I tried to go out for a run on Tuesday, 10 days after the Monumental Half. I had gone the whole 10 days wearing an Ace bandage or Zensah compression sleeve. I had bought “The Stick” and tennis balls and a foam roller and used them all. I had used the rowing machine and stationary bike at the gym. No running at all for 10 days. The pain had gone away.
I got about a mile from home and had to call it quits when the pain kicked back in. I walked back home in defeat.
I made an appointment with the doc for Wednesday. He took an x-ray and said my bones looked fine. He told me that I have an overuse injury – shin splints. And my arches looked flat, which wasn’t helping matters any. He gave me a prescription for Mobic and physical therapy. Mobic is an NSAID, I guess similar to Advil. We figure that’s really what I had going on back in August and it never really fully healed. Sigh.
The first therapy appointment is Friday. My insurance will cover up to 20 sessions, which is good because the doc prescribed 3x a week for 3 – 4 weeks. And no running for four weeks!
I specifically asked him about running my next half marathon on December 5, 2010, the Rock N Roll Half Marathon in Las Vegas. He told me that I’d probably get out there and it’d flare right back up and I’d be limping the whole way and starting the recovery process all over again. Boooo!
To add insult to injury, Rock N Roll charged me $145 to register for that race. To rub salt in that wound, the absolutely REFUSE to help me out. No transfer, no deferring, no refund, NOTHING. Basically, if I can’t race I’ve given them a $145 donation. I’m not quite sure how they are able to rationalize that, and they didn’t respond to my inquiry. It’s pretty ridiculous if you ask me. I gave them money so that I could run a race. I can’t run the race, so I should get the money back. I was trained, had my flight and hotel ready, time off work, etc. I wasn’t lazy or forgetful. It wouldn’t be healthy for me to race, so why would they want me out there on that race course getting in the way of the other runners and unnecessarily burdening the medical staff?
Why wouldn’t they want to at least refund me part of the money so I wouldn’t have such a sour taste in my mouth? I sure won’t be doing any future business with the Competitor organization in the future. I’m surprised that a customer-centric company like Zappos, the title sponsor of the race, has aligned themselves with such an uncaring and mean spirited company like Competitor. Zappos bends over backwards to make customer happy. Competitor does what they can to screw over people.
And, actually, this whole experience really sours me on making travel plans based on races in the future. And probably registering too far in advance period. I’ll probably keep registering for the 500 Festival Mini Marathon months ahead of time, but I think I’ll wait till the last minute in the future for everything else. Why risk it when the race organizers just spit in your face when you can’t make it?