Shift Bid

Daily Quote: "You have three stages, conditioning, hill running, then racing, and you should finish one before you start the next." --Arthur Lydiard. [Tony Benson’s note: Triple Olympic Gold Medalist and physiologist, Peter Snell, said the one thing he would have changed in the Lydiard program would have been to introduce a weekly speed orientated session.]

Today is Shift Bid. Every six months Checker Cab Company has "Shift Bid," which is when drivers choose their shift times (a variety of different 12-hour shifts from the day shift or night shift), their days off, and the taxi they wish to drive. Everything is based on seniority...the new drivers sometimes can't even choose their day off as all the best days are already bid. A new driver has to literally take the worst taxi's in the Fleet, five years old with over 400,000 miles on the taxi!

Shift Bid starts at 6:00 a.m. and lasts TWO days as Checker Cab Company has over 831 drivers. I started driving for Checker Cab on June 21, 1990...17 years ago!! Back then, I had a choice between driving for Yellow Cab, Star Cab or Checker Cab and WHY did I choose Checker Cab??? It's because the colors along the side of the taxi looks like a chessboard!!!

Because of my low seniority number of 41 had to be at the cab company's yard at 6:00 a.m. when the bid starts as it usually takes less than 30 minutes for my time to bid. Unfortunately, this means I have to awake at 5:00 a.m. with less than four hours of sleep. Anyway, I discovered my seniority number has went down by three cabbies and my new seniority number is #38 out of 831 drivers! This means that three drivers with higher seniority numbers had either been fired, quit, retired or as usually the case with such a high seniority number, DIED. To make a long story short, I bid a spanking new 2007 Crown Victoria and have the same shift and days off as last bid....hence, the only thing that's different this bid is I no longer drive a 2006 Crown Victoria.

Thankfully, today is a scheduled Recovery Run.
6 miles. Time, 59:00. Pace, 9.50 minute miles. Life Fitness Treadmill on the cardio training mode setting where the elevation automatically changes to keep my heart rate at a constant 144 bpm (75% of maximum heart rate). Treadmill speed set at 6.1 mph. Elevation changes: 2.8 - 2.0 grades. I'm very tired due to waking so early for shift bid, but work tonight will be slow and shouldn't have any problems.