Hail Mary! Twenty Miles of Chopped Salad

I haven't been blogging much this week, it's been crazy. I've been busy with work, which is awesome, and getting my miles in even though my legs don't feel as fresh as I'd like them to be, but we've had a few mini natural disasters around here lately.

It started innocently enough early this week, nice clear skies in the mornings followed by late afternoon thunderstorms, which is typical summer Colorado weather. I ran the bike paths early in the week, everything was green and growing and summery.

Tuesday was a great day, especially in the evening when I had my radio show on KRFC. The podcast isn't up on their website yet and the host of the show told me she is behind on getting those things up so it could be August before it's available. But the good news is it went very well and I will likely do another show in the future. As soon as the podcast is up I will post the link. It was fun, I really liked it and I felt comfortable with Lindsay, the show host.

I had a lot of client appointments this week which gave me a good indicator of how busy I will be able to get before I need to hire some help. I'm not there yet but I have some thinking to do over the next few weeks so I can start putting all of that in place and be ready in case...

Tuesday night we had a massive hailstorm, the girls were both on the bed with us, trembling. We could hear the hail crashing on the roof, I went in the back office and looked out the open window and could smell the parsley, being shredded in the dark. It sounded like the windows were going to break at times, and like someone was pounding the roof with baseball bats.

The next morning we surveyed the damage. No damage to the cars, windows, or obvious damage to the roof, everything looked intact. But the yard...

The garden was shredded into what looked like chopped salad.

We'll have to start over, the good thing is it's June and we still have another two months, we can at least plant lettuce and other things again. The baby tomato plants are gone. Lucky I had just harvested the broccoli and most of the cauliflower the day before the storm. The beets might survive but most of them are big enough to pull now anyway.

I had a 20 mile run planned and got out there and did it. I decided on a tour of south Fort Collins, which turned into a Hail Mary tour.

The piles of hail along Lemay Avenue were easily a foot deep, deeper in some spots.

As I ran up the Power Trail there were areas that were flooded, and other places that looked like a blizzard hit.

When I got to the place where the Power Trail was a lake, I decided on a detour through the golf course.

That was flooded, too. I ended up running through mid-calf-deep icy water!

Everywhere I turned there were more piles of deep hail.

It made for an interesting and adventurous run. I felt like I was in the mountains again, something I've been missing lately. In July I plan to get up to Rocky Mountain National park, regardless of the bad ankles, I'm going.

This morning it was speed day and usually I run with Wheaties Boy but he was out of town, so I decided to sleep in and do my miles in the daylight, and on pavement, which helps. Finally busted through the 7 minute mark again, despite my dead legs. The next two were close, but no cigar...7:08 and 7:02. Still not bad for tired legs.

Tomorrow I have a long run planned. While the rest of Fort Collins is downtown at the Brewers Festival, I am hoping to have the roads to myself and run a good portion of the day, maybe 6 hours or so. Next week is already the 4th of July, Isabelle's birthday on the 5th, and I am looking forward to three weeks from today.

That's when I take off to Lone Pine, California to be on Badwater Medical again. I cannot wait to get back out there and see everyone, I missed it so much last year when I was stuck here in that horrible torture session at my old job. I'm driving this time, 17 hours total each way, but will stop off and visit friends along the way in western Colorado the first night, and of course make my necessary Sushi Koma stop in Las Vegas.

But mostly I'm looking forward to the long hours on the road, with the windows down, no AC, hot wind blasting in my face, and clearing my mind. I need a reset button!