Hold on to your hats

Well, we survived 'Hurricane Katrina' in Nashville. All the schools shut down for a whopping 3 inches of rain. They didn't even show Good Morning America here because they had all their 'storm team' member out at every Bradford pear tree that was down across the city, and out interviewing everyone named Bubba to see if they had been able to get any bread, milk and batteries at the grocery store. Granted, the past 24 hours the weather has been gross but the media blows everything about of proportion. I would have much rather seen coverage of the areas actually hit by the REAL storm. Today's mostly been a slow, steady drizzle with some gusty winds. Pippin has NOT been happy about it!! The little dog hates the rain and when he sees me grab my jacket (to throw over my head) he tucks his ears under and reconsiders whether or not he really needs to go out. He's perfected the art of balancing on three legs and hiking his leg off the edge of the driveway so he can pee in the grass without ever leaving the comfort of the driveway.

The rain was most mostly over by the time we got home from work today. After a yummy dinner of chicken soft tacos we got geared up for a rain. We had both worked late today, so it was 8 before we had headed out. There were still a lot of big poofy clouds rolling by at a fast clip, and some seriously strong headwinds pushing against us. Sometimes the gusts were so strong I had to hang onto my hat and I couldn't even hear my music. Something about it just made it fun, I think I finally got the wish for a stiff breeze I've been asking for all summer (maybe some of it will stick around for this weekend!).

Well, I guess I am NEVER going to know what my results were in the Run for the Party last weekend. They have a letter on their website today stating something went wrong with their chip system and they were only able to recover the top 3 people in each age group. They didn't even provide their time so I have no clue if I was even close. They said they're already make modification to make next year's race go off smoothly, but I don't think I'll be participating next time. If anything I'll be a spectator and enjoy the costumes without the stress of a poorly designed course (at time there was traffic moving right next to us so you never knew where you could safely run!). Check out the letter from the race director here.

I was able to book a hotel room for the Memphis Half-Marathon last night. It's in December, and I only signed up for it a week or two ago. I was in no particular rush to book the room until they announced a Rolling Stones concert there the night before. So, I wasn't very surprised that it took me SEVERAL phone calls until I found an open hotel downtown. The reservation agent (at the Doubletree Memphis Downtown) was very nice and when she asked me if I she could help me with anything else the first neurotic thing that popped into my head was to ask if they had available toasters. She kind of laughed, and then I did, too and told her before a race like that I have to have a bagel with peanut butter. She admitted no one had ever asked her that before and was nice enough to connect with the actual hotel and ask them. It turns out they don't, so I'll just bring my own. I guess we all get pretty crazed with our race day traditions and this will be my first out of town race so I'll a little nervous about making sure I get all the right sleep and feel refreshed before the race. Oh well, I still have 3 more months to obsess about all the things that could go wrong!

Have a great night everybody!

Rachel

Exercise:
4.25 mile evening run, 20 minutes toning/stretching (focus:abs)