It is finally February, so we are leaving the nasty January winter behind us, right? No, neither General Lee or Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early Spring and well putting all of one's eggs into a rodent's basket doesn't necessarily make sense anyway. That being said, they (the weather powers that be and they can certainly be wrong) are predicting another storm for Tuesday night into Wednesday with 5-7 inches (and I've heard 6-10") of snow. I had hoped that because I didn't go to New Orleans to run, that this wouldn't happen. After all, the first time I went to New Orleans to run the Mardi Gras half back in 2005, I returned to Cleveland and it snowed everyday (1-2") for the next two weeks. Shannon was in 5th grade, and I would shovel the driveway at least twice per day so she could walk to the bus stop. And well, my Dad would probably kill me if I didn't shovel in spite of the fact that someone does/will/should eventually plow me out. One of my biggest winter beefs is that no one seems to shovel their driveways or sidewalks any more. I guess the kids that walk to school when the weather is good get driven or take the bus in the winter. Not sure what this is teaching the next generation. But I digress, I went to New Orleans in late February last year to run and we did have several more snowy weekend runs, but I didn't go this year. Wasn't that supposed to take care of that issue??? Maybe it took care of the infamous "Polar Vortex" and it won't be single digit temperatures anymore. I do though remember February, 1978 and the "Blizzard of '78" which kept us out of school for 3 wks and had Massachusetts in a State of Emergency for at least a week. Then Governor Dukakis would come on the TV screen in his sweaters and beg everyone to conserve energy, delivered emergency notices with the word that it would be alright soon. I guess all that National exposure as the Northeast thawed out set him up for that Presidential bid in the late 80s.
February started off with a bang anyway, but at least it was 40F on Saturday even in the rain. We did get to run outside in the sleet, but rather than have a great day, my computer hard drive crashed and now I am typing on a new one and waiting for Carbonite to restore all my back up files. It should be done by Thursday. Yikes! Oh what fun losing a hard drive can be and the computer was only a bit over 3 yrs old. I guess electronics are indeed disposal these days.
Of course the 40 degree temps were only a short reprieve as yesterday morning, we woke up once again to about 2" of snow. I wimped out and ran inside as being a hamster is OK sometimes. Tonight, I plan to run outside with Army Mike because I'm not sure I'll have that opportunity for the rest of the week. At least running inside, it is warm, and I'll be getting some heat training for my upcoming half marathon in Phoenix. I doubt that it will be cold and snowy there (but then again who knows!).
As far as stats go, I did end up running more miles (160) in January 2014 than last year. I even got in a few quality miles once I started to head indoors. I do worry that the slow per mile times outside might not be beneficial, but it is about time on one's feet or that is what they say. I guess that did get me to mile 26.1 last year and I only walked through water stops.
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