So first things first, a massive branch of a massive tree fell on the track tonight.  And fell on people.  Yeah, fell on people.  The diameter of the bottom of the branch that broke off the tree was probably 2 feet and there multiple branches.  It covered almost the whole width of the track and a good 20  feet length wise.  We were in the middle of the workout, heard this giant cracking sound and I looked up just in time to see it falling on people.  On one side of the track there’s this stone house and a big tree on hillside. The weight of all the limbs must have been too heavy and it just cracked and fell.  As soon as we saw it fall we all went running over there.  2 of our people got caught under it.  One was only a little scrapped up but the other one had a lot of scraps.  The last couple of weeks there have been 2 girls there training with a coach and one of them got trapped under it.  They got her out and called an ambulance.  She was conscious and moving around, but was definitely in some pain. There’s a hospital really close to the track so the ambulance got there really quickly and the fire department was there soon after.  I couldn’t help but think about how much worse it could have been because Team in Training has been showing up around 6:30 and doing there warm up right under that tree.  So that pretty much took the wind out of our track workout. 

Rewind about 40 minutes before that, and I had gotten to the track and there was a local news crew there (KGW for you locals) and I asked “what’s going on with the news being here?!”  The thought  of being filmed while waddling around the track had me freaked out. I’m not sure if they talked to someone, did some kind of report or what, but they were packing up after our warm up. Of course, perverse curiosity is going to make me watch the news tonight. 

I was standing there, avoiding the news camera, and talking to someone and Mirielle (pronounced me-ray) came up to me and said hello.  She was the woman who ran the whole route with me on Saturday in July.  I knew she was going to be gone for a couple of weeks because she was going to France, but she hadn’t shown back up yet and I figured she had decided not to come back. But there she was again!  She walked up to me and said “hi!  I’m back!” in her cute little French accent.  (Apparently she was there on Saturday, but I wasn’t.)  I was so thrilled to see her because this means I might have someone to run with on Saturdays for the whole route.  Woot!!

So we did our warm up, I felt good, even with the warm weather. Jeremy (Moxy, I’m not referring to him as JEREMY tonight because he scaled down the workout for us due to the weather) told us to do 200 at 80-85% and then 200 easy.  Like a really slow jog easy or even a walk.  The marathon people were supposed to do 4 miles like this.  I was standing there and felt my hamstring tightened up and before we started I leaned over to stretch and zing, my hamstring seized up on me.  I was like “are you fucking kidding me?!”  I mean, seriously?  Again?!!  I walked for a bit and it loosened up and I was able to run.  My shoe lace came untied, I leaned over to tie it, and it tightened up again. Lesson learned, don’t bend over.  Got it.  I was just starting to run again after a short walk and that’s when the tree limb fell over. 

After the whole tree thing happened and the emergency people arrived, Jeremy got us back together and said “yeah, well, I think that wraps up tonight’s workout.  People hurt, a tree blocking the track, yep, its time to go home.”  I only got 1.5 miles into it. Oh well. I’ll kick ass next week.  Just glad no one was hurt more seriously and hope the girl is okay.