Irene Came and Went

This weekend, Hurricane Irene decided to come and give Philadelphia a few (or 5.73″) inches of rain and a good deal of flooding on the Schuylkill River.  The river runs 1/2 mile from my apartment (and down a hill).  This afternoon, I took a walk down the hill because of rumors that it had flooded over on to Kelly Drive and West River Drive.  The trail around the River is used for the Rock n Roll Philadelphia Half Marathon coming up next month and the Philadelphia Marathon and Half Marathon in November.  My place is fine, no damage or power loss, but this is what I found on my adventure to the river!

Schuylkill River taken from the East Falls Bridge

The River on the Kelly Drive side

Kelly Drive once again

This guy didn't get the hurricane memo so he didn't move his car

Trees were snapped in half (West River Drive)...

Hopefully all my East Coasters made it through in one piece and if there was damage done, it will be fixed quickly!  I can know say Philadelphia’s experienced Hurricanes, tornados and earthquakes all in the same week.  Let’s just hope we don’t get the fires too.

No Hurricane Will Get in the Way of My Long Run

For the past few days, Hurricane Irene has been all over the news.  Gov. Christie (NJ) was telling beach goers of the Jersey Shore to “Get the H@#! off the beaches,” not to worry about their tans and to get to higher ground.  All very true.  Besides Hurricane Irene blowing up my twitter newsfeed, the other subject highly being tweeted were by my runner friends training for various marathons and half marathons.  Many were about switching tomorrow’s (Sunday’s) long run to Friday or Saturday.  My long run was split into two runs yesterday- 8.5 around the Kelly Drive Loop and another 5.5 at the gym.  I couldn’t imagine trying to do double digits on the treadmill (or dreadmill).

Then there are the other effects of Irene.  In the Philadelphia/ NJ area alone, 2 half marathons were cancelled due to the weather.  The Wildwood 1/2 Marathon in NJ scheduled for tomorrow was cancelled on Friday.  Not sure people would be interested in running a 1/2 marathon in 60-100 mph winds and hurricane like rains.  There was also the Perk Up 1/2 Marathon for tomorrow also on the calendar.  Again, not a fun thing to try and run in.  I was set to run the Lehigh Valley Zoo 10K in the Allentown area.  Even though Allentown is a good 60-70 miles from any sort of river or major body of water, winds were set to be up around 60 mph and the rain was suppose to be felt that far in state.  Luckily, the event coordinators rescheduled it for September 18.  The bad news, it’s the day of the Rock n Roll Philadelphia 1/2 Marathon I’ve been signed up for since last year.  Can’t be in 2 places at once unfortunately.

The only upside to the hurricane is that it’s giving me a weekend off of running.  The past few weeks, I’ve hit 40+ miles a week and I’m currently up to 150+ miles for the month, the most I’ve run in a month ever I think.  So Irene, I thank you for that.  I thank you for forcing so many of us runners adjust our schedules around you and for giving us more rain in the wettest August Philadelphia has seen (not really).  And for messing with our power (kidding again).

To all my fellow East Coasters, be safe this weekend!!