One Wild Ride!

HOLY MOLY! Our road trip last night was horrific! We were cruising along singing to the radio when we came upon some storms that looked to be rather daunting. We turned the radio to a local station and they had tornado warnings out. Not knowing where we were, as we didn't pack a map, we had no idea how near the warnings where in relation to us. We (Doug) decided to keep on going so that's what we did. We kept watching the sky as close as we could to keep an eye out for tornadoes, but the sky was so dark, it was hard to see any formations. We continued to head down I-70 Westbound through the pounding rain, hail and wind. Off to the North, we could make out the sky was green. For those of you not familiar with tornadoes, green skies are not a good thing. We continued driving and the wind picked up, but not the side to side shaking you would get from a wind coming from South to North-in one direction. This wind was a swirling wind. A scary wind-very scary. It was also so loud, Doug and I could hardly hear each other speaking in a normal voice tone, we had to almost yell to hear each other.

There were cars everywhere pulled over on the side of the road-and some even in the middle of the road-stopped. Every overpass had a car that was hiding out underneath it. You could see emergency personnel and storm watchers at several ramps on the highway.

Doug and I looked over to the North of the highway to see a huge black mass just hundreds of feet from the car. At that time, Doug nor I said anything to each other about what we saw. We just booked it down the road. Not three minutes down the road, there were 3 semi trucks toppled over on their side. It was at that point in time, we both knew it was a tornado we had just witnessed.

It was then the radio had confirmed there was a tornado that had just come through Ellis-the exact point we were. They had no power, there were power lines down across the highway and emergency personnel was flying down the highway Eastbound to get there.

IT WAS ONE SCARY ASS RIDE!

Once we got through the storm, we continued on into Colorado. We pulled over at a rest stop to get some zzz's for a few hours and then continued on to Wyoming this morning. We went and checked the marathon course out. It's beautiful. 100% of the half marathon is trail and 77% of the full marathon is trail. I think for Doug tomorrow, running the full, the wind might be a factor-like the altitude isn't enough. It was windier then all get out today. There is still even some snow up at 8900 where the races start.

We just got back from the pasta party. The race director spoke and went over the 'rules' of there are no aid stations on the course-they are re-filling stations. He said he would be happy to listen to any whining anyone might have, but his motto is, "where the race director promises nothing, and he delivers!" He also asked for those that were doing the marathon to raise their hands, many people did. He then went on to say, "so you all are doing the fun run then huh?" Everyone laughed as besides the half and full marathon, they are having a double marathon. We sat with two people that were doing the double tomorrow. Good luck to them! Whew!

This race is held every year on Memorial Day weekend, and the back of our shirts are very fitting for the weekend. They say, "honoring all Americans who died for their country. Their sacrifice lets us run free". Amen to that.

So that is it for now. I am exhausted! I'm so glad I'm doing the half tomorrow!

A race report should soon follow as well as any adventures of our trip back as well. Hopefully it's not near as exciting as our trip out!