The Raven's Roost

Nicole left us with some dropped branches and some flooding near the creeks and the St Johns River. We got through all right - some power problems but nothing major. I understand the coast and around the waterways things are not so hot. I'm not sure about our road in particular, but I'm going to go for a walk later and check it out. Some of our neighbors did a good bit of road work this summer, including one guy who put down a bunch of asphalt millings. There are one or two places that may have standing water.

Cold Spicy Sesame Noodles

The first time I tried cold sesame noodles was from a recipe in one of those Sneaky Chef cookbooks. I should have known what I was in for when the author stated she and her family liked to make these "before going on a diet," but I made them anyway. They were fucking terrible. Most of my dislikes for foods are about the textures, not the flavors, but in this case, the flavor was awful. They were just straight up bad and I felt like an idiot for wasting ingredients on the dish, only to throw it out and go to McDonald's. THIS recipe looks like it would actually be good. It looks like a "lazy person's pad thai" I sometimes make that uses peanut butter and sriracha for the sauce.

We also finally got around to watching the Pixar movie "Soul." I would highly recommend - very good. Very funny.

We made it home safely, picking up Feisal from boarding along the way. The vet says his diabetes is controlled well enough that she was able to vaccinate him, so he's all up to date now, and he charmed the workers by meowing for pets every time someone walked by his crate.

I'm trying to post a more complete update here but I'm dead tired and my brain is a plate of scrambled eggs. We've been busy since we got home, and now of course there's a HURRICANE because why not. Though from what I'm seeing, Nicole will basically be a category 1, then make landfall and drop back to a tropical storm. But all that's going to happen overnight.

Anyway, the races this past weekend went really well for Fox, who PR'd both! He was feeling good so he just took off out of the gate, LOL. On the half, he slightly strained or overdid his calf muscle and was in a bit of pain, but the medics at the finish line tied a sack of ice to his leg with saran wrap, and today he says it basically just feels a little stiff. Now he's just got either a seriously bad cold or allergies - con crud.

I had a less than stellar run. And when I say "my times were bad," I mean compared to my previous times, and not in an absolute way. But my half marathon performance was awful. I came in at JUST under three hours and was dead. I was in agony the whole time, but I managed to talk myself through the whole ordeal and not give up, so I'm proud of myself for that.

See, I bought some Hokas recently. Extra cushiony bouncy happy, should be great for a long run, right? Except, all that pain I have on long runs anymore isn't overtraining, it's the stupid maximalist running shoes. Some people do really well in them, but others don't, because it doesn't allow your feet to act like springs, the way they're supposed to. The shoes were absorbing a lot of the energy when I'd push off, so I struggled with getting up to speed and staying there. Some studies were done showing the softer shoes increase force, and your joints end up paying for it. It was an interesting series of papers to skim over, but basically, they may benefit some runners, but be very bad for others. Lesson learned for me - the Hokas are recovery shoes. I'm better off running in a less cushioned model and should stick to my Asics and Mizunos. But yeah, I had YouTube Music give me the heaviest of heavy metal - the loudest, fastest, screamiest stuff it had and managed to drag my carcass over the finish line but I did not have a good time out there.

So, of course I'm running a full marathon in two weeks! :D

Actually I went out for a 7 miler this morning and felt really good. I figured I should get a run in before the storm hits, and hopefully the rain will pound the sand down some. I also passed a house a couple of miles down the road that has pigs! A couple of adults and a whole bunch of piglets.

We're still more or less ready from when the last hurricane went through, so getting ready for this one wasn't difficult. Where we live, we won't know too much until tonight or in the morning. I may sleep through it, but I'll probably go look at NOAA if I wake up during the night. It's been very windy all day, with a lot of cloud cover, and it sounds like the winds are picking up some.