Fixing A Broke-down Car: Manly or Stupidity

I have had my fair number of break downs with regard to vehicles throughout my life.  May it have been riding with my folks home on the SLEX in the middle of night.  With my mom because of a wrong turn and as she put it, if I remember right, "a totally unthought of island" in Greenhills.  Or more recently running out of gas with my grandparents in the back seat, twice!  

I know the last one takes the cake and immediately gets categorized stupid but let me at least talk about the other two  and how we got out of those situations then let me defend myself.

So okay, first the SLEX breakdown.  This must have happened a little over 18 years ago because this is one of my oldest memories ever.  

We were coming back from a resort south of Manila I am guessing, either in Batangas or Tagaytay, when this happened but what I am sure of is that I suddenly woke up from sleeping in the back seat because we hit something.  

Trying to recall the scene after all this time is quite daunting so I am just gonna say it was dark, cars were zipping past, we did not actually hit a car but got caught up on a large piece of concrete debris that sort of stuck up our black Pajero.  I remember we could not drive off of it and we were stranded far from home.  

My dad's fix was to call the driver or someone I do not remember and have him bring the other car out to where we were so we could go home and they could deal with the problem.  So that's what happened it was his way of fixing the problem which I figured at the time quite cool cause it was like he could call someone in the middle of the night to fix his problem, back then that is.  Now I am more of a believer of digging your own way out, easy fix or not.

Next my mom's incident with an island.  This must have been closer to around 16 years ago cause I remember my dad was out of town and we could not call on him to help when it happened.  

After a late night grocery at Greenhills me and mom were headed home when she wanted to take the faster way home because of the Ortigas traffic.  So she took a left rather than our typical right and wouldn't you know it we jumped a small island and got our left rear wheel caught between an island and well air cause we were propped up.  What is worse is that some how the tire popped, it was flat and I mean you could see it hanging on the rim sort of.  

Imagine me a 7 year old at the time trying to help my mom figure this all out.  That was not going to happen, so here is my mom trying to call someone on her Smart phone (the size of a shoe) when three guys approach us offering assistance.

Oh to my mom's relief the three of them were engineering students living on Anapolis and willing to lend a hand in changing the wheel and driving our Corolla of the island.  So we did not keep them for long and after all that, my mom forever dubbed them her three musketeers for coming to our aid at our time of need.  So much so that I remember we dropped of christmas baskets at their condo for at least 2 holiday seasons.

Now we get to more recent breakdowns, I am proud to say that in my short history of driving which is just under three years I have not had any major breakdowns with regard to any accident of the sort with any of the cars I have driven.  Though I am ashamed to say it I have broken down because I have ran out gas twice with our family Innova, both occasions while driving my grandparents to sunday lunch.  

The first time was in the first year of my driving and our Innova konked out on me 100 meters short of the gas station I was hoping to gas up at because I thought it would last, in my defense at this time the gas gauge WAS REALLY BROKEN and everyone who drove it could attest to that.

So I had to walk to the gas station, fill up a 1.5 liter coke bottle with diesel (first time i saw the color of gas, it looks like piss which was weird) and I brought the mechanic back with me because I did not know how to manually pump the gas back into the engine.  After about 30 minutes of walking, pumping, and gunning the engine we got back on track and made it to sunday lunch with time to spare.  Yet it was still pretty embarrassing and ended up being the talk of the weekend.  

The second time was last year but luckily the Innova died just as I pulled up to have it gassed, I would like to blame another family member for driving it the night before without considering or bothering to gas it up before coming home from his late night shinanigans and that is all I have to say.

So again we had to the pump action with the engine but at least this time I knew what to do myself or so I though because it still took the mechanic to do it right for the car to start.  At least this time it was not so embarrassing and no one really knew about it cause nothing to bad happened.

There is one more thing though, and it is the real reason why I am writing about this.  That is because this morning as I drove my mother to the airport I ran out of gas for the fudging third time. What is worse is that this time I was alone and abandoned by my mother even though she knew I would be left to fend for myself in her justification it was because she had a flight to catch (THANKS FOR THE LOVE MOM!).  

For this occasion as I was abandoned so I had to do it all myself, I grabbed a cab to the nearest gas station while leaving the Innova at the airport departure area under check with the Military.  I borrowed a bottle again grabbed another cab back and did the engine pumping by myself, and sure enough got the Innova running.  Of course I gassed up with a further 400 at the gas station when I returned the bottle of gas just to make sure I got home with plenty to spare and to show that at least I am not an ars about gassing up.

Now I come to the thought part because at first I felt a certain amount of accomplishment being that I was able to get myself out of a break down bind all by myself without the help of any significant others.  So I felt good about myself, thinking and knowing this is just another bind that maybe in the future I might be able to help myself out of again or maybe some one else in need.  

Then again third time is the charm and to think that I have ran out of gas with the same car on three separate occasions is something all in itself, and pretty damned stupid, right? 

So what is it people, in my situation was it good enough to be manly or was it just plain stupid? 

Running 59:42

Running a marathon is a multifaceted endeavor, anyone who has run one may understand what I am talking about even though they may never have given it much thought.  To some people it could be as simple as, I think I can do this, then they try, and find out if they did or didn't do it.  For me it could be as simple as that and actually once was but well not anymore, I am not sure if it is because I have grown up or matured a little more since my more frequent running days or if it's just because I have been into a lot of in depth thinking as of late. So anyway that's what this is about or rather what I am trying to make this about so I am a get cracking and dissect into the multitude of stages one faces when running a marathon.

The Pre-Marathon Stages.

These occur from the moment you decide to join a marathon up until the point that you actually begin running.  The way I see it there are three stages here, the enthusiastic stage, the preparation stage, and the poised stage.

The enthusiastic stage pretty much overlaps the other two pre-marathon because barring any serious injury or reason to back out from the said marathon lets face it you ARE excited for it to start, just as you are eager for any other thing that is out of your reach due to time.

Then there is the preparation stage, this is when you actually start preparing for the marathon and covers anything and everything you do that will have to deal with the marathon prior to it actually commencing, that is from carbo-loading, trial runs, purchasing of gear for the marathon, making sure your shoes are okay, maybe paying off your little sister to be a human alarmclock making sure you wake up in time for the race.  All of which helps in more ways than one because it pretty much pumps you up and gets you rearing to go for the marathon.

The last of the three is the poised stage and this occurs only minutes before the start of the race, when you are confident you are going to do this, everything seems in order, you know you are not backing out, you've  passed the point of no return and to sum it up you have got your game face on.  Up to the point that the starting gun goes off that is, then everything changes.

The Marathon Run.

These next stages have a sort of free for all character in of themselves throughout any marathon, by which I mean they come at you in all sorts of different ways and instances during a marathon.  They may come all at once, it is possible that none may come at all, and as for order well there is none because they are pretty much dependent of an individual's psyche.  So lets run them down, there is the steady stage, the little-engine-that-could stage, the psychologist stage, the what-the-hell-was-I-thinking stage, and lastly the stage of revelation. Again there is no proper order to this so lets go through this by my personal account.

The steady stage, this one starts from the moment the gun goes off up until you and everyone else running settles in to their individual pacing.  In my case this is immediate because I fall under the category of slow and steady wins the race so from the start I do not do the mad dash for the front of the pack like some people do.  I run the pace I know I can maintain for as long as I can which is on average 1 kilometer per 5 minutes for about 12 kilometers, 15 tops and thats pushing it.

The next stage would be the little-engine-that-could stage, I would like to think this is the stage where you begin realizing what EXACTLY you got yourself in to.  It would normally happen in one of two situations, first would be on the stretch along the route where you can place your self in the pack, in other words when you realize how good or bad your pacing actually is.  The other would be on the stretch of the route that lets you see the daunting task you have ahead of yourself, normally the first long stretch of the route that every marathon has.  In the one I recently ran it was the 5 kilometer stretch which was literally half the race already.

The psychologist stage is the first example of a stage that may revisit you several times throughout a marathon.  Some people say that in any activity you get yourself into it is half physical and half mental, I am a believer of this and though I like using the word "mental" (cause it sounds fun, say it, MENTAL) for this purpose the word psychological would be better suited.  So yes I am saying that you have to be psychologically prepared, especially if you run a 10 kilometer marathon after over a year hiatus from any serious running.  During this stage you sometimes literally start talking to yourself and depending on how well you have prepared yourself psychologically you may start urging yourself on with the positive perks for finishing a race or you may actually be consoling yourself already for what you know is inevitable failure.  Either way you feel yourself competent enough to be a self-practicing psychologist and really start listening, arguing, and actually calming yourself for the undertaking at hand, and it helps.

Then there is the what-the-hell-was-I-thinking stage which speaks for itself, it pops up anytime you feel any sort of pain, ache, strain, or happen glance back.

The last stage, non negotiable because it is always the last stage in or during a marathon is the stage of revelation.  If you  know about the book of revelations then you must get my correlation already, but for those who do not well this stage can go two ways.  The first is when you reach the home stretch and KNOW that no matter how slow or fast you are running, that very last ounce of adrenaline that you are squeezing out of yourself will be used to check off another item on your bucket list the moment you cross that finish line on your own capacity.  The second which is not as impressive would be the moment your body (not you, but actually sometimes you under the excuse of that it is your body) gives up and you have to sit down on the side of the road till a marshall, red cross official, or a good samaritan comes over to help you get back to the organizing area but as far away from the finish line as possible, for obvious reasons.

The Post-Marathon Stages.

At this point the marathon is over but, yes there is a but there is ALWAYS a but even when people say there is no but and so the but here is that the stages of a marathon continue.  To be frank and a little more general the last few stages are the ever after stage, the gorging stage, and the again-what-the-hell-was-I-thinking stage.

The ever after stage is a stage dependent on how you did during the marathon and is immediate after crossing the finish line with the sole given being fatigue because no matter who you are after running any amount of distance there is some fatigue just more in some than others.  I then mean dependent because it will be different for each runner, joy, sadness, any emotions in between for reasons that start with finishing or not finishing to coming in first or getting a blister midway.  This stage is centered about it being over though for good or for worse, happily or sadly, one point could be that you made it, ever after.

The gorging stage is the sustenance stage post-marathon in which you feel either that you deserve it or that you have earned it to the point that you will want to get whatever and as much as you want as long as it makes you happy (or is trying to make you happy again after not doing well or not finishing at all).  It may be noted that this does not necessarily need to refer to food by definition sustenance is basically a source of strength so whatever wets your whistle goes.

This last stage has no real timetable and can actually happen the day after to even years later.  It could be triggered by a simple ache, running into a familiar face you can not place but was actually the cutie (with a great butt) that kept you running, an inuman (drinking) session story, or simply your best friend telling you that  he signed you up for another marathon so that he has company.  With or without regret that would be the again-what-the-hell-was-I-thinking stage.

And that is all there is to it, the numerous stages people (or maybe just me) go through when running a marathon.  On a final personal note to get to this point was a long road, no pun intended.  Running a marathon is no easy feat and does take some serious thought before even being considered.  This is where I say that the lessons of perseverance and will power that I saw embodied in characters like the little train that could and people like my mom are some of the best teachers anyone could ask for.  Hope it helps/helped in one way or the other.

Oh and lastly 59:42 if any of you were wondering was my ACTUAL clocked time at a recent 10km marathon I joined, I just figure a time input would make a more drawing title.  Cheers!