This One Goes Out to the Ones I Love

I don't know how this weekend could have been any better (okay, except for winning the lottery). I asked John if he wanted to go on a mountain biking date on Friday after work. It was 80 degrees and perfect outside, which makes it hard to be at work on Friday afternoon, but it really helped to have something to look forward to.

I love mountain biking, but I am still too scared to ride certain things. I may never get over that, but who cares? I ride what I can and I walk what I can't. I am getting braver the more I ride the trails, so who knows where I'll finally get as far as bravery is concerned....

Saturday morning was very nice. John went to help work on the course at the Johnson County Fairgrounds for Jingle Cross. I probably should have too, but I had so much to do in the garden. So, I stayed home and did my own thing. Which turned out to be a really nice trail run. I didn't go hard or fast, but I just ran slowly and checked out the sights...

Toward the end of my run, one of those sights turned out to be Coadster. We got to run together for about a mile and then she went to meet her dad at the high school soccer fields to watch a game and I went home to get some reading and tea drinking done.

When Coadster got back from the soccer game, she and I decided to ride bikes to the Farmer's market. During the month of May, you can get a $2 coupon to use if you ride your bike or walk to the farmer's market. I used mine for asparagus and Coadster used hers for sugar cookies. Yum.

We also had a nice brunch. When my girls were little, we went to the Farmer's Market almost every Saturday. It has easily doubled in size since the 90's, with all kinds of food venues, in addition to the great produce and arts and crafts. It was a lovely morning.

I spent the afternoon gardening and doing yard work. I grubbed out a bunch of volunteer trees in our yard, mowed some grass and dug up and planted my new garden space. John got back from working on the Jingle Cross Course, only to help with yard work and clean out the gutters.  We both done good.

That night, I made salmon, baked potatoes and the asparagus from the farmer's market for dinner, had a cocktail and watched "After the Thin Man". If there was a way for my day to be any fuller, I'm sure I don't know how.

Mother's Day was just as lovely. I ran in the morning, I read more if my book and then I gardened in the my older, bigger space. I all told, I believe I planted 7 tomato plants, about 10 basil plants, many, many marigolds, 10 lilies and about 6 gladiolas. I still have to plant some peppers, lettuce, more marigolds, lilies, cone flowers and zinnias. Sheesh!

In the afternoon, John and I rode to Solon to meet my girls, Stinky's boyfriend, his mom and brother for Mother's Day dinner and beer. It was a wonderful ride and meal and once we got back home, were all ready to rest. I really couldn't ask for a better family or a better life...All except that whole winning the lotto thing.

And They're All Made Out of Ticky Tacky and They all Look Just the Same

Man, I have so many things to post and at not much time to post them. So, if I have so many fun things to do and not enough time to write about them, I guess that's a very good thing. What it means to you all, is that now I'm finally getting around to writing about my day off LAST Tuesday.

I took a vacation day on Tuesday. It was supposed to be nice out and I thought I could garden in the morning and then go for a nice, long, ride after lunch. Of course, nothing ever goes exactly like you think, so while I did garden some and ride my bike some, it wasn't at all like I envisioned.

I woke-up giddy as a school girl at the prospect of a whole day to myself. I went on a nice little run, came home and was about to go on the porch with a blanket and a cup of tea, to read my book, but when I opened the door, Heidi ran out. My hands were full, so there wasn't much I could do. She isn't at all like Archie, who, all I have to do is say the word, "TREAT!" and he comes running. Heidi ran from one group of plants to the next. I had to open the breezeway, close the door to the laundry room to keep Archie from getting out and then leave the back door open in hopes that Heidi would get bored, or scared and run back in. I tried a couple of things to coax her, but all for naught. Instead, I decided to go about my chores and I hung the laundry on the clothesline and then started mowing the front yard. After I finished cutting the grass, I checked the laundry room to see if Heidi had gone in yet. I happened to see her little gray on the top of the stairs to the dormer room. Yes! I closed the door and decided to eat lunch and watch a cheesy HGTV show, before starting in on the garden.

I got about half the big garden's soil ready and then set a little fence around the area where I wanted to dig a smaller garden, now that one of our big trees are down and we might actually have enough sunshine in one part of my yard to grow tomatoes. I wanted to make sure John was okay with the placement. Sometimes unsymmetrical things bug him and, as you've probably guessed, I don't even notice things like that.

Anyway, by the time I finally got out on my bike, it was much later than I thought it would be, plus the winds were way stronger than the Weather Channel predicted. So, I originally thought I would ride to the Amanas and sit in their lovely beer garden with my cheese danish and drink one of Millstream's wonderful rootbeers and have nice little rest before I headed back and had me a tailwind. But since I didn't have the time or the energy to ride into a headwind that far, I rode to a little town called Oxford and then thought I would ride to North Liberty from there and take a bike path most of the way home to Iowa City. The big problem with this plan, was that I have NO sense of direction, so I rode down all three streets of Oxford, trying to find my way out of town and finally saw the little out building by John's grandparent's old farm that let me know I was finally on the right road to North Liberty.

That part of the ride was really nice. I had most of the road to myself and a nice cross or tailwind and then I hit North Liberty...Que' Lastima! I got there right at rush hour, with construction and was on a scary, busy road, and I decided to turn onto some road that was instant suburbia - all of the houses looked EXACTLY the same and there were all of these little roads that lead to nowhere. Guess how many of those dead ends I took? Eh,  you don't want to know. I finally found a road that went into a trailer court and out the other side. I did pull out my phone and attempt to look at Google maps, but it didn't make any sense to me, because it didn't say this street is to the left of you, instead it said North and in my head I don't understand North. Sigh, sigh, sigh.

I rode around on the other side of the trailer court, until I found a bike path. I hoped it was the one that ended up on Dubuque Street in Iowa City, but sadly, I got spit out, right by the big mall in Coralville. From there, I thought I could actually find my way home, but there was a detour where I wanted to get on the strip and so I had to go a different way... I finally found myself in the dog park and took a lane that sent me to a dead end. Next lane? Same thing. Grrrrr. I finally found the right lane that actually went to a street and headed home. My 53 mile ride, took me almost four  hours.

They always say that a bad day on a bike is still better than a good day doing almost anything else, and I'm here to tell you, even if you are a dumb a$$ and have no sense of direction and spend a frustrating afternoon into evening on your bike, it still is true.

World Serves its Own Needs. Don't Misserve Your Own needs

It got warm today. Hurray! I got to spend my lunch at work my favorite way - eating lunch outside in our private garden next to the dance department, listening to the classical piano playing for a ballet class, reading my book and eating leftover pizza. Let's see....food, sunshine, music and a novel. I am one lucky so-and-so.

It is supposed to rain tomorrow for at least part of the day, but I still hope to get some gardening running and either swimming or riding done, depending on the storm front.

I want to run and garden on Sunday too, and if it doesn't rain in the afternoon, our plan is to ride bikes to Solon and meet my daughters and one of their boyfriends at Big Grove for a Mother's Day meal.

I hope all y'all's weekends show as much promise as mine.

Sunshine She's Here, You Can Take a Break

So...Cinco de Mayo! Which means I'm already late for my April stats.Que' Lastima!

April was a fun month, but I also had some old lady/change of life issues thrown in. You know, just so I never get bored...

Running - 70 miles.

Biking - 374 miles.

Swimming - 3.6 miles.

Races - Just two. One 4 mile trail running race and one 15.5 mile part road/trail running race. That is WAY less than I've raced in April since 2011.

Books Read - Seven: 1. "Funny Girl" - Nick Hornby, "Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932" - Francine Prose, "American Pastoral" - Philip Roth, "The Prime of Miss Jean Brody" - Muriel Spark, "Alice Adventures in Wonderland" - Lewis Carroll, "Duplex" - Kathryn Davis, "F" - Daniel Kehlmann.

House Projects - Sooo much yard work and gardening done and so much more yet to do. I hope to have many photos up of all the completed projects done very soon.

No drawing or paintings done and no real writing done. I've been very bad about getting to those two things that I love...

I hope to be more balanced next month, but, as always, I can't promise anything.

And the Rain, Rain, Rain Came Down, Down, Down...

Hey, kids! Remember me? So, this weekend it rained and rained and rained some more. The Iowa City Race weekend was going on, but I had a rough week, physically and last year I did the road race in 40 degree temps, 25 mph winds and rain and I don't think I need to have that experience again for a little while.

So, instead, I ran errands in the morning. I had a $10 off of $30 gift card for Running Wild, I won at a raffle for a trail race I did a month ago. So, I headed downtown to get a new pair of running shorts with it. I also ducked into Prairie Lights to celebrate independent bookstore day, by buy some new novels. Then Archie mucked them all up by lying all over everything. Sigh.

Once I got home, I decided to go for a nice run in the rain. I actually love running in the rain, if it's warm enough and I'm not going all that far. 3.5 miles seemed perfect.

I've been having troubles with my legs cramping up on runs on and off for a while, so now I'm leery about how I'll feel on my routes. Saturday was the first day in a long time that I felt great. I almost forgot how wonderful it can be to go on a run and feel strong....That is, until I saw the baby drowning in the creek. On closer inspection, it was a doll, but it was a bit disconcerting when I saw it out of the corner of my eye, crossing the bridge. Yikes!

After my run, it was time for a long, hot, shower and lunch. The night before we had fish tacos for dinner, so I made fish taco nachos with the leftovers, with all the fixin's. I know I say this almost everyday, but man oh man, do I love all the fixin's.

We did some serious cleaning around the house in the afternoon. John tackled the kitchen, while I tackled the bathroom. I was also able to make about 10 new kittens with all of the hair I brushed off the couch. Damn shedding cats!

We decided a rainy day, was perfect for a nice lap swim and a steam, and we were right. We were both pretty happy when we were through and I got to watch the rock climbers while I waited for John to get done showering. Very cool.

We headed to Apres and had a lovely dinner and tried their new seasonal cocktails. Who said dreary, rainy days can't still be perfect?

Sunday was the first time since John moved back to Iowa and started racing that he didn't race the downtown criterium. He was initially going to do a mountain bike race in Cedar Rapids, but it got canceled because it rained too much and they didn't want to damage the trails.

So, instead, we went down to watch some of the races. We wanted to see the women and the men's masters, for sure. There was an early, two person break away in the women's race and they basically lapped the whole field. Of course, it was still an interesting race when you watch the amazing skills these women have. I tried to take photos of them screaming down the big hill where they have a quick turn at the bottom. The one above was the best I got, because they were all going so fast that all the photos turned out blurry. Look how far she is leaning (and she wasn't even in full lean there) and notice that there is still some sand in the corner there. How bad-ass is that? I'm always in awe.

After the women's race, John and I headed to Micky's to see if Stinky was working. Sadly, she wasn't, but happily, I still got to eat my cheese fries.

After lunch we wandered back to where the races were happening. It was just starting to rain, when we saw a friend of ours hanging out at Atlas. She told us to join her. I was all over it, but John wanted to run around the course and watch the race.

More people came by and we had a great time watching the race with cover and under heat lamps. It was the best way to watch a rainy race. We sure worked around the rain this weekend, but I am sooooo glad that it's been sunny so far this week.

Shiver in My Bones Just Thinking About the Weather

You know it's become cooler out because after Archie butted his way in onto her favorite, soft fleece blanket, Heidi put her ears back and is clearly unhappy, but she didn't murder him and she didn't get up and run away. Archie couldn't be happier.

There are several races this weekend, but right now, I doubt I'll be up to doing any of them. I think John is going to do the mountain bike race in Cedar Rapids, but that might be it for him too.

It's supposed to rain all day tomorrow, which will definitely put a damper on my gardening. I'm hoping Sunday's weather doesn't disappoint.

Have a warm, lovely weekend, unless, of course, you are trying to get someone to snuggle with you...

Out of the Blues and Into the Blacks

This past weekend was soooo great. I used my last 3 hours of vacation for the month to get off work in the afternoon. It just happened to be Earth Day, and since I have always loved the world, ever since the 70's when we used the term "ecology" instead of "environment" as in, " I am all about ecology!", I celebrated one of my favorite holidays by putting my laundry on the line, as opposed to using an electric dryer and then doing one of my favorite bike rides. I didn't drive my car once the entire day.

I thought there was supposed to be a stronger headwind, but it wasn't too bad at all. It's almost exactly a 50 mile ride to Sutliff Bridge and back. It was the first time this year that I rode that far at any kind of speed and without stopping with my friends a bunch of times.

I stopped at the bridge and had the whole thing to myself. I drank some water and ate my blueberry coffee cake that I got at the Co-op on my way home from work, and watched the river rushing underneath me. The bar at the end of  the bridge was cranking old country music, Waylon Jennings, followed by Merle Haggard, followed by George Jones. It was perfect.

I got home a little later than I thought, so John was nice enough to get us some take-out sushi and we had a nice, relaxing evening and then went to bed embarrassingly early.

On Saturday, I went on a nice, easy 4.5 mile run and then John and I headed to Menards to get more stakes and organic black dirt, and some bulbs for the garden. I also did some more yard work with about 6,458 more hours of work to go...Of course, the trails were calling and who were we not to answer?

We had another great day riding and playing outside. John got me to ride on one small section of black trails. Last year my goal was to get brave enough to ride on all of the blue trails and once I did that, this year I'm trying to get brave enough to ride the black trails. In my head, that meant that maybe by August when I was in better shape and had some practice. John's idea was that I start last Saturday. He respected my deferring, but I have a feeling he'll keep gently pushing me in that direction.

Saturday night, I made some BBQ shrimp shish kabob over brown rice and a lovely, cold glass of pinot gregio and we watched the movie, "Infinitely Polar Bear". Mark Ruffalo was excellent in it.

Sunday morning was a trail work day. We had missed the last couple and even though we had committed to a road ride with our RAGBRAI friends, we still managed a couple of hours whacking those bad sticker bushes.

We met our friends at the Deadwood at 11 and headed out to Solon. We had a nice tailwind on the way there, which meant we were going to suffer a little more on the way home. I guess we could all worry about that later...

Some of our friends who weren't up for the ride, met us at Big Grove for lunch. It was wonderful to be able to hang out outside for pretty much the entire day.

On the way home, some of the guys were talking about getting a quick drink somewhere and I invited them all over to our porch instead. Unfortunately, I kind of forgot to confer with John, but luckily he wasn't too upset. We sat around and talked about past and future bike rides until about 6 pm when everyone took off and we finally had to go inside.

When I'm Out Running, I Strut My Stuff...

I had the most wonderful weekend. I can't put the photos of it up on here at work, so I will try to get that taken care of tonight and write it out tomorrow. Today? You get random Springiness. My bleeding hearts are going crazy right now. My lilacs are blooming early, but they don't seem quite as plentiful as they normally are. As soon as I have a spare second that I don't fill with running or bike riding or otherwise playing outside, I will try to get going on planting the seedlings that seem to be thriving in my bedroom window.

This morning I did a fun little 3.5 mile run on the bike path before work. I had my iPhone full of dorky music and it played me songs by bands/groups at the bottom of the V's and all of the W's. For whatever reason known only to my iPhone it played it backwards from the alphabet. Here is the lurvely playlist I got to listen to this morning:

1.  "Wu Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing Ta F*ck Wit" - Wu Tang Clan - Honestly, nothing makes a white, middle aged woman feel more bad-ass street than starting her 6 am run through her Midwestern college town listening to Wu Tang Clan. Do you feel me? Sure.  I thought you did.

2. "Land of 1,000 Dances" - Wilson Pickett - One of my favorite songs to run to.

3. "Jesus Etc" - Wilco - Now, that's a little more appropriate. Perfect music for a middle aged White lady.

4. "Kansas City" - Wilbert Harrison.

5. "Baba O'Riley" - The Who - When I was in high school, I used to listen to this when I ran as well. It made me feel so rebellious back then. Now, it just makes me feel kind of old.

6. "Fell in Love With a Girl" - The White Stripes - This used to be my ringtone for Coadster. It still makes me think that Coadster is calling me...

7. "Summer" - War. This song takes me right back to living in a suburb on the Southside of Chicago when I was 11. It's a little slow for running, but it gets HUGE nostalgia points.

8. "Kiss Off" and "Blister in the Sun" - both by the Violent Femmes. Those songs take me back to my first Summer in Iowa City in 1984. My roommates and I used to lay-out in front of our apartment building to tan. Not only had we never heard of sunscreen, but we used baby oil instead, so our skin could really fry and I can now worry about how much melanoma my body will make for me because of that. Blister in the sun was so very accurate.

9. "Hurry On Sundown" - Vetiver - This is a great song to run to...It's also good for road trips. It was the perfect song to end my run to.

The other good thing about this warmer weather is that now I can go outside and read on my breaks and lunch. Of course, when I'm outside I don't get quite as much reading done, because I notice that my glasses leave a cool reflection on my dress and it reminds me of when I was a kid and my brother used to sneak up on me and try to burn my skin with a magnifying glass and one time he did that to a friend of mine and she said, "That doesn't exactly tickle, you know." And then I have to laugh at the memory of all the girls in my class using that phrase, "It doesn't exactly tickle, you know" in the mid 1970's and then through all of that I've "read" a couple of pages of my book that I have to reread, because I obviously wasn't paying attention through my memory. Welcome to my world...

My Heart is Crammed in My Cranium and It Still Knows How to Pound

I was supposed to do two races this weekend, and yet, I have no race reports. Wah.

It was a rough weekend for migraines and not feeling well. So, on Saturday when I was supposed to do a very hilly 10K running race, I was just too dizzy and weak to do it, but I was still able to go and take photos and cheer John and my friends on.

Lucky for me, my friends are silly and fun and are great for photo ops.

John wasn't super happy with his race. His time was worse than last year and he said he felt crappy the whole run. I wonder a little if he still hasn't quite gotten over his cold yet. He still was 3rd in his category and he loves this course, so he still had a nice morning.

We got home and went to town on Sprunging the Spring and the warm weather. I took 3 big tubs of bottles and cans back to the Can Shed and put the money we got for it in our pizza fund cup. Then we got all the screens out of the garage and replaced all the storm windows - which isn't a quick or easy process when you have a fat orange cat trying to escape every time you open a window....We also did some cleaning and I worked for a little minute in the yard.

I was still hoping to do the 20 mile Time Trial race on Sunday at that point, so I wanted to get in a 2nd ride on the TT bike and check out which sunglasses would work best with my funny looking aero helmet, so I took my time trial bike out on Sand Road and got about 10 miles in.

That night, I made veggie lagasna for dinner and we watched a movie on Netflix streaming called, "Man Up" with Simon Pegg. It was super goofy but we both thought it was pretty fun.

I woke up around 12:30 with a migraine. I got up and took my meds and went back to bed. By 6 am, I got up again and my brain pain was still too bad to race. I thought I might be able to still go to the race and help out and take photos, but after about 5 minutes of trying to walk around, I realized that was a pipe dream I wasn't going to be smoking anytime soon either. So, John took off to the race and I went back to bed.

I woke up again around 10:30 and finally felt better. I decided to just go on a little 3.5 mile run and test my legs and my strength. I wasn't setting any records, but I wasn't doing too badly. I read my book a little and then John got home form his race and I made us black bean quesadillas for lunch.
Since we were both kind of tired but it was a beautiful day and we still wanted to play, we decided to hit the trails at Sugar Bottom.

They were so much dryer and nicer than the week before and we had a great time. It's so nice to go out to Sugar Bottome, because we almost always run into people we know. This time, our friend Todd was out there and we stopped and talked to him for a minute. He told John he was crazy for doing a 10K run on Saturday, a 20 mile TT that morning and THEN riding mountain bikes in the afternoon. He didn't get an argument from me.

In the evening, we ordered a pizza and then John went to play pool with his friend and I watched cheesy TV, ate some ice cream and read my book. Even for a bad migraine weekend, I was still lucky enough to get out and play some and stay home and rest some. Balance!

April, Come She Will

Nice leaning barn in the back there. It's a good thing the winds were coming the other way, or they could have finished the job.

So, I'm a little behind on blogging...Let's go back to Thursday, shall we? I finally got to use a half day of vacation to go on a fun bike ride.

The winds were blowing out of the Southeast fairly strong...Although, nothing compares to what they were like a couple of weekends ago...

I decided to head to Lone Tree for a nice 40 mile ride. It was a lovely day. I hadn't ridden to Lone Tree in a year. I love the route I take to get there. On the way out, I am mostly on a nice, curvy road with very little car traffic. There are beautiful farm houses and barns, and cows. Yea cows!

I had a couple of cookies in my jersey pocket, for my break at the tank when I got to Lone Tree proper. It was a beautiful day in the 60's, so sitting and eating cookies and drinking water outside, was the perfect thing for me to do.

I headed back to a glorious tailwind. I came home all full of endorphins and loving the world...

...Then I had to deal with the damn cats. The cats are thrilled now that it's warm enough to get out on the porch where they have a HUGE 3-D, TV, eternally tuned-in to the nature channel with smell-o-rama capabilities.

Inevitably Archie acts like a big jerk and starts trying to rip the screen in order to get even MORE attention, and so he has to get put in time-out. Heidi, who is normally irritated with Archie, is suddenly incensed and worried on his behalf and I have to roll my eyes so far up into my head, I'm never sure if they'll roll back out. The cat drama never ends...

Basically, this post is an ode to Spring in Iowa. Thank you for warming up, thank you for your beautiful breezes (although you can feel free to turn that sh*t down a notch), and your fragrant flowering trees that make my bike rides a complete and wonderful sensory experience. Now, if you can just do something about these cats....

It's a Wonder Tall Trees Ain't Layin' Down.

So, it's the 10th anniversary of the Iowa City tornado. Just for fun, I'm going to trot out the piece I wrote about the tornado right after it happened. Here it is:

 At first the sirens went off and we ignored them. I have ignored those sirens for the 20 years I've lived in Iowa City. Coadster looked worried but I reassured her (like I always do) that there will never be a tornado in Iowa City because of the way the river runs or whatever the hell I've always been told. Then the siren went off again and I told Coadster that the tornado would hit Swisher like it always does. Then I got a call from Ale' at UAY telling me that she was safe and in a basement.

I got Coadster set up in our laundry room that doesn't have any windows (we don't have a basement) and I decided to take a bath since the bathroom doesn't have any windows either. I lit candles just in case the power went out and Coadster had dragged any comforter or blanket she could find. Halfway through my bath, the sirens stopped and then I heard a sound different from anything I'd ever heard before. It was like a train, but louder - it was a huge locomotive, bigger than our house. I jumped out of the tub and wrapped some towels around myself. Coadster was in the fetal position on the floor and so I wedged right behind her. She had made a nest of our dirty laundry and comforters and we covered ourselves in blankets. Our ears were popping and we could feel the house start to lift. All we could hear was that fucking train and Coadster screaming, "Mommy, make it stop!" But I couldn't. I couldn't protect my daughter. When I felt the house move, I thought that was it for us and I was so sad that Ale' would have to grow up without us.

 Then something happened and our ears stopped popping and the house calmed down. I think it was because the roof blew off and relieved the pressure. Then the winds died down. We were afraid to sit up in case it came back. I reminded Coadster to breathe, "In through your nose and out through your mouth," and we practiced taking long, deep breaths together.

We heard voices outside. People inquiring if everyone was okay. We decided to get up and see what happened. All of our windows were covered in mud and I remember thinking how strange it was that none of them had blown through. I tried to open our door to see out, but there was a tree keeping us in. I went around to the other door and the tree was there too, but we could wedge it open a crack big enough to get through. Our neighbor and his daughter were standing outside. When Coadster saw her friend, they both cried and held onto each other. My neighbor informed me that there was a gas leak and a downed power line and we should leave our place. He took Coadster and I tried to get in my car and pick up Ale' downtown.

My car looked okay at first and then I noticed the glass. The back window blew through my car along with parts of trees and leaves. I cleaned off my seat and got in. The road was blocked by a downed tree to the West and so I tried to go the other way. I made it to Hotz Street before I was blocked by another tree. Hotz St was torn up. Every tree, every garage, most of the houses looked like they had been bombed. The radio was telling me that another tornado was approaching so I got out and tried to run to our neighbor's house. A guy stopped me and asked me if I had a place to go. I have no idea what I said to him, but whatever it was must have appeased him. It smelled like Christmas because of the huge pine that had been topped off and was now lying in the street. I looked out for downed power lines and climbed over several huge trees before I made it to the neighbor's house. Every single one of their windows had been blown out, but they had a basement and we all huddled in the bathroom and listened to the radio.

It sounded safe again. The neighbor's phone was working so I called my ex-husband at 126 where he works and asked him to get Ale'. We went outside to see if everyone was okay. Slowly, we were finding people and pets. But we couldn't see very well. We thought it would be so much better if we could just see. We were trying to go from house to house on Parsons, Hotz and Jefferson to make sure everyone was okay. Most people I ran into were laughing - not because it was funny, but because it all seemed so ridiculous and surreal. I walked past a duplex on Hotz street where one side was smashed by a tree and I heard someone sobbing. That sound was almost worse than the sound of the tornado itself.

We had heard that they turned the gas off so we thought it was safe to go back home. I walked to the back to see if the gas lines were still attached and they were. When I came back to the front my landlord was there with his high school aged daughter and 2 of her male friends. he hugged me and said his house was fine but he was fighting back tears at what happened to us. He thought it would be okay for us to stay in our place since the gas was off.

The upstairs neighbors came home to get their cats. He had left 10 minutes before the storm and had barely made it to his friend's house before it hit. Luckily, their cats were fine and they put them in a duffel bag to take them back to where they were staying. His girlfriend was crying and Coadster went up to her and said, "Are you okay? Really?" and hugged her. I was so happy that my daughter was growing up to be a compassionate and good person. Sometimes when they're 13 and hard to take, you wonder, but Coadster has been so amazingly helpful and kind through all of this.

The guy who lives upstairs looked around and said, "Dude, this looks just like Storm Stories, but it's my house."

The girls and I finally went in our house. We unfolded our futons and all slept together in the living room so I could reach over and make sure they were okay throughout the night. One, two. One, two. I counted them from time to time. They were both sure they wouldn't be able to sleep, but they were out in 5 minutes. I was up most of the night. We had to leave the window open (without a screen as they had all been shredded and ripped off), since there could have been gas left in the pipes to escape into our house. MidAmerican was across the street by 10 and working cutting up all the felled trees on the power lines. Chainsaws buzzed all night and after the bars closed, the drunk college kids stumbled through our neighborhood laughing and probably looting. I fell asleep dreaming about a drunken A-hole trap. In my dream, the power was still on and I set a cold shiny 40 oz. directly behind the live power line and watched as each drunk fried on their way to take it.

She Had Wheels On, On Her Feet

Sunday was a recovery day. It was also a very good day. I felt like crap in the morning, not oddly enough. John woke me up early enough to watch much of Paris-Roubaix on-line. He also gave me a shoulder and foot rub while we watched the race. If you ever want to make someone worship you and start a new religion in your honor, give that person who just ran a 25K trail run the day before, a shoulder and foot rub. I am one very lucky girl.

I always feel like a race car driver when I forget to take my helmet off and I'm sitting in the car with it on.

John read this thing that said it is better for you to run an easy, short run the day after a long race, than to not run at all. So, I ran 2 VERY slow miles. It didn't exactly tickle, but it wasn't as painful as I thought it would be, either.

I did some reading, some laundry and some leftover heating up for lunch. Then I took the nicest, biggest, fattest nap you can imagine. I was still exhausted from the day before, so it was just what the doctor ordered. It had rained a little on and off, so we weren't sure if the mountain bike trails would be open, but we called and it said they were. It looked like it rained more closer to Solon, than in Iowa City, but the sign on the trails still said they were open. Mountain bike riding is great for me when I'm tired. I can go slowly and and play in the woods and I take it easy and don't ride anything that's the least bit scary to me and just have a good time.

As we rode, the trails seemed pretty good for the most part, but were a little wet in places. We heard someone riding fast behind us, and we got out of the way so they could pass. He was a guy named Ryan who is on another racing team. He stopped and asked if we were feeling weird about riding the trails, even though they were open. He said he thought they were about 80 % good, but 20 % might be a little too muddy. We all agreed that we didn't want to be "those guys" who ride on the trails when they're not supposed to, so we finished up our lap and headed back to the car.

We finished up the last day of the weekend, by listening to the Dire Straits Pandora station while we made enchiladas, black beans, Mexican rice, de gallo salsa and guacamole for dinner and then watched the movie, "Creed". Not a bad day for a girl who could barely walk.