Saturday, February 6, 2010

Day 37 - Swim Sectionals and Snow


Somewhere between the end of my lunch run yesterday and 11a this morning, all of that slush falling from the sky turned into actual snow.

It's not the end-of-the-world snow, but there's 4-7 inches out there, depending on where you stick your ruler. The main roads are showing pavement, and the side roads have seen at least one pass from a plow.

My street, a dead end, is wuh-haaay down the ol' priority list for the plow patrol. I'm lucky to have anything better than meandering trenches from my neighbors' SUVs to guide me out for 3 days after a big dump.

On any other day, I'd crank up the heat, pull on some lounge pants, and rot my brain with "How It's Made", "Mythbusters", and if I'm lucky some really bad movies.

But my incredible daughter qualified for Swimming Sectional Finals in, by far, the toughest sectional in the state. Meet starts at 1p, and fills up quickly.

The choices I had were to shovel my driveway and then hope I was able to surf the snow to the end of my street, or take advantage of the fact that the sectional was only about 1.5 miles from my driveway and hoof it.

We all know what I chose, right?

Just because I was running, I wasn't going to leave my camcorder, camera, phone, book, and water bottle behind, and I wanted to take a shirt to change in to as well as some track pants to pull on. So I dumped my laptop backpack on my bed and packed it up for the meet.

I was out the door by 11:15, to the howls of the dog who just couldn't understand why she wasn't allowed to go, too.

The snow was averaging a little over ankle deep, powder on top of compacted slush. This made for uneasy, slippery footing. That and the additional weight and awkwardness of the backpack slowed my to the pace of one of those folks from Sarasota.

It was beautiful, though. The powder was spraying in front of me, and the ice on the trees was quietly creaking with the not-so-gentle breeze.  As I ran under the trees, I saw small holes in the otherwise smooth snow surface, rectangular holes, cut sharply, and deep. "Must be from the ice falling off of the limbs when the wind kicks up and what the heck am I doing under these limbs!"

I retreated to the middle of the street.

My route took me past some shops and restaurants, with freshly cleared sidewalks.

It also took me past an insurance agent and religious bookstore with  not-so-clear sidewalks. You'd think the insurance guy would know better. And the book store people might want to bone-up on that "doing unto others" chapter ... I'm just sayin'.

After leaping a few staked-up piles of snow left at the end of some plowing privateer, I made my way to the natatorium door.



The run home was uneventful, and a little bitter.

Good running,
Doug

Numbers: 3.6 miles, very slow but hard work nonetheless.

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