Tuesday Night Brick and Thinking of Joplin

Sorry I was off the blog radar for the last week.  I was travelling for work and didn't get much time for workouts and blogging.  I had a great trip though and got to present a giant check to the winner of a fishing tournament.  I won't know for a month or so if I make it into the TV episode that recaps the tournament!

I originally planned to come home Sunday night but would have left around 6PM with a 6 1/2 hour drive.  Yuck! I ended up extending my hotel stay and driving home on Monday.  It was a good thing I changed my plans because home went through some horrible weather on Sunday night.  Joplin, MO, is just 45 minutes north of my house and had a deadly tornado strike the city.  I was actually planning a trip to Joplin for Wednesday to do store checks on some of the stores that were destroyed Sunday.  It is crazy to see all of the devastation but it is so uplifting to see our community coming together to support our neighbors. 

Tonight we are expecting equal if not worse storms to come through the area again.  As I write this, Joplin is under another tornado warning and the storms are moving into the area.  The weather forecasters have been calling for the storms since yesterday.  The corporate headquarters of Walmart began encouraging employees to get home to safety early this afternoon which is a very rare occurrence.  I decided given this situation it would probably be best to do an indoor trainer ride.  I did some interval work but mainly focused on high cadence spinning. 

After I got off the bike, I checked the radar and saw that the storms were moving more slowly than they initially expected.  I laced up my running shoes and headed out for a very short run so that I could count tonight's effort as a brick run.  I headed to the street across from mine which has a hilly loop that is short and fun.  I only needed to do a mile so it didn't take too long and I got two hill repeats in! It was so eerie out because there were no cars out on the road.  I have never seen the road so deserted but everyone is taking cover tonight given Sunday's damaging tornado. 

My thoughts and prayers are with all the people of Joplin especially fellow bloggers Brooke and Chanti who live in that area.  I'm also thinking of Ruth Sawkins and her Rufus Racing team and hoping that all are safe.