Security Alert

I didn't realize I didn't post at all last week.  I guess I haven't had a lot to say lately. 

After my 8 miles on December 3rd, I felt on top of the world.  I was so happy I was still able to run 8 miles that I thought it would be a piece of cake to finish the year with a half marathon.  Well, last week (December 10th) I decided to run 10 miles, then this week 11 or 12 and I'd "taper" (is one week a taper?) Christmas week. 

I went out for my run on the 10th late.  We had a lot of shopping to do, Christmas and grocery shopping, then we took Maddox to go see Santa at the mall.  They were having a big event at the mall with a bunch of activities that were all free.  Unfortunately we couldn't enjoy most of them because Damian had to work at 4pm and because of the shopping beforehand we didn't get there till after noon.  Maddox did go play in a big pile of snow that they had trucked in from the mountains.

He's in the orange coat with his back to me.

And Damian wanted to do a rock climbing thing.  Poor Damian, it was not really meant to be a hard thing, and he was up in 5 seconds and flying back down. 

Maddox also went partway up (he's on the wall in the second picture) but he looked down and got scared and came down right away. 

After we got home, I went for my run.  I had been on my feet the entire day, they were sore, and my knee was a little achey, but I decided I needed to run no matter what.  Unfortunately I didn't think about the precautions I had done the week before, walking at every mile mark and down every hill, and my knee started bothering me pretty early in the run.  I already didn't want to be running, it was getting dark, I had been on my feet all day, I was tired, so I ended up cutting it short.  I only did 7 and a half miles.  I figured I could easily run 10 miles the next weekend and still be fine for the half marathon on the 31st. 

It was a beautiful run though.

I only ran once during the work week last week.  I haven't wanted to run after work in the dark, and I only had one opportunity to run on my lunch break at work. 

On Saturday I wasn't sure how far I wanted to run.  I needed to go to the store during my run to get some meds for Chris.  The store he gets his meds at is only about a mile from my house, so I figured it'd be super easy to stop and I wouldn't have to carry them far.  Well, I was about a quarter of a mile from home when I hit 4 and a half miles, I knew I wasn't going to get to 5 miles, so I decided to stop my tracking and call it good.  I had my phone in the pocket in my arm along with my license and debit card, both in a sleeve (the same sleeve).  I pulled my phone out and stopped MapMyRun, the app I use for tracking, and put my phone back in the pocket and walked home. 

Sunday we went grocery shopping and finished up our Christmas shopping.  Chris used his card for our grocery shopping, but when we were getting Damian's present I noticed that I forgot to put my debit card back in my wallet. 

We were headed home when I looked at my phone and noticed I had 2 emails from the bank.  I get notifications all the time from the bank and I usually ignore them because I keep pretty good track on what's in there (usually nothing).  Well, this time right before I hit delete I noticed both of the emails said "Security Alert: Unusual Debit Card Activity."  I clicked on one of the emails and it said they had detected unusual activity on my card and I needed to call them right away or my card would be suspended.  There are definite times that I would ignore this type of email and send it to spam, but since I had forgotten to put my card in my wallet I decided to call them.  Plus, I figured if they asked me for any numbers I would refuse to give it to them and would hang up.

Turns out that it wasn't spam email.  I had 3 transactions from Walmart and 2 from some gas station I've never heard of.  All of the transactions had been denied except one at Walmart.  It took me awhile before I remembered if I had spent it or not, we do go to Walmart regularly, but I didn't remember going at all the day before and we hadn't been there on Sunday, so I told them that it must have been taken.  And then I remembered my run, and realized it must have fallen out of my arm pocket in between the store and home. 

It bothered me for awhile trying to remember when I took my phone out of the pocket after going to the store.  I was thinking the only time I took it out was when I got home, so I was upset that someone that I knew on my quiet street would pick it up and then attempt to use my debit card.  It really was a little while before I remembered I took my phone out on a fairly busy street to stop my tracking app while walking home and it must have fallen out there. 

It is interesting how they detect the fraud.  I go to Walmart regularly, so it's not like it would be an unusual place, and they attempted to spend $100, $50, and succeeding in spending $67 and some change.  It was also denied at the gas station two times, both purchases around a dollar each.  None of these purchases are ridiculously large or unusual for me to spend, so I wonder how they knew it wasn't me.  Anyway, I'm thankful it was caught before they were able to spend a ridiculous amount of money that I don't have.  They stopped the $150, but allowed the $67, so I have to wait up to 90 days to get that money back, which sucks, but not as bad as $217 would suck.

Anyway, after the mystery of the debit card was solved I went for my 10 mile run.  And right away, in the first 2 miles, my knee started aching.  I did remember to walk at every mile point and walk down all hills, but it was still not feeling great.  It's not the pulled muscle pain that I had a few weeks ago, this is the same pain I had after my marathon (Google describes it as "runner's knee" which is caused by a weak butt and hips). 

Immediately after my run it hurt a lot, and for the rest of the evening.  I iced it and am taking ibuprofen, but I'm discouraged that it is back.  Today it's been pretty painful.  I will take it easy for the next few weeks, but will continue to run a little.  The half marathon I have to do is December 31st, so I have 2 weeks, and then I can work on getting better.  I am expecting this will be my slowest half ever, I'll be lucky if I finish in 2 and a half hours.  My slowest half was this year, the San Juan Half Marathon that I finished in 2.09.26, but I think I did pretty good for that one as it was all hills.  I'm not expecting to do that good for this particular half, but I have to finish it.

That is what I keep telling myself, get through this last half, and I can rest and recover. And train for another half in February.

I've had some ideas for some goals for 2018, but as this is a pretty long post, I will type it up another day.