Same. My worst story was in Madrid with this stuff. So maybe it's the Spaniards? Flavio would love to hear some of your stories as our international travel man.

Story #1 - I went to Argentina on my second backpacking trip. I had read online about some of the scams they tried to apply to one.

One very famous scam was that the driver would tell you they need to exchange old bank notes with newer ones. So when you offered to pay a ride with 10 pesos, they would ask if you instead had 100 pesos, because it was easier for them to exchange the bigger notes.

In turn they'd give you back your change (in counterfeit money).

I jumped on a Taxi at Ezeiza airport towards downtown. About 10 minutes into the ride the driver asks me if I intend to pay with a small note. I state that I only have small denominations, so after a back and forth he says I need to pay with bigger notes and I ask him to stop and promptly jump out of the car by a big road.

Not far behind comes another taxi I hail that one and jump in. This one had even less patience and was asking me about the banknotes 4 minutes in. Knowing I'd have to jump out I started making conversation and buying time. After a little while he was fed up, I asked him to stop and jumped out yet again.

By now I was already close to downtown, so I approached a couple of police officers and asked them directions to my hostel. It turns out I only needed to walk about 10 minutes.

That was a glorious day as I took 2 free rides from scammer taxi drivers.

Story #2 - The president of Turkey banned Uber in Turkey 3 days before our arrival. We were able to figure out a bus transport that would take us to taksim square downtown. However we still needed to make the way to the old town. Days later we figured that it was not really far, but on the first day it was already after dark and we were concerned about walking around for security reasons.

At first I tried to find some wi-fi around but there was none available. So we were forced to use a taxi.

I had researched beforehand how much the ride should be, around 18 to 20 liras.

So we're making conversation with the driver and there's this flat portion of the road where the driver accelerates a bit.

And I notice that suddenly the taximeter went from 8 liras to 72 liras. Later I found out they have some sort of accelerometer that he can press with his hand that makes the taximeter go much faster.

So we arrive at the destination and the ride costs 80 lira. I tell him that I know the real price is 20 and that's how much I'm going to pay.

He retorts back that in that case he's taking us to a police station.

I know he's a scammer, so I first ask my wife to leave the car. Since we only travel with carry-on this was relatively simple.

Knowing that she was safe I opened my door and placed one foot outside. Then handed over a 20 lira bill to him and walked out.

My wife was concerned that he knew our destination but I figured that he's a scammer and he'll be better spending his time on his next victim.

Cal—outstanding performance! You smoked it!!

Unexpected finish of the week - ran Santa Rosa marathon, was 1:29:59 at the 13.1 mark and finished at 2:59:13.

Outstanding!  BIG congrats!

Cal- Wow!  amazing performance.

 

I have zero expectations of sleeping in the van. I can’t sleep in moving vehicles under the best of circumstances. We’ll have two ~4 hr breaks when the other van is running. They’ll be roughly 10pm-2am and 6-10am. Those exchange areas have some kind of big open fields where people can lie down. That’s my only hope of catching any shuteye. But I am generally a shitty sleeper even in a comfy bed, so I’m not too optimistic of anything more than some brief dozing.

This is why the 3rd run is the hardest. Little to no sleep, sitting for long periods of time, and weather can be garbage.

Cinnamon I have a ROUGH idea of where you're at. Nice area if you like to grow plants and flowers. I grew up many hours South of you. Also, I prefer relays as ultra teams because it is less to deal with. I DO appreciate how much easier it is to go from an ultra to a non-ultra as just a runner. It's half as much work with twice as much rest.

JMac you've done a Ragnar? I'm actually shocked. I didn't think it would be your thing. The camping ones are logistically MUCH easier than the road traveling ones. 3 loops, everyone does the same one, and you can estimate when you'd return. I did my first and the team I joined was just about equally skilled AND had done this before so they had hand offs figured out. Much better than "When I finish I'll come wake up the next runner."

Ian races in my town are few and far between. We have one RD who pretty much took on ALL of the races except a few charity ones. I've done most of them, have favorites, and just "meh" at some of them now. Covid killed a race group I really liked. They actually had a multi hour event I almost wish would come back.

Cal congratulations. I hope the marathon brings some positivity to your life. Lots of work went into this.

My week will get posted later. Apparently I'm WAAAAAAAY behind.

Weekly for period: From: 08/22/2022 To 08/28/2022

Total distance: 64.23mi

58 miles running. No hard running. Just had a rough week (friday - wednesday) at work, and on Thursday I made up for it after swimming lessons. 

 

 

Flavio - Impressive avoidance of being scammed.  When I was young and naïve, I was in Singapore for a work trip.  One night I headed out and was going to a strip of bars a friend from uni had told me about.  I mentioned to the taxi driver I was going where the girls are..."you like girls?  I take you to girls".  Turns off the meter and, in hindsight very predictably, took me to the red light district where he seemed to know quite a few people/pimps.  They were approaching me quite aggressively and I seriously thought I was going to die.  We walk past one place and he says "just look in there" so I went into the lobby, and found a full on orgy occurring.  Yes I was single, but this wasn't what I meant when I said I was going to a bar...I convinced him to get me out of there, and ended up paying quite a high fare but I was still alive.  I went back to the hotel bar and relayed to my boss what had happened, so I got a good story out of it.

 

When my wife and I first visited Thailand we initially stopped off at Bangkok. We had been enjoying a few drinks and then this guy excitedly taps me on the shoulder saying PING PONG!…and ushered us to follow him…I naively thought it must be some table tennis tournament.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we ended up watching a strip show in a boxing ring…front row seats whilst both getting a neck/back massage by a couple of beautiful Thai ladies. A vacation doesn’t get much better than that. 

Dave well done! fyi ultra = less time in the van!   I hope you had a fun time overall now looking back at it. But yes, as a 'regular' team it feels like a lot of messing around, yet doing nothing, only for a few short runs. Sounds like you'll recover quickly. How did your team place?

RP: Humboldt Co ❤️

Keen - solid as per usual! I figure I can do two quality runs a week and just fit them in on my days off.

Ian -  👍

mmerkle - re: the stiffness for the tempo maybe you needed more than 1 mile w/u before hitting faster paces? Or is 1 mi all you usually need/do?

Mark - yes I agree 800s are so good. so versatile. I like 400s too, but that means you have to do a shit ton of them. Easier just to combine them into 800s and do half as much. 

Cinnamon: my team was in the Men’s Super Masters division, based on all runners aged 50+. (Team name: Masters of the Universe.) Although average age was >60; I’m 57 and I think there were only two guys younger than me. and at least a few were >65. (It’s funny though, you never get to know the people in the other van, I couldn’t even name them all.) They’ve won the division the last 3 straight years. But there were a few guys sick or injured; overall average pace slowed from  7:14 last year to 7:28 this year, and we took 3rd. They can’t blame the new guy!