Hole? I didn't see any hole!

Wow, was the first part of work hectic last week......Most of this I posted on twitter so it may be boring and redundant for a few, it's definitely redundant for me but in hindsight it's quite funny.

First off with James' mom, we both for all intents and purposes have a 2nd full-time job each with having to do the stuff that needs to be done with her. But that's just the way it is for the time being. James was apologizing to me last week about putting this on me but hey, we're married and it's family stuff. It wouldn't be quite fair of me (or make me much of a person) if I left it all to him and refused to pull my share. We are adjusting but all three of us are very stressed. She doesn't need 24 hour care, just someone to make sure she eats her meals and sits with her a bit. James and her had a bit of a "discussion" last week about her refusal to change clothes every day and a few other things which resulted in her telling James he was just oppressing her. When I made it home Friday morning, first thing she wanted to do was to start complaining about James being so mean. I flat out told her that it was hard on everybody especially James since he's so used to her being a self-sufficient person that used to not want to be babied. I'm not going to tolerate her bad-mouthing him just because she used to change his diaper and doesn't want to listen to him now. His mother or not, he's my hubby and best friend and I'm not going to go along with that. And enough of that for the time being :).

My comedy of errors last week started with me locking my keys in the house Monday afternoon. No sooner had I shut the door behind me that I realized my mistake. Fortunately, I already had everything packed up including Elsie and had my purse and phone in hand. Called James in full-on panic mode begging him to tell me please that he'd replaced the hidden key on the pickup, LOL. He had and I had my big truck key separate so no problems there. Just wouldn't be able to get back into my own house until he got home, grr.

Next up was hooking up to my trailer and discovering a marker light burnt out, pulled around to trailer shop and mechanic discovered a hole in the roof of the trailer that he patched. This particular load of racks are stackable with sharp pointed ends on all four corners and the forklift drivers quite frequently lift them too high and poke a hole in the roof from the inside. Anyway, marker light replaced and that hole patched in record time. They are still treating me with kid gloves since the tire issue so I'm taking full advantage of that while it lasts to get my trailers worked on quickly, LOL!

Next morning, I'm sleeping sooooo good when I get a phone call from my dispatcher at 0630 telling me that my reload had cancelled and to deadhead up to Mt. Juliet once I was empty. No prob, right? yeah, not so fast....Pulaski has their panties in a wad over who knows what so it takes almost 2 hours to pull 20 racks off that are double-stacked, 10 times in and out of trailer. Should have taken 15 minutes.....In the process, one of the forklift drivers pokes a huge hole in the roof and then doesn't bother to tell me so I can try and patch it while in the dock. Pull out and discover the hole so have to walk back in, ask if I can back into the dock again and use their ladder to reach the roof. At this point the lift driver starts hollering about what hole, I didn't see any hole, I didn't do that.... yeah right, no big deal just wish she would have owned up to it in the beginning.

Well, I just thought it was no big deal initially. Get on the ladder while water is pouring in on me (yes, it was that large of a hole!) and discover that it can't be taped off because it's right on the edge next to and underneath some metal reinforcement strips. So soaking wet and pretty well peeved made the call to road rescue to figure out where it can be patched which ends up being at Fleetco in Nashville. Crap, going to be late for the Mt. Juliet stop.

Get to Fleetco, they recognize me from the other times I've dropped and pick up trailers so have me drop the current trailer in their very cramped lot and pick up a "repaired" one. By the way, they were allowing the other drivers coming in to drop their trailers in the drive so the yard driver could move them. Moral of the story, don't let people know you can actually back up without hitting something! LOL!!!

Finally arrive at Mt. Juliet 10 minutes late (all this was done in Nashville rush hour traffic, yuck) and discover what the other trailer was in the shop for. The door tie-back on the side of the trailer had been broken off and when the shop replaced it they placed the new tie-back 1.5 inches back from where the old one had been and didn't add a link to the chain so the door could be latched open, grrr. I'm now scrambling around in the rain trying to find a bungee or strap that would hold it back and I can't get into my big toolbox behind my sleeper because my key to the padlock securing it is in Arkansas in my house.......Oh yeah, I'm having fun......

Next trailer that I picked up at M.J. has a marker light out on the nose of the left corner. No way I can reach it, I'm not going to make it back to the company shop before it closes and I certainly don't want to spend several hours waiting on a truck stop shop to repair it. Solution--call James and he agrees to meet me at our yard in NLR with our ladder and replace it. Yay James! My hero :).

Fast forward a few hours, I meet James and he starts dragging out his tools and such to replace the light and boom, we're surrounded by other drivers wanting stuff done. First one, drives around and starts yelling from his driver's seat "Hey, you! Are you here to repair stuff? Hey, you!" He's being ignored because it irritates the hell out of us when other drivers' won't get out from behind the wheel to talk to you. The next one comes up and starts saying something about being surprised that James wasn't opening up the shop to do the repair and telling us what all was wrong with his truck and trailer. The assumption was that James was one of the mechanics and we weren't saying anything to dissuade that notion. Kept waiting for one of them to say something about why was I able to get work done after hours and they couldn't. I was going to tell them it helps when you sleep with the mechanic just to see the look on their faces. James got a huge laugh out of that and told me he was glad I didn't get to use the line 'cause he might have gotten propositioned by one of them.

I also had a few nagging issues with the trailer I picked up in Laredo but it was stuff that I could deal with myself, just irritating having to crawl around under the nasty things :).

On the running side of things, everything went ok. Stopped at Hurricane Mills Tuesday afternoon since I wasn't going to make it to NLR before they went home anyway. Had a great 5.08 miles in 45:51. Evidently karma was trying to make up for the crappy morning because when I stopped to run the rain dried up until after I was done. No kidding, it was literally pouring 5 miles prior to the stop, then left out and the skies opened up again. How cool was it that Mother Nature was showing me some love? My only issue is that I'd hurt my 2nd toe on the left foot by catching the base of it on a rock at the Chile Pepper cross country 10k and running on the dirt road aggravated it. That toe is a bit swollen still.

Wednesday was a 4.21 mile run at Prescott in 39:22. Another excellent run. Rare sunny morning (it didn't last long though).

Thursday--rest day

Friday--6 very long miles on the treadmill in 55:28 because it was raining and flooding that morning

Saturday--Rode with the local bike shop Saturday morning ride. Took my mountain bike because I knew the roads and trails were going to be nasty. Awesome ride and I haven't lost all my cycling fitnss just most of it, lol! Just over 15 miles. Tried to get out and run that afternoon for 4-5 miles but my tummy was acting up so only managed 2.38 miles.

Sunday--Finally a decent night's sleep!!! I was having trouble getting motivated to get out the door but once I did, oh wow, great run........Did have to make an emergency pitstop at a bathroom but it was just the once. The funny thing is that I had my first ever running face plant this morning! Was cutting through a field and some root reached out and grabbed my foot.......had a couple of witnesses too (of course!). I'm ok, left ankle has a small cut and is bruised a bit but nothing major.

On other stuff, my friend Alyson bought me the cutest t-shirt as a marathon gift!!! Bottom of the shirt reads "Running. I do that." and has a very cool marathon cartoon on it. Soooo cute and she's such a sweetie. I'm taking it with me to wear after the marathon Saturday! Hope to get back to the Sunday training rides with her later this month if the weather will cooperate.

I feel like I'm missing something.....Oh well, if I remember it later I'll do another post.

Oh yeah, my first marathon is in 6 days!!!!!!!!!!!!! I asked for songs to add to my running playlist from TWB and Little Trucker but if anybody else has any suggestions please let me know. My reasoning is that when that song comes on I'll think about the person who suggested it, thus giving me something to concentrate on other than the 26.2 miles.