Salem runners were out during Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene kept most people inside on Sunday, but it couldn’t faze some runners in Salem.”I do know that some of my fellow Wicked members met in the afternoon for a short ‘Hurricane Run’ starting from the Salem Common,” said Wicked Running Club co-president Alison Phelan, who stayed indoors. “At that point in the storm, I don’t think it was too rainy but more windy.”The hurricane seemed so dire that Gov. Deval Patrick declared a state of emergency in Massachusetts, and the MBTA canceled service for most of Sunday. Irene affected sports, too, prompting the Boston Red Sox to move up Sunday’s scheduled game with the Oakland A’s to Saturday, creating a doubleheader, and moving the New England Patriots to practice in a different venue than Gillette Stadium.”(My) motto is that if there is a ‘state of emergency’ called by the Governor, then I am going to do the right thing and stay off the roads,” Phelan said. “Although at times, the hurricane did not seem as bad as I thought it might be, I wasn’t always sure if the trees on my running route wouldn’t fall over or still yet have a power line come down on the road.”For Phelan, the extreme weather conditions that Irene could potentially bring evoked a different kind of wild weather ? namely, the snowy conditions for the Wicked Frosty Four on New Year’s Day 2010.”It was bitterly cold with a gusting 20 mph wind which made it feel worse than 10 below,” said Phelan, who currently co-directs the race with Wicked co-president Shari Hewson. “Still we showed up the next day with shovels in hand and sand and salt in our cars ready to tackle the roads that the participants would be running on during the 4m race.”Our race director had decided that unless the Salem PD stopped the race (because) of any bad road conditions, we would go on with the race. That year we still had about 325 runners show up for the race. The Wicked Running Club volunteers did the best they could to make the conditions as safe as humanly possible for the participants.”It is a long way from winter, but Irene-weary New Englanders are already tuning in to weather forecasts again, as Tropical Storm Katia is gathering force on the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean.”I admit I have run outside when the conditions aren’t always ideal, like this past winter, but most of the time I wait for a nicer day,” Phelan said. “My advice to runners is to think smart – if you think there may be a risk of injury, why risk it? It’s always best to keep yourself from injuries or accidents and run on a better day!”