News from Ironman Canada?

I received this email from NA Sports (owner of Ironman Canada) on Friday evening, sent to my inbox with the subject line reading: "News from Ironman Canada"

Dear Subaru Ironman Canada Entrant,

As many of you may be aware, effective July 1, 2010 British Columbia moved to a harmonized provincial and federal sales tax at a combined rate of 12%.  This has been a controversial and confusing tax change but it is the law and therefore must be collected on all sale of goods and services.  Unfortunately when your entry to the 2011 Subaru Ironman Canada was processed through Active, HST was not collected on the entry fee.  This has recently been brought to our attention and we are obligated to collect that tax.

To that end, the credit card that you used to enter the race will be charged $69, the amount of the HST on the entry fee. We will begin processing the charges on Monday, November 29th and these will be complete by December 10th.   Should you wish to have this charge applied to a different credit card or if the one you used to enter has expired, please contact our athlete services center at admin@nasports.com or 877-377-2373.  We apologize for this error and any inconvenience it may cause.

Ironman Canada Triathlon

First off, seriously? Screw that. This error was made on their behalf, not mine, therefore, is it not my responsibility to now pay that tax. If I bought a TV several months back and the store forgot to charge the HST, they would most certainly not come hunting me down today looking for that money. NA Sports and Ironman are not "obligated" to collect that tax, they are choosing to place that cost on their athletes. Excellent customer service would be for them to man up to their mistake and pay the lost money out of their own money-filled pockets. But I guess it's no surprise that they suck at customer service.

Second, from reading forums about this issue, I learned that they are in fact charging too much since part of the 12% was already collected at registration for GST. At most the HST should be ~$40. In fact, Active now shows that it is charging $644 for this race (I paid $603.75) which you assume is now factoring in the HST... through math, they should only be charging $40.25 to athletes who have already signed up.

Third, this is not about the money (though nearly $700 for one race is absurd), it's about how they are handling it and principle. This was a planned tactic, and one that screws the athletes the most. They send the email the day after Thanksgiving - a holiday weekend when most people are traveling and away from their email. They say they are going to start charging this fee on Monday which means we had ZERO business days to return to our computers, our email and become aware of the situation. They do it at a time when most people are buying the bulk of their holiday gifts (Black Friday & Cyber Monday) in hopes that people will just overlook the charge on their credit card statement. They have the subject line read: "News from Ironman Canada" as if it's no big deal. How about adding in there somewhere about how you are going to be charging my card?! Last, they do not offer any sort of alternative options if we do not want to pay this additional fee. It's their way or what? I have a say in this too, thanks.

Fourth, um - I am pretty sure it is unlawful to retroactively charge a credit card without authorization. Do not TELL ME you will begin the charges on Monday, you ASK ME if you are allowed to charge my card.

With that said, I've written an email telling them they are not authorized to charge my credit card until a full explanation on their calculations and a refund option is provided. I've also asked them to explain to me why they thought it would be a good idea to come back to the customer for this money. Not my error, not my problem. I know it will be a lot of money for them to pay out of pocket but I guess that's the price you pay for your mistakes AND for great customer service.

I am SO over Ironman.

Now I wait on a response (as do so many other athletes) and hopefully before they take the action of charging my card because I will dispute it. I'm so fed up with them and they have no right to treat loyal athletes like they are idiots.

BAM! ...and YAY!

Lunch by the water, anyone?

We were fortunate enough to have ANOTHER warm weekend, nearly 70 degrees on Saturday so Justin and I headed out for our first bike ride since our last tri (not including the trainer). Wanting to take it real easy and enjoy the fine weather (especially because Justin still needs to recover from his marathon), we biked down to Mount Vernon and back, a total of just under 40 miles. We stopped in old town Alexandria for lunch at a creperie and enjoyed some delicious food and apple cider - yum. However, we would have much rather preferred lunch at the picnic table located in the water - too bad we weren't able to make it quiet there, but we tried!

Check out this very cool shot I took of Justin along the route - how great is that tree?

NYC Marathon- Race Report

After much ridicule from Liz, I'm finally writing a new post...

For the last 5 years I've tried to gain entry to the NYC marathon but was never selected in the lottery so instead I watched from the sidelines as Liz and her family each ran. As a spectator, I've seen the incredible crowds on 1st Ave and cheered on runners as they've turned the corner into Central Park but miles 16-26 are all I've seen of the course. So as a 3-time reject, my time was finally here to run.

Heading into race weekend, I was extremely excited to run. Having done a few 70.3's and shorter races this year, I hadn't been this 'pumped' since IMLP last year. All of my long training runs have been done around 8 min miles so I set a 3:30 goal time in NYC. With this in mind, I knew my biggest issue would be holding back for the 1st 13.1 miles.

Race Day:
This was probably the most well organized race I've done. I took the subway from Grand Central to the Staten Island Ferry and hopped on for a 7am take-off. I met up with Joey's friend, Rooney, and tried to gather all the advice I could get from a NYC Marathon veteran. Rooney hooked us up with a ride from Staten Island to the race start and after a quick chat with team continuum, we split off for our respective 'villages'.

Bathroom and coffee lines were short so I took care of business and walked to my start corral at 8:50am for a 9:40 start. As the gun went off, I started with the 3:30 pacer and found a surprising amount of space on the lower level of the bridge. It was windy and cold on the bridge but I held an 8:40 pace for the 1st mile and an 8:05 for mile 2 so I warmed up quickly. The crowds started around mile 6 and were pretty steady throughout. With all of the cheering, I turned off the ipod and concentrated on the cheers and my stride. I was forcing my to stay at an 8 min pace b/c I felt like I could go a lot faster. Even though I felt good, I was pretty surprised by all of the hills and knew they'd eventually take their toll. I was prepared for the verazano, queensboro and the trek into central park but felt like 90% of the course was uphill.

With a steady headwind and all of the uphills, I finally started to slow around mile 14. The smaller uphill in Queens right before the bridge killed me. I struggled to keep running but had dropped to 9:15 min miles and knew the rest of the race would be a battle. Not wanting to show my fatigue, I put on a smile and sped up around mile 16.5 as I knew I'd be seeing Liz, my mom, Joey, and Jen for the 1st time. Their cheers and the overall 1st ave mojo kept me going strong until the Willis bridge in Harlem. Unfortunately, it turned ugly from there. I slowed significantly and started cramping at mile 23. It tooked everything I had not to start walking and if my race crew hadn't been waiting at 24, I probably would have. Getting another boost from them, I was able to finish the last 1.5 miles strong with a final time of 3:37:15.

I missed my goal by 7 minutes but PR'ed by 8. Overall, I am very happy with my time and felt I gave it everything I had. I still believe I have a 3:30 in me and am strongly considering going for it this Spring. In the meantime, I'm trying to recover quickly so I can run the Rosaryville 50k this weekend. Right now, I'm way too sore and wouldn't be able to run but we'll see how I feel on Friday.

A big thanks to everyone that came out to cheer me on, gave me advice, and made it such a great race weekend. Hopefully this will kick start my return to blogging...

Justin ran NYC

On Sunday, November 7, Justin ran the NYC Marathon. He killed it, setting a PR at 3:37:15, good enough to place in the top 24% of his age group, which is so rad. CONGRATS JUSTIN, I'm so happy for you! We got to track him in real time with the sweet athlete tracker Joey put on his ipad (such an improvement from the delayed text messages that usually overflow your phone once the runner has FINISHED the race).

I'll get him to post a race report soon - maybe this will be his official return to the blog? Maybe ;)

In the meantime, here are some pics from race day:

Justin's on the right in the yellow shirt - mile 16.5

Support crew, toughing it out in the cold.

GO JUS GO - mile 24.5, so close!

At the finish - YAY!

With finishers medal :) Now time to get some grub!

Justin's last 20 mile run before NYC!

It was summer time in DC this past weekend (and this entire week, too)! With temps in the mid to upper 70's, we took full advantage of what could be one of our last warm weekends and spent a a lot of time outside. Saturday, Jus and I headed out to the Shenandoah Valley - I wanted to see fall foliage. We drove the Skyline Drive from the most north entrance and completed about 35 miles where we ducked out and drove through farm towns back to DC and did a last minute wine tasting (our first wine tasting ever!). It was a lot of fun! We got a bottle of red wine that will be at it's peak in 2018! That will be stored away until Justin's 36th birthday!!! HA - kinda scary to think about!

The Shenandoah Valley was not as colorful as I thought it would be but the weather man did say that the colors are very muted this year. It was still very pretty though. We stopped at scenic views and did about a two hour hike. Picture is from a stop we made along the drive. It was very quiet and creepy at times at how secluded the trails were. I was freaking out the entire time again about bears because the guide said are in hibernation BUT will come back out on mild days to do some last minute eating. At 73 degrees, I'd say that's a mild day. So of course, I was on edge the entire hike. Fun times!!

Sunday morning was the Army 10 miler (pic above). Lucky for us, the course went right by the street we live on at mile three. We rolled out of bed at 7:40 and made ourselves cozy on the middle medium by 8 to hear the first wave gun go off. 8 minutes later, the first runner came by - that's 4 min/mile pace!!!! 30,000 people run this race which is A LOT but I found it to be pretty cool. We stayed out from the very first to the very last person. The runners were SUPER friendly and were screaming their thanks to us for being out there and cheering them on. It was a fun way to start our Sunday.

After that, Justin did his FINAL 20 mile run - WOOHOO!!! He told me he would write a blog post about it, but look how successfully he was at doing that! I'm telling ya, I'm going to change the name of this blog soon to cut his name out of it! :) Feeling motivated, I decided to try to run 13 miles (or 2 hours, whichever one came first). I've let myself get way too lazy and thought this would be a nice way to shock my body ;) I trailed behind Justin for the first few miles up and through Rockcreek Park and then started slowing my pace down. I don't need to hurt myself. Rockcreek Park is a REALLY nice run. There is a sidewalk throughout the entire park AND one of the roads is closed off completely on weekends to cars so lots of people head out to bike, roller blade, walk, run or just sit by the river and relax. I took some pics, as usual... here they are...

Step AWAY from the Snickers!

Well, it's been just about two weeks since I ran my marathon and I've gotten a total of two workouts in since! I'm on a roll... I was so excited to be in my off-season and I think I took it to the extreme. I'm not thinking twice about it though, as my body needs to enjoy the sugars, fats and utter laziness that it so rarely gets to enjoy. Luckily, Justin has the NYC marathon in a few weeks so he's still sticking to a strict diet, despite my wanting bad foods. So, at least dinners have been healthy. My snacks, however, not so much. Reese's peanut butter cups and snickers! CVS had them on sale -$3 for two bags - who can resist that deal!! Not me. So these bad boys sit in the freezer just waiting to get eaten, which will be soon :)

Today I went for a nice, leisurely run. Nearly 70 degrees with sunshine, it was the perfect day to be outside. I switched between running and walking for about an hour and half - love the workouts where I don't need to pay attention to my watch. Part of my run today was an exploration through Roosevelt Island. This loop was pretty cool as you're on trails the whole time and away from traffic. It's escaping to the "woods" in the middle of a city. Here are some pics I took along the way...

And, just so everyone knows, I successfully registered for the Boston Marathon 2011! Registration opened at 9am on 10/18 and I was on the site ready to sign up right when it opened. I started to panic because the registration page kept refreshing to a empty form whenever I clicked the submit button. Freaking out that I was doing something wrong and wouldn't get in (Justin told me earlier that week that it was expected to fill fast), I headed to Twitter and searched for #BostonMarathon to see what the deal was and if everyone else was having the same issues I was. Turns out, they were. An hour later someone sent out a working link to registration (BAA had a broken redirect due to heavy traffic, apparently) and I got in first try - phew! Just 7 hours later, the marathon filled and registration closed - a record breaking time (last year it took 2 months). It's not a huge surprise, based on the stats showing the rapid growth of marathon runners over the years, but still, no one was truly expecting a one day sell out. As you can imagine, with the major fall marathons having not even happened yet (Marines, NYC, Philly), there are a lot of angry peeps out there that have been training their butts off to get into Boston and now can't. Given the massive backlash BAA has received, I'm pretty sure there will be major changes next year - adjustment of qualifying times, getting rid of some of the charity slots (5,000 slots are held for charity runners), increasing the race size, introducing a lottery system???? All are options (some good, some very bad), I'm interested to see what they decide to do to fix the issue. But, for now, I am thrilled to be registered - this has been a goal of mine since I started running marathons and I can't wait for April 18th!!