The Perils of Doppler Radar

All of my training for the upcoming Kiawah Island Marathon has gone well, especially the weather.  Rainy days have magically cleared up for an hour or two to allow me to run on dry pavement; I've had cool weather, still days - perfect training.  But this week, the summit of my training, consisting of 50 miles and the final set of Yassos, were a challenge.  The Yassos went well on Tuesday, but Wednesday brought rain in the morning, rain in the early afternoon, and a prediction of worsening rain all day for my six-mile run.  I checked the radar on my favorite weather site, Intellicast, and it showed a window of opportunity within the next hour, so I quickly dressed out and went up to Town.  Light rain turned to heavy rain, then to wind-driven hurricane-like rain.  The windows had disappeared, at least here on the actual ground.  I stopped once or twice to wring out my singlet, and continued, thinking to myself that no training program could be complete without a "character-building" run.

Needless to say, on my shivering drive back down the mountain the rain tapered off, then stopped completely, and as I turned in my driveway the sun peeked out.  It did not rain the rest of the afternoon.  Well, thanks anyway, Intellicast - I needed some character-building.

Flight of the Vampire 5-K

We went to this costume-popular race for the first time this year, and four members placed in their age groups.  But as I said in the monthly newsletter, "the most exciting race was in the female 50-59 age group, where the top three finishers were all less than eight seconds apart; Angela Conner from Tryon had the finishing kick, but Vicki Heller and Martha Betz battled it out right behind her only one second from each other; congratulations to both of the fiery redheads!  They pushed each other into running hard all the way to the finish line."

 Lots of interesting costumes!

And four winners with their medals.