Running with Pixie Dust

Today's workout:

First half of Fire 45 EZ + FLEEING FIRE

Okay... so that's putting it a little dramatically.  What really happened is that I did, in fact, get about halfway through Fire 45 EZ... which, incidentally, was kicking my ass because while I did get up and do my tempo run on Thursday, I blew off two TF workouts... and the tempo run is another story.  But there was a minor glitch in the whole workout plan.  The glitch was having my mom come running to the top of the stairs (I work out in the basement so as not to die of heat... and yes, I am living with my parents again at the age of 24, and no... I am not proud) to inform me that I had to come upstairs as we had just been told by the police to evacuate our house.

Um.  Yeah.

After I raced upstairs, I learned that a house in the neighborhood was on fire... and not a far away house.  It was the house behind the house directly across the street from mine, if that makes sense.  Far too close for comfort.  So my mom and I started grabbing what we could - all the photo albums, important documents, jewelry, the Bonster.  We got things into our cars and then waited.  The police had changed "you must evacuate" to having all of us on "standby," so essentially, it was just us and all of our neighbors walking around on the street with our dogs and looking dazed.  I'm relatively terrified of fire and have nightmares easily, so I decided to hang around our front porch and not go see the house... but my parents did go, and apparently the flames were very big, very high, and very scary.  There was a ton of smoke.  I actually had a friend who works nearby call me because he saw the flames when he left work... several miles away.  That was pretty alarming.  Eventually, they did get control of the fire, and we were given the okay to go back inside.  

As grateful as I am that the fire did not get to my house, or even any other houses, my heart goes out to the family who was affected.  I had never met them, but my mom and I are planning on reaching out to them and offering our help if they need us.  My mom heard from someone that they have a daughter just starting college... I remember how hard that was without any added stress, so I might see if I can send her a care package or something.  I don't know if that's overstepping my boundaries as practically a complete stranger, but it felt so awful to be sitting and watching someone's house go up in flames, and not being able to do anything.

But that was my big adventure for the day.  Tomorrow is my first 7 mile run, and I bought one of these to help me get through it...