Categories
betterment personal running

Race for Warmth

*sports announcer voice* “And oh what a race for warmth it is today, Todd!”

“That’s right, Jerry, it’s colder than a witch’s tit out here.”

“It’s colder than the balls on a brass monkey.”

“It’s cold as fuck Jerry!”

This morning I left my apartment at around 8:15 am. The Portland air was crisp and cold. I drove to Vancouver, Washington, which took about 15 minutes. I then parked at a high school parking lot. Upon exiting the vehicle, I discovered that Vancouver was WINDY AS HELL.

And that was my opening impression of the Race for Warmth, a 5/10k out in the Couv, put on by Clark (County) Public Utilities to benefit Operation Warm Heart which helps low-income families pay their heating bills during the cold months (or just in general, I guess). The race began and ended at the Clark Public Utilities building, which is right off the I-5 bridge, making for an easy trek. The packet pickup the day before was a drive through event, which reminded me a lot of when I got the covid vaccine, except this time I got the vaccine of … future exercise. How about that.

The “swag bag” (remember when swag was a thing the youths would say?) consisted of some free and discount coupons, two tickets to see a Ridgefield Raptors baseball game in June (hell yeah, why not), and one of those emergency blankets and a hand warmer, which I think people used during or before the race but seems to be more intended for an emergency kit for your car.

The atmosphere of the event was great. It wasn’t too crowded, everyone was fucking freezing, and there were a couple of tents with free stuff. Relevant Coffee provided the morning bean juice, which was very good. They also gave away a $5 gift card in the swag bag, which I fully intend to use in the future. Meanwhile, a tent for Why Racing Events gave away some stuff, including my favorite free thing, some old PDX carpet sunglasses. They had some other stuff too that I totally forgot to grab.

“I make this look good.” Remember Men in Black?

They seem to do a lot of triathlon races but also noticed I was wearing my Shamrock Run hoodie and suggested I run sign up for their version, the Couve Clover Run, which happens a week after the Shamrock Run. Maybe I will, Why Racing Events … maybe I will.

(Side note: I always thought it was “Couv,” not “Couve.” Both are colloqualisms, so who cares, but maybe I ought to trust the Washingtonians.)

The tent next to theirs was for NW Personal Training, also based in Vancouver. They gave out INCREDIBLY HELPFUL drawstring bags so I could carry all of my free shit. This was very good. Also, some sunglasses and the Weirdest Free Thing, a license plate frame.

Lastly, there were Franz cookies, which of course were delicious.

As for the race itself: I did good! I managed to run the entire first mile without stopping, which was one of my two goals for the race. According to Strava, my first mile was 11:44 and I was a 25:33 for two miles, both of which are current PRs. I knew running the first mile like I did would cause me to lose energy toward the end. My pace dropped pretty significantly during miles two and three, which is not really what I want, but I wanted to go faster overall and I guess I made that sacrifice.

My other goal was a sub 40 min 5k, which I didn’t hit, but I think I was only about a minute over. My Strava time was 40:54, but that was for 3.07 miles because Strava does that sometimes. I thought I started the app with ample time to hit 3.1 but I guess not! Regardless, I think that’ll be about my chip time. If there was a gun time, it will be about a minute or so slower, because the start was a goddamn choke point, and also because there were a surprising amount of people walking. It was a walk/run event but it seemed like most people around my area were walkers. Ain’t nothing wrong with that, except it was like running through a minefield trying to dodge walkers left and right.

UPDATE: My chip time was 40:44, 10 sec faster than Strava, which is weird. Gun time was as expected, 42:24.

There were some slight uphills along the way, which I tried to run every time. You won’t get better at running inclines unless you actually run them. My grandaddy told me that once. (This is untrue.) Also a nice stretch along the Columbia River and this Vancouver Waterfront section that I think is fairly new. I don’t remember the drive into Vancouver being so nice. Is Vancouver nicer than Portland now? That would be wild.

So, for next time, I think the goal is to actually slow down my first mile pace so that my second and third miles are steadier. Like, if they’re all 13 minutes, that would be great, plus I’d get under 40 minutes. I think the adrenaline of running a race with people made me start out a lot faster. But who knows? Maybe in a month or two from now, 11:44 will be my 5k pace. Here’s hoping.

After the race there was an after party with a live band (god bless you musicians for playing in the cold), some turkey stew which was alright, cans of Michael Bubly, and more cookies. I had a sit and ate my stew and then promptly left. One of these days I’ll make some runner friends, but today is not that day!

Overall, a nice race that I would absolutely run again next year.

See you in a couple weeks for the Providence Heart to Start!

Categories
betterment personal running

The Inaugural Josh Belville Christmas 5k Extravaganza

My trainer.

Here’s the story: a couple months ago I missed the signup for the December Holiday Half. At the time I thought, Oh that’s alright, I’ll just run my own 5k in December. So I’d have a 5k every month, right? Ain’t no progress without repetition.

In between then and now, my leg was giving me some serious guff. What with the hurting and the muscle seizing up and whatnot. By the end of the November my revised thought was, You know? I think I’ll just rest my legs until next year.

Then, a week ago I decided to incorporate strength training into my exercise routine. Specifically, I started a bodyweight routine I found on the goddamn Red Bull website. To be fair, these were exercises you could find on hundreds of websites, but the fact that I found one I liked on the Red Bull site was funny to me.

So cut to yesterday: I’m up, I’m feeling energized, I think, Hey, let’s go to the track and run a couple of laps. I figured I would run a mile or until my leg started hurting, then call it a day.

This is not a shot from that day. That pole is where I start my runs.

I get to the track. There are always soccer games happening on the weekends, I think high school games? So there was a nice gaggle of people to make the experience feel wholesome. And I ran. And I ran two laps entirely (three laps is about a mile). The third lap I ran 75% of. At that point, after hitting a mile, my leg was feeling a little stiff, but otherwise fine, and I decided to keep going, splitting the track 50/50 for running and walking. When I got to mile two, I realized I could do 5k. So I did! That’s the end of the story.

My time was a full five minutes (and twelve seconds) faster than the Turkey Trot. I am amazed by this. My pace was 1:47 faster. I attribute this to the 50/50 splits, because when it got to the running portion, I pushed myself to run as fast as I reasonably could. Definitely going to incorporate this into future runs because I think it was very successful.

I also side note own a Pixel Watch now so I was able to track my BPM as I ran. I was, as you might say, running a bit hot, especially with those running splits. I think my highest was around 170, going down to about 130-140, then back up, etc etc. Not terrible but I’m hoping to lower that a bit as well. I’ve got some work to do.

All in all though, strength training! It’s good for you! Building muscle helped my body protect the parts that weren’t doing as well. Ice and rest helped too, of course, but I truly think the squats and stretches were the key factor. Felt good, bro.

Anyway, next year hopefully I’ll A) get to do the Holiday Half and B) actually do a half marathon. (This is a 2023 resolution.) Until then, it’s 5k races and getting my pace down.

Categories
betterment personal

Turkey Trot 2022

‘Twas a foggy November evening at the Portland International Raceway when a gaggle of people gathered together to do a run. I was one of those people! The Turkey Trot is one of the Hood to Coast-affiliated races and despite being a bit of a pain in the ass to register for, the run itself went swimmingly. I mean, I ran, I didn’t swim, but you know what I mean.

I had signed up for this the same day that I finished the Tar’n’Trail 5k race at Mt. Tabor. I don’t have a blog post about that, but I did write about it in Ye Olde Newselettere, which you can read here, along with some other stuff about my life, including my (now failed) attempt to do a Movember fundraiser. In short: the Tar’n’Trail kicked my ass because of a variety of reasons, but mainly A) that I was in the middle of my Couch to 5k training program when I ran it, and B) IT WAS VERY MUCH UPHILL. Look at these stairs!

Stairs from the Tar’n’Trail run. I HAD TO GO UP THIS. It was required!

The race vibe itself was awesome though. A smaller group of chill people, one of the race volunteers prior to the start acknowledged the Native American land on which we were running, and afterwards I got sugar cookies and booze. A++ in that regard.

Following that race, I took a day off, and then the day after, I started Couch to 5k again, right where I had left off. I am determined to finish this Zombies, Run program, even though I honestly don’t think I need to keep doing it. But anyway: running so soon after running a mostly uphill 5k was a bad idea. My feet were seizing up in a weird way–not like they were constantly curled, but the opposite, they felt like they were seized upwards? I don’t know how to explain it. But my shins hurt a lot about five minutes into the run and so I had to stop. Thankfully, my shins felt better a few minutes after stopping, which meant that the pain was muscular and not any sort of stress fractures or things that would be More Bad.

So, I took a couple of days off (still walking though) and then tried to run again. Shin splints. I took a few more days off, tried to run: shin splints. At this point, I was a week away from the Turkey Trot, and I thought to myself, “By gum, Josh, you’re going to have to not run for a whole damn week.” So I didn’t, I just walked.

Then I had to go get my Turkey Trot bib. This was a pain in the ass. First, the bib was at a running store in Tualatin. For reference:

The southwest section of the Ross Island bridge in Portland is an absolute nightmare to navigate by car. It’s one of those places where sometimes in order to get to where you need to go, you have to merge from a far left lane into a far right lane when three other roads are bringing cars into that whole road. Plus one street has two roads right next to each other, heading the same direction, with a stop light at EACH of them which alternate I think for merging into one road. If that sounds confusing: it IS confusing. I ended up taking a wrong turn because I was trapped in my lane and had to double back over the bridge and drive over it again so I could finally get out onto I-5. The I-5 part was fine. THEN, I got to Tualatin and my exit, which was another absolute mess. It’s times like these that I honestly kind of miss Boise roads, because Boise is such a sprawling city that the roads have room to breathe. The Connector is a dream compared to the intricately and confusingly packed roads of Portland.

But, I got there, finally, and entered the building. A woman at the front of the store handed me a coupon for the store, but only for right then. Like, once I leave, the coupon ends.1I suppose if I went back into the store immediately after leaving, the coupon would still be good, but why would I do that? I get my bib; no issues there. Go to get my shirt and the guy there looked me up and down and sheepishly said, “Sorry, but the largest men’s size we have now is Medium.” I said, “Maybe I could get two and stitch them together.” He laughed politely and explained that everyone sized up when they got there for some reason. He gives me a Medium sized shirt. Great.

I grabbed a couple of free protein bars (which were as good as protein bars can be) and a free can of Celsius energy drink (which was actually pretty good). A woman next to me was lightly complaining about, I think, the shirt situation. I wasn’t really paying attention because I still get weird remnant covid anxiety in public indoor spaces.

As I’m leaving, the woman who gave me the day-of coupon said, “Good luck at the race!” I barely glanced at her and replied, “Thaaaanks” in a way that wasn’t meant to be sarcastic or mean, but feels like it in hindsight. There was a Best Buy in the shopping center area; I genuinely thought to myself, Is there anything I need from Best Buy? The closest one to me at home is in Clackamas, so, you know, it was an honest thought.2Side note: Firefox wants me to correct Clackamas to “Blackamoors,” which sounds racist and (looks it up) might actually be racist? and (looks it up some more) oh god is definitely, absolutely racist.

The traffic back to Portland was a mess because it’s always a mess, but more importantly, I left at around 4pm and so it was rush hour time. I ate a protein bar on the drive; maple donut flavored. Not too bad! Protein bars are always, at max, about 80% good. This is just how protein bars work.

The next day, work, work, work, and then after work, I drove to Portland International Raceway up at Historic Vanport for the race. I should mention that while I have GPS on my phone and all that, I don’t enable mobile data, so I oftentimes just have the list of directions from Google Maps, rather than a voice telling me when and where to turn. This, it turns out, is annoying, but whatever. The place was packed with cars trying to get in. Moreover, people were trying to park at the main lot, which was farther away. I, on the other hand, parked at the Delta Park & Ride Trimet stop, which was closer to the venue as far as I could tell. I suspect some people wanted to park farther away because they were WASPy types who were afraid of their car getting broken into by nefarious types who use public transportation.

Once parked, I chug my Celsius energy drink, hoping that the 200mg of caffeine within will help my body race while not absolutely destroying my sleep when I get home. (Spoiler: it kind of wrecked my sleep a bit.)

Every time I go to the Christmas lights display out here, it’s foggy, and this year was no different. It truly is lovely, though my camera didn’t do a great job of showcasing this.

The race is a run/walk situation, so there are food carts selling things like pizza and beer and stuff that you probably don’t want to eat right before running. There are musicians, which, props to them for playing in the cold. A keyboardist, a drummer, and then after the race I noticed there was a third guy playing drumming on buckets. I don’t know. It felt very much like a “Oh shit we should have musicians for this” type of last minute concept.

Then, I unlocked a serendipitous achievement: the 5k was supposed to start at 6:45pm, but was pushed back to 7pm due to traffic. In that fifteen minute span, my stomach began to rumble, and for the first time ever running a race, I took a shit beforehand. My stomach had been weird all day and I was joking to myself on the way to the race that I was going to get the “turkey trots” at the Turkey Trot. And then I DID. Serendipity! If the race started at 6:45, would I have pooped my joggers on the raceway? In an alternate universe, yes, probably. There is nothing like navigating a porta-potty shit in the cold, damp, foggy evening though, I gotta tell you.

And then, the race! It went well! Most importantly: my shins did not explode. I was shocked. I expected them to give out on me about five minutes into the race, but I guess the adrenaline of a race plus the 200mg of caffeine kicked my body into high gear. The track was a joy to run around (even if it was a bit slick). Lots of festive lights, including the whole gamut of “Twelve Days of Christmas,”3Brief tangent: the Genius lyrics page for this song has a representation for each verse. Are these for real? Am I to believe that “Eleven Pipers Piping” refers to the eleven apostles? What do pipers piping have to do with apostles? Why do Christian songs always have this weird-ass symbolism? where each one was a visual display of each verse of the song, except for Ten Lords a-Leaping, which for some reason they had the visual display of a lord leaping and the words “Ten Lords a-Leaping” above it, I guess so that people knew for sure that this display was Ten Lords a-Leaping. There was also some dinosaur lights on display for some reason. (That’s the Keep Portland Weird that I like.) Also, I forgot to get a photo of it but there was a display of a reindeer that looked like A) it had shapely women’s legs and B) it was giving birth. I’ll let you fill that image out in your mind’s eye.

At the start of the race I ran a solid 7 minutes straight, without stopping to walk, which is a big improvement. I also was able to get in several shorter runs in between walking. My end time was 48:56, which is a :48 second improvement from the Tar’n’Trail run. Granted, this run was completely flat and didn’t have a section with a million stairs to climb, but still. Improvement is improvement, and I’m proud of what I accomplished.

After the run I got a medal that looks like a punkin pie!

mmm, can’t wait to eat this medal.

I then went home and nursed my pinky toe, which now has a big and terrible blister on it.

Lastly, the next day (today) I signed up for yet another 5k. This one’s in February so I have some time. My plan is to take the next couple of weeks off from running just to recuperate, though I will continue to walk often. And then, back into regular runs until January, when I’ll either just do my own 5ks or sign up for a virtual race, since there doesn’t appear to be any official 5ks in the Portland area that month. February will be the Providence Heart to Start, and then March is the Shamrock Run, which I will be returning to after six years away.

So that’s that. I’m a god damned runner now.

  • 1
    I suppose if I went back into the store immediately after leaving, the coupon would still be good, but why would I do that?
  • 2
    Side note: Firefox wants me to correct Clackamas to “Blackamoors,” which sounds racist and (looks it up) might actually be racist? and (looks it up some more) oh god is definitely, absolutely racist.
  • 3
    Brief tangent: the Genius lyrics page for this song has a representation for each verse. Are these for real? Am I to believe that “Eleven Pipers Piping” refers to the eleven apostles? What do pipers piping have to do with apostles? Why do Christian songs always have this weird-ass symbolism?
Categories
personal random nonsense

Coffee Talk

Last night I found my lil mini French press, which brews but one cup at a time! and this morning I used it to make coffee. My normal, to-go method is pour over. My reasoning is thus: out of all the methods one can use to make coffee1That don’t include a machine., pour over is the easiest. All you do is grind the beans, heat the water, put the grounds in the cup with the paper strainer, pour the hot water over the grounds, the end. You got coffee.

But recently I’ve been watching James Hoffman‘s coffee videos on YouTube, specifically one that I can’t find right now2Side note: James’s videos are great. He is a very pleasant sounding man and he is rigorous with his research and experiments. Highly recommend if you’re into coffee.. The gist was that the finer the coffee is ground, the better it tastes in immersion brewing (i.e., French press) vs filtration brewing (i.e., pour over). The problem with filtration brewing is that when the coffee grounds are too finely grounded, water makes a channel in the grounds which prevents it from thoroughly steeping in all the grounds. I’m saying grounds a lot. Water is super lazy and once a channel opens up for it to travel through, it just does it. Immersion brewing, on the other hand, means that all the grounds are immersed in the water and thus you get a more even brew.

At this point you’re probably thinking, “Josh, buddy, you said that pour overs were super easy, but this immersion brewing sounds even easier!” Well the problem with immersion brewing is time. You have to time the immersion. Too short and the brew is weak. Too long and the brew starts to taste like an ashtray. The latter is not as big a deal if you add things to your coffee, like cream and sugar, but if you’re a black coffee drinker like myself, it makes a huge difference.

Pour over, on the other hand, you just pour and let it strain. There are variables to consider, yes, but none of them are time related. It’s more temperature based, for me at least.

Since I hadn’t had a French press coffee in a long time, I made one this morning. Since my lil guy only makes about 8oz of coffee when done, I ran it twice, using the same grounds both times. I also paid absolutely no attention to any of the rules because, in my mind at the time, it was easy: grind, pour into French press, add hot water, stir for about 30 seconds, let steep for four and a half minutes. But I think I screwed a couple of key factors up.

First, brew time should’ve been a minute less, I think. Also, according to Stumptown’s French press brew guide3I think this would make a decent band name, by the way., you should heat the glass with hot water first to have a more stable extraction temperature. I didn’t do that and I think the brew suffered a bit from it. Nothing that, again, would come through if you added milk and/or sugar, but straight black, it was definitely more on the ashy side.

Somehow, I also had a lot of fine grounds in the bottom of my cup, something that never happens with filters because, well … they’re filters. So that was annoying. That might have also been caused by me brewing twice with the same grounds; something something the grounds disintegrated further into finer bits. Drinking the filtery little fine grounds is kind of gross, so I just had to toss the bottom bit of my coffee. Oh well.


Speaking of lil, I went for a lil run today. Not even with the C25k app, just a 5 minute run followed by a couple of short jogs. Just to test out my legs, you know. Results: still kind of tense. I’m not sure entirely what’s going on. They’ll feel fine before the run, they felt fine for about half of the 5 minute run, and then my shins started to feel tense again. I’m sure it’s something like shin splints caused by that damnable Mt. Tabor run. The fact that it goes away and mostly stays away when I’m not running is a good sign, and I’ll just keep that going by not doing any significant runs until my next 5k in two weeks. Just long walks to keep the circulation going!

That was my running update on running.

  • 1
    That don’t include a machine.
  • 2
    Side note: James’s videos are great. He is a very pleasant sounding man and he is rigorous with his research and experiments. Highly recommend if you’re into coffee.
  • 3
    I think this would make a decent band name, by the way.
Categories
betterment dungeons & dragons personal random nonsense

Musings on a Monday

More Running

It’s raining in Portland. What can you do. I am resting a bit from running because I think I overdid it and my lower legs weren’t happy with me when I started week five of the C25k program. A significant uphill 5k run after only four weeks of 5k training will do that to a person. Makes me anxious though; I’m concerned that I will slip back into a sedentary lifestyle. Let me show you a picture:

pic of my puffy ass feet from june 2021
This has become a foot fetish blog.

Those are my feet, in a photo taken in June of 2021.1Fun fact: I don’t have this photo in my personal backups, probably because I didn’t want to keep a photo of my puffy feet. But I happened upon it while scrolling through my Google Photos backup online. Google, it never forgets. The reason why I took this photo is because I looked down at my feet and was like, “Hey, my feet are, like, very puffy right now, maybe I should take a photo to show a doctor.” I didn’t end up doing that. The puffiness of my feet has gone down considerably since last year, especially in the last couple of months because, you guessed it, exercise. They’re basically unpuffy at this point. Humblebrag. I ate a lot of salty foods and hardly moved a year and a half ago. Now, I eat salty foods but at least I get up and walk around to get the circulation of fluids going.

So, I’m concerned about being sedentary again.

I tried running again today and failed halfway through. My shins and feet are just telling me to take a break. So I will, even though it is discouraging. I have to break though because I have another 5k to run in two weeks, which I simply will not be able to complete if I don’t rest. So, I rest. I’m worried about sliding back into bad habits, but I’m also somewhat confident that I won’t do that. These aren’t my Depression Days, they’re more like me … Very Contemplative Days. The days where I find things depressing in the same way one would find a painting beautiful: recognizing that I am not the painting.

D&D

We’re playing D&D tonight, starting the second chapter of my Portlandia game. This is a game where all the ice has melted following a nuclear war2Yes, I know that nuclear war would cause a nuclear winter. In this version the bombs eroded the ozone layer and accelerated global warming. Just deal with it. It’s fantasy! and the sea levels rose about 200ft. Portland and the surrounding area are islands separated by shallow seas. Around 2,000 years have passed since the Lost War and for some reason, the vibe is “western.” Chapter One was supposed to be just a couple of sessions but ended up being twelve. One of those sessions was streamed on Twitch, which was fun and also felt strangely like doing a play; I felt that nervous preshow energy, you know?

This first session tonight I’m bringing in my friend Kati as a guest. Kati is an old friend. That is an understatement, but I don’t really want to get into the tides that are our friendship because it’s mostly embarrassing on my end. It’s one of those larger issues of mine that I am very glad I’ve been to therapy to work on. Maybe a blog for another day. But I’m glad she was eager to play in my game. She used to work at Wizards of the Coast. She is very popular and cool and I feel like I’m bringing, like, Tom Hanks to play at my softball game or something.

It’s good to have D&D to fall back on these days. I honestly am not quite sure where I would be now without it, after the pandemic hit. I think I would feel much more alone and sad.

Well, I was going to write more and got sidetracked. Maybe tomorrow!

  • 1
    Fun fact: I don’t have this photo in my personal backups, probably because I didn’t want to keep a photo of my puffy feet. But I happened upon it while scrolling through my Google Photos backup online. Google, it never forgets.
  • 2
    Yes, I know that nuclear war would cause a nuclear winter. In this version the bombs eroded the ozone layer and accelerated global warming. Just deal with it. It’s fantasy!
Categories
betterment personal

A Running Update … on Running

So, I ran a 5k. I talk about that in the newsletter. It, like most runs, was one of those things that was good before it started, agonizing while I was doing it, and then great after I finished. It sucks to realize it, but your body actually likes it a lot when you’ve exercised. It’s funny how at odds it is with your brain, which oftentimes (for me at least) likes to eat a lot of bad-for-me things until my body forces it to stop. You’d think my brain and my body would be more connected, considering they are both inside of me and are me. But no, instead, there is my brain, my body, and then whateverthefuck it is that is watching and judging both of them right now.1It’s my brain, I know it’s my brain, but my brain talking about my brain is weird.

I’m a runner now; Wolf Parade was right all along.

Running is one of those things that is easily rewarding. You move forward quickly for a bit and then stop. It’s hard work, but when you’re done you’re like “Hey that was good!” (Maybe you have to do this a couple of times to achieve the effect.) Now I’m at a point where I must go exercise every day. Either a run or 5,000 steps, whichever is on the docket for the day. Today I walked, because the 5k plus finishing Week 4 of my Couch to 5k training has caused my legs to send a message to my brain, that message being, “Hey, take it easy for two days instead of one.” But I walked twice, once to get an absolute fuckload of day old bagels from Henry Higgins through the Too Good to Go app. Seriously, I had to freeze most of the bagels, there were so many bagels. The second time was to Safeway, to buy cream cheese for said bagels.2I ended up spending too much money at Safeway and my account was overdrawn, but thankfully I still have credit on my credit card, so it took the hit. I may be 39 but I am still bad with money! Ladies, I’m single!

In November I am tackling the Turkey Trot, a 5k at Portland International Raceway, where I will be racing some of the fastest cars ever built. Just kidding; they put Christmas lights up there and you get to drive around and see them. But we get to see them first, apparently! Last time I went to this event I was in a friggen car! Now, I’m on my feet? Insanity.

The plan is to sign up for some sort of 5k every month up until Shamrock Run time. Then, my triumphant return to the Shamrock Run, after being gone for, I believe, five years. I’m just going to keep running until I grind my legs into a pulp and then grow new legs, which is the custom of my people. I want to be one of those guys who has a million medals hanging off of a wall in his den. I need a den first. Baby steps.

  • 1
    It’s my brain, I know it’s my brain, but my brain talking about my brain is weird.
  • 2
    I ended up spending too much money at Safeway and my account was overdrawn, but thankfully I still have credit on my credit card, so it took the hit. I may be 39 but I am still bad with money! Ladies, I’m single!