Rain!

Okay, first as most of you might already know, I live in Iowa–northeast Iowa in what seems to be the only little island of land around which seems to not be flooding with 6 feet of water.  I actually feel guilty even saying that.  Everyone surrounding us is.  We’ve been getting the severe storms, the tornado weather and in our town, homes are getting water damage but when one compares this to what everyone around us is experiencing…

As of this morning the water was 5 1/2 feet ABOVE any levels ever recorded.  Ever.  That just boggles my mind.  I don’t know what these people are going to do.  We’re talking homes under water in areas never even considered for flood damage.  Entire towns flooded.  Cedar Rapids, being the big city around here gets the news but there are all these little towns that experienced this flooding.  So often and I’ve found myself in this same thinking pattern, we think of people living along the rivers as asking for it when they get flooded and live only a few feet from the water line.  But this is not the case here.  We are talking areas that have never flooded before.  Its shocking.  Hard to take in.  Hard to believe.

One thing I think is remarkable about all this is–people are evacuating when told, are responding and taking this serious.  And if you look at the low numbers of rescues taking place, you’ll see how truly incredible this is.  I personally believe that the whole thing with Katrina helped people realize flooding is serious.  Water is dangerous.  2 feet of water can knock a grown man on his butt, float a vehicle… 2 feet of water does not look like much and add to this the violent force with which it is flowing…it’s scary.  I know many may think that whole thing with Katrina was handled badly and I’m not disagreeing but when in history have we had to deal with such flooding?  We have now.  We learned.  I do believe one good thing came out of Katrina and its constant coverage…it helped the rest of the country be better prepared.  We here have been respecting the warnings, preparing days in advance.  Just take a look at Iowa City and all those surrounding towns.  Maybe you guys don’t get it on the national news but they have been sandbagging for days already.  They have been evacuating for days already.  They are preparing.  Of course as the water flows downwards it gathers force and water.  One area astonished me, they had sandbags stacked about 12 feet high, are still stacking but–they don’t expect it to hold. 

My husband works in Cedar Rapids and his company went to help fill sandbags–sadly in the end they did not work but being a part of trying to help…there are no words.  Of course my hubby then needed major massage because of course he was determined to keep up with the young, in shape guys… :-)  Silly man!

They are forecasting sunny weather with scattered showers today and tomorrow–YAY!  All this funky weather has affected my running.  Its not been happening.  :-(  Can you hear me growling?  Today looks like the first day I can go in a week!  And I plan on finding a way to go from here on out–I HAVE to.  Though granted its hard to force mother nature to listen.  :-)  But I just had to share what happened last week.

I was so excited to be feeling great, not sick(see last post) and able to go out for a run!  I couldn’t wait.  AND the schedule said I only had to go 30 minutes.  What a bonus.  True, I could have done whatever I wanted but I wanted to get back on schedule.

So, off I went with Kia telling my kids I only had to go for 30 minutes, I’d be back before they knew it.  (This is mostly for the youngest who didn’t really want me to go.)

In a steady stream of storms lately, the day was beautiful, sunny, a bit windy, a bit hot, a bit humid…okay a LOT humid and hot and windy but…I felt great!  I was running!!!  I kept a steady watch on my time and counted down my time…15 minutes left…10 minutes left…5 minutes left…whoohoo!  30 minutes done!!!!

I turned around and man you wouldn’t believe the strength of that wind!  I was kissing the ground trying to move!  I took a couple of pictures of the grass laying flat from the wind(all there was to show you–I live in Iowa remember ) but they’re on my phone and I haven’t figured out bluetooth yet.  I will though.  :-)  Oh and for our area not having any hills, we do have steady inclines/declines.  Well, going away from my house its all downhill(why we personally haven’t been flooding).  Thus it doesn’t take a genius to figure out, I’d run downhill with the wind at my back all the way out.  Now going back I was against a wind I could hardly stand up in, muchless run in and was going steadily uphill. 

But it gets better.  Did you happen to notice when I turned around?

Yeah, at 30 minutes.  In other words, I ran for 30 minutes in one direction–away from home THEN turned around.

Can we say diddle brain!??!

AHHHHHHH! LOL.  *sigh*, I do love to run but for the first day back after a week and half off from being sick… an hour run was NOT ideal. I made it and my kids had a good laugh at my expense.  Heck, I’m still laughing.

30 minutes in one direction—Dang but I thought I was smarter than that.  No wonder I’ve had a hard time learning my new phone out! 

Cole