Bridge Run for Rachel

Today, I ran in the second annual Houghton Bridge Run. Each year the proceeds of the event go to help someone new from the Houghton area. This year, proceeds were donated to help Rachel, a local girl with cancer. As far as I know, the event raised roughly $3,000 for Rachel and her family. It was nice to see the community come together to help.

The run went very well as far as I was concerned. We started at the "Chutes and Ladders" park in Houghton and made our way to the bridge. The bridge has two levels and they lowered it from its usual summertime raised position so that we could run across the bottom level which connects to the snowmobile trails, while traffic used the upper level. Once into Hancock, the trail started going uphill. The run continued uphill until the turnaround point and then we followed the same course back downhill.

I finished the 10K (6.2 mile) run in a time of 35:18.80 according to my watch. The results haven't been posted yet when I was writing this. I took 3rd place in the men under 30 class for my race. I was quite pleased with my performance. Hopefully I'll be able to run this event again next year.

At the start line.


Closing in on the finish.


Finishing!


Rachel (in the white cap) and her family.


My 3rd place ribbon.

Severe Weather

This morning after my first class, there were some occasional claps of thunder. I didn't think anything of it until the power went out across the entire campus for about twenty minutes. Later in the day, a rainstorm hit town and flooded some of the campus. The parking lot across the higway from my window was knee deep with water due to a clogged drain. People were swimming and riding bikes through it, right next to people trying to rescue their cars from the rising water. The highway itself was covered with about an inch and a half of swift moving water. All in all it was a fairly exciting day. Above is a video that a friend of mine took of the storm and had me edit and post for him. Enjoy.

As I am posting this, I see that the rain has started in full force again. Everyone is getting excited and running outside in the dark. I think I'll attempt to stay inside and dry this time.