Day 4,348—The Day After and Driving Home During a Tornado Watch—

 

        I have been spending all day picking up from the race. It took me a while, but I have all my stuff put away. If we had stayed longer like planned, I would have gotten home early this morning. Yet,  I still simultaneously feel behind and ahead of schedule. I have looked through all my photos and videos from the race and put them on my computer after editing. I haven’t started writing about the race, but I have gone running. It was so cold! I was only planning on running a mile, but I decided to go a little further to hit 2 miles. I was sore but not nearly as sore as I was after the Shippey. So much had happened during the run, and after that, the drive home was stressful. I am going to start my write-up of the race with the story of driving back.

The Thunder Kiss 100: the Drive Back

        I knew there was supposed to be a storm on Monday morning, but not that there would be a tornado watch in the Midwest on Sunday night. Travis had slept in the car while I was running, so he was fresh to drive. The plan was for me to sleep in the car on the way back so I would be good to drive the 50 minutes from his house to my home afterward. In total, it should be a little over 8 hours of driving. Everything was fine for the majority of the trip, but once we got into Illinois, the sky changed and became one big dark cloud. I saw there was a tornado watch in St. Louis, but nothing in Illinois yet. Suddenly, it was raining so hard that we couldn’t see through the car window, and the wind was so strong that we could feel it pushing up against the car. The rain moved sideways as if someone threw it against the car.

        Travis pulled over for a little while until he got visibility, and we continued the stressful driving of making it to his house. I was thankful for his driving because my car would not have handled the wind nearly as well as the big SUV-type vehicle he was driving. When we finally made it to his house, it was freezing outside and still raining. The storm wasn’t as bad as it had been, but it was still wet and raining. The sudden change in the temperature was jarring. I was wearing shorts, and I had to use the restroom, but no one was home at Travis’s house to open the door, so we were stuck outside on the porch until Travis went around.

        I was nervous about the drive home. I had only slept maybe 2-3 hours at the most, but I was feeling alert, just not loving the idea of driving during a storm in the rain. It started out okay, but soon the wind had picked up, and I couldn’t see that well, so I turned my brights on. I could feel the wind, but so far it wasn’t a factor. I kept looking at maps to see how much time it showed it would take me to get home. It was just like the last five miles of the race. I was so focused on every step and trying to move as fast as possible, but every time I looked at my watch, I hadn’t run nearly as much as I had to do. Now, during this drive, I was so stressed driving during the storm. When I made it home, I was thrilled to be in a building and out of my car. It was great to see my family, eat food, and go to bed on time, but I keep thinking about that drive home. I am glad I wasn’t running in it, but it was not fun to drive through it, especially on so little sleep. I will start writing up the whole experience later today, but ending the trip on this note just seemed so odd. With all the other unpredictable things that happened, you'd think it would be less likely for something like this, while I know that they have nothing to do with each other.