Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Lost in Cyberspace

This is a gripe.

I am having a terrible time retrieving my Running Log from runnersworld.com. I have kept this log since 2006, and it contains data that is important to a runner: personal records, miles run per week or month or year, shoes worn and mileage accrued on those shoes. I can't access any of that, and the customer service folks at Runner's World as well as Rodale, which publishes the magazine, in a word, suck! I have emailed, I have called, I have left messages. Nothing! Nada! Zilch!

I have already transferred the mileage on my five active pair of running shoes to beginnertriathlete.com. (FYI: You should replace shoes every 400-500 miles, that's why it's important to know). That was easy.

But what I'm really frustrated about is the lost-in-the-vortex information about my PRs. My best running year ever was 2007; that year, I PR'd at every distance. As I am starting to regain some speed (but likely not all of it, due to this annoying thing called aging), I want to compare current race times with my best, or even with those of 2009, or 2011.

It is nearly 2014, and I find it hard to believe that runnersworld.com doesn't have a mechanism for the subscriber to change his/her email and password, without the verification link going to the email address you no longer can use! If I log in using social media, all my accumulated information in my log is not there; I am considered a new user. When I contact customer service from the link on the website to change my password, the link for the new password goes to the email address that doesn't exist.

I can't figure out a solution to this problem, a first-world problem, but a problem just the same.

So I hope someone in customer service at Rodale sees this and gets in touch (or listens to my messages and calls me back). When you ask me to contact you, using a specific, non-toll free, phone number, and I get a recording telling me you're with other customers and to leave a message, shouldn't I rightfully expect a return call? Why do I have to call several days in a row, only to get that same message? Why don't customer service reps listen and respond to the previous day's messages at the beginning of the next day?

And I'm not a freeloader; I have subscribed to Runner's World and Bicycling, both Rodale publications, for years. 

If anyone reading this can posit a solution for me, please leave it in the comments section. Thanks.

3 comments:

  1. I can't really help but if your PRs were races - you can likely find them at Athlinks.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you! I had no idea that website existed. I found all my PRs there. Screw Runner's World!

      Delete
  2. Molly, I suggest the following 2 courses of action:
    I have been recording all my running mileage the old school way since 1990 as single line entries in a medium sized spiral note book. I am now approaching the need to buy my 3rd notebook. We fall too much in love with technology's empty promises sometimes.

    Cancel your Runner's World subscription and let them know why.

    ReplyDelete