Sunday, September 14, 2008

Ike Strikes

Hurricane Ike is destroying Texas. Here in the midwest, we're far enough away so as to be unaffected by such things, although we do get our share of tornadoes and even a respectable earthquake this year.
But 2008 is different. We're 17 inches over the normal rainfall for the year. Think about it. That's like a foot and a half of water.
It started raining last night. Hard driving rain that pounded the roof of my house and made our old dog pace the floor. The cats huddled next to me for security. When my four-footed friends are nervous, I know the weather is going to be bad.
The worst of it hit this morning around 5 a.m. Which meant the biathlon that I intended to run might be cancelled. But it wasn't, instead the bike leg was cancelled and we ran a 5k at 9 am in pouring rain and strong winds. It sucked big time. I don't like short races to begin with since my strength is long slow distance (and I mean slow, really), but this was HARD. I had faint but realistic hopes of PRing today, but running through 3-4 inches of cold water, against the wind, just made conditions tough.
Lounged around on the couch all afternoon with a headache and feeling kind of feverish. Probably picked up a virus somewhere. My mom has been under the weather this week. It's a fitting end to a nasty day.
S and I have hardly been able to get out the mountain bikes at all this year with so much rain. And I have beautiful new tires that need to be broken in.
Just noticed that one of the maple trees in the front yard is sporting brilliant red leaves. Fall's definitely on its way.