Hurricanes Blow

SOOOOOO VERY TIRED!!!!!

Since Monday I have now put in 71 hours at work. O.M.G....it has been crazy hectic here. We're going from 6:30 in the morning until 9:30 at night. Nonstop. Barely any time to eat. Plagued by computer and Internet problems. Land line phones barely work. Cellphones have been shockingly reliable! But, I'm truly exhausted. At least I get to go home tomorrow! YEAH!! AND then I get to come right back, but this time only for a couple of days and then I'll have some relief.

Galveston is a complete mess. Debris everywhere. Boats everywhere. Jet skies everywhere. Restaurants demolished. No power hardly anywhere. They took a real hit. All the little black specs you see on top of the roof are actually birds roosting because everything else in the area has been blown away!

What I find interesting about this picture is that there is still one complete wall left in the building. Everything else was washed out, but this one wall somehow managed to stay. Crazy!

But the seawall actually did a decent job in saving a lot of the buildings along Seawall Blvd. Because if you go on either side of the seawall there is absolutely nothing left of these areas. Just slabs and debris. There are several restaurants just across the road at the seawall that are running on generator power and fully operational. Ya gotta have your priorities after hurricane season - Beer and Strip Bars....that's what's open. Ha!

This is the Flagship Hotel. Apparently it gets hits every time they have even a slight hurricane here and they just keep on rebuilding it right back.

And this is the ramp to get up to the Flagship Hotel. ummmm....don't think anyone's getting there anytime soon!

And this is what I've been looking at all week long! Mold, mold, mold, mold, mold. FUN STUFF!!! Actually...it's been a lot better than I had anticipated. The mold growth hasn't been too bad - mainly just a lot of wind and water damage without the rampant mold growth on top of it.

So - needless to say I haven't really had much time to run these last several days. I think I'm going to flip my 18 miler to next weekend and just do 14 this weekend. I'm just so exhausted that I don't think 18 would be good for me right now. Next week is going to be a little less hectic so I can actually prepare adequately for the run. My training has really just fallen to crap here lately. **sigh** Hopefully I'll still be able to at least hobble across the finish line in November. My goal is NOT to die three quarters of the way through the race.

OK - going back to the hotel now to pack up and head home tomorrow! YIPPEEE!!!

Crazy Busy

I've been so bad! Someone smack me. I missed two runs this week. **sigh** I had to fly out to D.C. all week, came back on Friday and had to work late because the contractor for one of my projects was late and then volunteered to go to Houston next week to help with the hurricane recovery inspections. I DID manage to get my FIRST 16 miler in last weekend though (more on that later). AND I walked my *ss off all over D.C. all week and I got one run in and I walked the dogs. SO, I wasn't a total slob...just a non-running total slob. Today - a 14 miler. Luckily the weather is cooperating.

My first 16 miler

Again, I start off this morning's run with a lot of apprehension and nerves. I mean 16 MILES!! I've never done more than 14 at one time. And the last couple of long runs haven't gone so well. Heat, humidity, thirst, hamstrings...etc...all added to the not-so-wonderful experience.

It was mildly raining - just a slow, cool mist. Not enough to keep me from going but enough to really cool things down. The first three miles were excruciating. I guess because it was cooler and it took me that much longer to warm up? Don't really know. But I do know that I REALLY, REALLY wanted to walk at three miles! But...I didn't. I forced myself to keep going. Then after about three and half miles it just started to feel good. The misty rain, the quiet trail, the grey skies. It was so peaceful and serene. I even turned off my ipod and just rain in the quiet. It was so zen. I was just cruising along and made it to my 8 mile turn around with a 10:46 pace time. Not bad for me! I was really trying to keep it slow too. I didn't have to walk until mile 14 and then I ran walked the rest of the way back. I was a bit sore and hobbly that night, but surprisingly I was fine the next day!!!!

Today = 14 miles. An easy week this week and then my first 18 miler next weekend! Ack!!!

I'll be in Houston all week next week, so hopefully I can squeeze some runs in at Memorial Park between looking at moldy buildings.

Tired...

It has been a crazy week after the storm. I've had about eight building inspections to do along with cranking out the report for each said building inspection. I'm tired of looking at moldy buildings.

I ran on Friday and Saturday in the Ike 20 mph winds. Holy Cow that was tough! It really slowed me down and my quads were burning from all the resistance. It made the run quite interesting though. Running through our neighbor's subdivision I saw one little, skinnly, lone pine tree in someone's front yard. Now, I know that pine trees are bendy and can withstand high winds, but this little thing was almost bent over at a 90 degree angle...RIGHT into the street where I was running. Talk about running FAST when I went near it.


As promised, here are some pics and video from Gustav that I've been meaning to post. Here it is pouring down rain on Monday morning. This was about two seconds before we lost power at 9:30 a.m. It's dark and dreary and rainy and windy and Sarah, the wonder-mutt, guardian-of-all-things-food-related was busy at her post. ("guarding" if you will, the two sacks of dog food we had just purchased.) Yup...I know how to train 'em.




I was very thankful for a few Items:



Our fabulous generator that kept our refrigerator, freezer and a couple of window units going.







Ahh.....sweet nectar of the gods and remover from the reality of how stinkin' hot and humid it is in the house.





Here is a video of the winds and rain....we had this for about two days straight.



Here is another video of the cloud movement. You can see the bands moving across the sky quickly. AND you can hear all the generators running in the background.

Kickin' Butt and Takin' Names!

Thursday - 5 miles
Friday - 5 miles
Saturday - 6 miles
Sunday - 14 miles
Monday - REST!

YEESSIREEEE I'm back on track! Yeehaw! 30 miles in four days!!! I can't believe it. AND I can't believe that my knees aren't falling off. They're fine! The first three runs were stellar. I was running at a 10:00 to just below 10:00 pace for them. I averaged 10:07 for the 6 mile run. That's good for me. The one nice thing that the storm brought was overcast skies and cool, breezy weather. That helped my speed tremendously.

Sunday's long run was pretty ugly and painful, especially since I had missed the two previous long runs. But I was determined to complete it, whether I had to crawl back to the car or not. I did well up to mile 10 and then the sun and humidity decided to show back up. When I started the run it was 73 degrees. When I finished the run it was 92 degrees. Big difference. I just simply got tired and ran out of fluids. I had to slowly run/walk the last two miles, but I finished it. I was pretty sore Sunday evening and a bit on Monday but it's all subsided today. I'm going out for a slow, easy run this evening to loosen the ole legs up tonight.

We got power back finally on Friday, thank you little baby, tiny Jesus!!! The first thing we did was crank the A/C down to "ARCTIC" and basked in the icicles forming on our noses. Even the dogs are better now that things are "back to normal". Katie doesn't eat well when she's stressed and she didn't eat the whole time during and for several days after the storm. She wouldn't even eat when I gave them wet dog food (the jackpot in the doggie world)! The poor little, spoiled princess is used to having her air conditioning.

Funny thing, Thursday we managed to get a couple of window units from our neighbor's house. They came back early and they have two window units, but no generator. We have a generator but no window units. Match made in heaven. We set those puppies up and cranked them full blast to at least cool the living room and one bedroom down enough to make the temperature bearable. Little Miss Princess (Katie) decides to plop herself down directly in front of one of the units and quickly falls asleep. It was hilarious. All night she would strategically place herself in front of the unit to get the most cold air coverage.

OK - gotta go get back to the mountain of things I have to catch up on and do at work.

Today I LOVE: AIR CONDITIONING!!!!!!!

Disconnected

I am posting from my blackberry since we have no power. We did fine. We got some strong gusts and a lot of rain, but that's pretty much it. No damage to the house or flooding to speak of.

We lost power and phone lines yesterday at 9 am. The power is still off today with no word when it might come back. 95% of our parish (county) lost power. So it may be awhile. We do have a generator (or is it a "Jen"erator!?!) so we can run a few essentials like the fridge.

On the bright side it feels like a cool, crisp autumn day here. It's quite pleasant outside. Hope that lasts.

And I got some cool pics and video of the storm Willie!