’t seem too bad…just a minor leak of some fluid under the car. A travelling mechanic saw us looking, offered to take a look himself and thought otherwise. It turned out that our power steering fluid was leaking, he couldn’t reach the leak to fix it and the car was unsafe to drive….or in his words, the car could start on fire at any moment. We would need a tow to the nearest Volvo dealership…in Santa Rosa, 40 miles away.

We thanked and paid the guy for his help and set out to finding a tow truck. Did I mention that my Blackberry was starting to die and I no longer had access to internet? Finding a tow truck company without internet is no fun. It involves a phone book and 411. On top of that I had to find a rental car to get us from Santa Rosa to San Francisco in time for the race.

The tow truck showed up before I could track down a rental car so I turned to the next solution. While Martin and I were perched in the front seat of the tow truck, I had Dana look online to try to find a rental car company that was still open on a Saturday after 5pm (only 1 in all of Santa Rosa) and that had cars available (that would be none). Dana was able to find a bus from the Santa Rosa airport to SFO, so that was where we were headed.

Us in the front seat of the tow truck...our dead volvo behind us.

The tow truck driver dropped us off at Departures and continued on to the dealership with our defunct car. But we were far from departing…the next bus wasn’t until 8pm and we wouldn’t get to SFO until 10:30 that night. So I got back on the phone with Dana to start researching cab companies and town cars. We found the cheapest option available and waited in the airport bar for our town car, eating a carbo load pre-race dinner. The town car showed up at 8pm, with a bottle of champagne and we were home and in bed by 9:30pm.

Dinner

All in, the necklace I earned as I crossed the finish line the next morning cost me a flight change fee, a mechanics opinion, a tow truck 40 miles and a town car from Santa Rosa to San Francisco. Any other weekend and Martin and I would have been wine tasting while waiting for the car to be fixed…But in the end it was so worth it.

And while I told Martin shortly after finishing that I was done done with running, I think I might have to sign up again next year!