State of Emergency

I realize that everyone is tired of talking about the weather, but I don't think most people realize how bad things are in NM right now. We've had some of the coldest days on record, it was -9 when I woke up yesterday. And that was one of the warmer areas of the state. It started off as a somewhat of a novelty, but things got really bad really fast.

The problem is that the unusual cold temperatures combined with rolling blackouts in neighboring states has caused demand for natural gas to exceed the available supply. As a result, residents in some of the coldest part of the state (-20s) have been without natural gas to heat their homes. Water lines are freezing and pipes are bursting.

Just think about that for a moment. This situation has certainly caused me to take pause and be thankful for things that I normally take for granted.

The governor declared a state of emergency yesterday. Government offices, private businesses, schools are closed to conserve gas. Residents have been asked to turn down the thermostats 10deg. Today it's actually supposed to get above freezing for a few hours. That's a good thing, but I think it will be several days before things get back to normal

I haven't been running. A combination of icy roads, frigid temps, and the uncertainty of whether a warm shower is even going to be possible has kept me inside. And while we're being urged to conserve energy, I certainly don't need to be doing extra loads of laundry for sweaty running clothes.

Perhaps training will resume next week, but it's no big deal either way. Honestly, my training schedule is fairly unimportant in the grand scheme of things.