Belly Bump - Week 36

We are within a month. Our doctor's appointment this week turned out good. We start with weekly visits now up until the delivery date.

Leandra went to my Group Kick class this morning and is still participating. She might not be jumping around as much, but she is still punching and kicking...kind of like the baby.

Here is the weekly pic:

Evansville Flooding Revisited

About 5 weeks ago, I posted about some flooding that Evansville was experiencing that affected the Greenway space. It's gotten worse.

Since last week Friday, it's rained everyday. If it counts, it rained while I was sleeping last night so I will count that as raining today. It has rained since providing a little relief, but it is not going to solve any of the major issues immediately.

Being right on the Ohio River and relatively close to the Mississippi River, major rainfall can wreak havoc in Evansville (as well as other areas in southwestern Indiana, southern Illinois and western Kentucky). Both rivers are considerably backed up right now so the water flowing through Evansville on Pigeon Creek has nowhere to go...except over the banks.

The problem is twofold. First the city has a very poor and outdated sewer system. As the city expanded, the sewers did not which pushes more run-off into the same space.

The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that the county does not have a sewer system. It relies on creeks and tributaries to move the water. They have not been dug out in any way withing he city or county to contain large amounts of water, like the Kinnickinnick River that runs through Milwaukee, Wis. (see picture).

Anyways, I rode around Evansville today to get some pictures of the flooding. Luckily, I didn't have to go anywhere because I would be severly limited with where I could go considering the amount of inaccessible roads. Click on any picture to see a larger version.


This is the intersection of Kenucky Ave and Christ Road. On my bike, this is the only road I can take to get to the west side of town. While I didn't go any further, I'm sure there are other sections of the road that are covered. There are some houses that likely have sandbags around them as I have seen water approaching them earlier in the year.


Little League baseball fields that have been engulfed by water from a smaller creek that funnels into Pigeon Creek.


This house is on the west side of Hwy 41. It is n the other side of the baseball fields on St. George Road.


You can see the bridge in the distance going over Pigeon Creek. The bridge has a metal deck and is not solid. Bike riders are supposed to walk over the bridge for safety.




Here are two houses with water approaching them. I took these to see the amount of sandbagging that has been put up.


Green River Road used to be impassable before they overhauled it. They raised it up and added some bridges. They are putting the last round of asphalt on which allowed me to get off my bike and snap this picture. Iif not for the recent work done, this road would be covered.


This is a picture of a field on the other side of the road.


This is Hirsch Road right off of Green River Road. It is a farm road that doesn't get a lot of attention, except that i use it to get to one of the EBC rides. This field is virtually connected to the field in the last picture.


Here is a close-up from the last picture showing a mailbox in the middle of the water.




This is a bridge on Morgan Ave, which is a major artery of town. The road was closed by the bridge because water was starting to creep over. This actually isn't bad right now I was able to ride through it. About four years ago, the bridge was completely covered. With rising water, I believe they are planning for the worst.

There have been a couple of trailer parks that have been evacuated. The downtown area is constructing temporary floodwalls along the Ohio River. While I didn't know any better when we moved down here, I'm glad we bought a house on a hill.

If you want to see some more pics, you can see what the Evansville Courier & Press provided on their site.

Belly Bump - Week 35

I wasn't too happy woith the picture, but I couldn't get the lighting right. Since I don't have Photoshop (or access to it at former place of employment), I was limited to how I could edit it. I only went to a B/W format so it wouldn't look as bad.

This is our rearranged bedroom to fit the baby bed in our room (in the background). Five weeks to go.

Belly Bump - Week 34

We recently noticed a little "growth spurt." Six weeks to go.


Yesterday's appointment with the doctor went well. Everything is right on track. On a side note, we've decided to call Leandra's belly button the baby's "peephole." Whenever we watch a scary movie, we make sure to cover it up to make sure the child won't get nightmares.

SIC Half Marathon

I'm sitting at home right now walking around like an old man. My quads are on fire and do not want to move, but I was able to make my way over to the computer to post about my first half marathon. This was the last run as part of the Winter Meltdown Series that included the Hearts on Fire 5K in February and the Run of Luck 7K in March.

Assuming I completed, this would be the longest run that I would ever completed. Well, actually, it would have been at about 7.6 miles, but I had no intention of stopping early. My basic goals were to finish the run and not walk at any point. I had a secondary goal of completing the run within 2 hours, 30 minutes. I wasn't sure what to expect since my training had taken a bit of a hit with stuff at the gym, weather and some other scheduling conflicts. I was more concerned with the beating my legs would take over how in shape I was.

Having never run this distance, I wanted to play it safe and make sure that I positioned myself to keep a comfortable pace. The last thing I wanted to do was to get caught up in a pack that was moving fast and end up burning myself out. I moved into the 12 minute/mile area figuring the pack would spread out enough by the time I might consider picking up the pace.

The gun sounded at 7:15 am at the Vanderburgh County 4-H Grounds, after a traffic hold-up created a need for a brief delay. It took an extra minute for my part of the pack to pass the sensor, which was followed by a slow pace with everyone trying to find their space. Once we hit the open road, it was a little easier to maneuver. The route can be viewed here (check the blue line).

The first three miles had some rolling hills to contend with. I learned on my shorter runs earlier in the year not to hold back on any descents. I usually made up some ground whenever I was moving downhill and used that momentum as long as I could once the road flattened out. After the hills, the route flattened out considerably.

Heading north for a considerable stretch was nice with a nice tailwind. Between the wind and a nice shuffle of music that was playing on my phone, I was feeling pretty ambitious to pick up the pace. Of course, whenever you run a loop, the tailwind will become a headwind at some point.

After turning to the east, the wind crossed over the road and provided a nice relief to cool down a bit. I wasn't exactly moving along at the clip I was earlier, but it was worth it. Miles 8-9 was an "out and back" stretch that put the wind to my back on the way out, but right back in my face on the way in. Whatever speed I picked up headed north was lost once I hit the turnaround point.

With the vast majority of the run from this point heading south, this was the home stretch. Unfortunately, I started hitting my "wall" at Mile 10. I could feel my quads starting to tighten up and my calves hinting that they wanted to cramp. It was hard to not stop and stretch, but I knew that if I stopped moving, I would be in trouble. I needed to bite my lip, hope for the best and finish this out.

After a stretch heading east, we had one last stretch heading south. Leandra drove out there and took a couple of pictures as I was running by. I made sure to get really close to her (as you can tell from the picture on the right) and said, "I hurt." She said that I only had a mile to go and the 12 Mile marker was a few steps further down the road. It was a relief to know I was almost done. I just had to hope that my legs would hold out.

Turning back into the 4-H Grounds, the finish line was in sight. I had made up my mind that I needed to finish strong and once we hit the guard rails leading up to the finish line, I picked up my pace to sprint (or the closest to a sprint that my legs had at that point) to bring the run to end. As I slowed down, my left hamstring IMMEDIATELY cramped up and I needed to use the guard rails to help me walk...check that, limp...to meet my wife.

I was able to walk the cramp off, but my legs were pretty much done at that point. I got them worked on by an on-site massage group, which provided some temporary relief, but it didn't really do much in the big picture. I grabbed some free food and drink and then headed home to languish in the "agony of da-feet" for the day.

I don't have much experience with these types of runs so I can't say if it was good or bad. The run goes through the northwestern section of the county, and stays outside the city limts. There are a lot of fields in that area. With nothing really growing at this point, it's not overly scenic. That said, I bike on many of these same roads and it was nice to have these roads closed to traffic during the run. As far as my goals:
1.) I finished the run.
2.) I ran the entire route.
3.) I completed it in 2 hours 18 minutes.

My knees aren't really sore as I thought they would have been. It's the quads and hip flexors that are sore right now. Let's just say that I'm not exactly leaping up the steps from the basement right now. I anticipate being laid up for at least two more days and already found a sub for my Kick class on Tuesday.

All in all, I'm pleased with the final results. Now that the half marathon is out of the way, bring on the baby!

Spring Surprise

I had a nice little surprise last week and I have more growing today. These should be ready to pick tomorrow.


(If you click on the picture, you can see a larger version to see what is growing.)

Belly Bump - Week 33

I tried to be a little "artistic" this week, but the photo came out a little blurry. Oh well...I didn't get the iPhone for its high-quality photo taking ability. Leandra had her doctor appointment last week on Friday. Everything is looking fine. We have one more appointment, which have been every two weeks, before we start going for weekly check-ups.