Pineland Running Race: My spirit might be broken but I suspect you might feel the wrath of my awesome friends.

I've been mulling my latest post for awhile, mainly because I haven't really known what to say.  I felt much better this week, but my potential hair loss is looming more and more each day.  The tentative date I'm supposed to start losing my hair is this Wednesday, May 29.  So that's been causing more anxiety.  I've been kind of down in general, which has resulted in being bitchy and unfriendly to many strangers.  Sorry, strangers.

Despite some earlier postings about anger, I sort of feel numb to everything this week.  As many of you knew, I was training for a 25k on May 26.  The race was the Pineland Trails Race.  This was the longest race I'd trained for in quite a while, since the SF marathon several years ago.  I was training with my good friend Meghan and we were doing really well in our training.  She was even gracious enough to share running stroller duty when the girls decided they wanted to come along for the ride.  And then I got my news.

Even after I got my diagnosis, I was still determined to run.  But then I had the lymph node surgery and it took longer than anticipated to recover from that, so that postponed the training a bit.  And then I finally got the news that I was in the AC chemo group and wasn't allowed to run any races.  That happened sometime in May, shortly before I got my start date.

The good thing about the race was there was a deferral option, which I was obviously going to need now.  Earlier this week I emailed the Race Director to inquire about deferring.  I realized I was past the deferral date, but I am a firm believer that it doesn't hurt to ask.  Well, here was his response to my request:

Hi Rachele

I'm sorry to hear about your diagnosis. Everything is backed into the system already and we have printed a bib with your name on it. Unless you bought the Refund Option we can't issue a refund.

Cheers
Erik Boucher

So much there to be pissed about.  What does the bib have to do with the deferral?  Why does he reference the refund option?  I wasn't asking for a refund.  Overall, I was a bit stunned by the response.  Additionally, I didn't sign up for the Refund Option because I didn't know I had cancer when I signed up for this thing.  I felt a little angry, but I sort of moved on and didn't bother to respond back.  The "Cheers" at the end also pissed me off but I sort of forgot about it.

I was telling some friends about this over this past weekend and they got outraged for me.  Today I channeled their outrage and posted on the website's FB page.  A few FB friends posted their support in response to my sport and I was starting to get excited about sticking it to the Race people.  But as the day passed and tomorrow's next chemo round loomed, I felt my resolve dying again, which sort of bummed me out.  Thankfully, writing this blog entry has filled the the fire in my belly again, so I'm passing along some information if you'd like to express your own outrage.  There are several places you could do so:

1. Start with Erik, the Race Director.  Race Director has a very "I'm in charge" sounding title, so I'm not sure this will actually get escalated to anybody above him, but his mobile (as posted on the race site website) is 207-210-8655 and his email is erik@justgiddyup.com  if you'd like to share your thoughts on his email to me.
2. As I just mentioned, I was hoping to find somebody above him, thus the reason I posted on the FB page, but who knows who this page is monitored by. I have little faith this will result in something.
3. Event sponsors may also be worth reaching out to.  The event has the following sponsors listed:
1.  Merrell
2. Shipyard Brewing Company
3. Maine Running Company
4. Portland Pie Company
5. Fox 23 (did think about reaching out to them, who isn't looking for a story?)
6. Others are listed here.

I was also planning on finding some sort of "Cancer survivors who run" groups and spread the word.  I have no doubt they are out there, and if they're not, I'll start one myself when this whole mess is over.

The old me would have been all over this like a bull dog. I could tell many a story of how I stood up for myself when I was wronged and got what I wanted in the end.  It was a trait that could annoy the hell of our people but it was actually something I took pride in.  The current me feels this is kind of petty but also misses the old me and wishes she could muster the energy to fight back.  Well, this has been an upbeat post, no?  Anyway, since I'm having a pity party, if anybody wants to speak up, I'd appreciate it.