Shelter from the Storm

It has been a long time since we had the flu, and I had forgotten how nasty it is.  Even when most of the symptoms began to subside early last week, we still felt fatigue.  It hit Martha harder than me, and by Monday I felt like trying to run.  A 20 mph wind was blowing hard out of the west, but it was fatigue more than the wind that made me cut it short at a mere two miles. 

Tuesday, a winter storm sweeping across the country caused major flooding and damage throughout the southeast.  Highlands received seven inches of rain by some accounts.  US-64 between Highlands and Franklin was seriously damaged, and the DOT estimated the road will be closed for at least two weeks.  Going by photos posted on Facebook, it may be a lot longer than that!

We did not receive that much rain at the coast, but it was a potent storm and all day the rain and wind shook the sliding-glass doors and howled through the cracks around the doors.  We watched its rapid, inexorable advance on radar as the worst of it, with wind gusts up to 90 mph, moved overhead and finally out over the ocean, with lightning flashing and thunder rumbling.  The power did not even flicker, though, something we have noticed before out here where the power infrastructure is hardened to withstand hurricanes and there are no tall trees to come down.

We have a little blackboard here like the one in our kitchen (actually a whiteboard and a dry-erase pen), and I wrote, “Give thanks for shelter from the storm,” our first entry for 2024.

I felt restless, and that morning I visited our small, inadequate exercise room here at the condo – two elipticals, a treadmill, and no weights heavier than ten pounds – and did as many pushups as I could (five sets of 20).  Good old reliable pushups!  Then, in the afternoon, I did some “hall-walking,” up and down the open hallways, then up to the next floor and so on.  By Wednesday morning the storm had blown over and I was able to run again, but again only two miles.  At this point I was not sure if it was the fatigue caused by the flu or simply from being out of shape after few opportunities to run while we were traveling.

On Thursday, I felt recovered enough (and non-contagious) to visit the Sports Center in Morehead City for the first time, a place we discovered last year.  There are several rooms filled with free weights and machines, basketball and pickleball courts, an indoor swimming pool, rooms for aerobics and yoga, and even a racquetball court.  One of the reasons we come out here for the winter is exactly because we want to be able to run, work out, and practice yoga, and it was a good feeling to return to the condo with sore muscles.

This morning, I capped off the week with my longest run since we have been here, and that was equally rewarding.  It was a beautiful day, temperatures in the mid-50s and only a light breeze, so I was able to run all the way to Fort Macon and back.  It is one of our usual training runs, five miles down to the Fort and back on a wide bike lane and with little traffic.  We know the route well, from the Union Artillery Placement sign marking the place where guns were set up to fire on the Fort in 1862, and the site of the wreckage off-shore of the notorious Blackbeard's ship, Queen Anne's Revenge.  A lap or two around the parking lot, or turning into the Picnic Area half-way there, can lengthen the route into a six- or seven-mile run, and if the tide is out you can run all or most the way back on the beach.  It was a modest beginning for a running program, which I hope will eventually include “intervals” at the Picnic Area.  And it was again very satisfying to feel good, healthy fatigue in the legs, to realize that I am making progress.  To be able to keep moving forward.

Siempre adelante, nunca atras:  the motto of a runner nearing his 75th year.