Snowtorious B.I.G Take II

This post is a bit after the fact, but I am glad I waited, because I got to snap a picture that my 2 year old son LOVES, of a digger doing clean up work in front of our house. Awesome.

Last week most of the Midwest was preparing for this huge blizzard/snowstorm that was to hit last Wednesday. On Monday, the grocery stores were packed like Christmas eve, leaving me very thankful that I procrastinated until Tuesday to go, as they were dead then. With the new diet, I pretty much need more fruit every couple of days anyway, regardless of snowstorm or not. Schools were calling off left and right early Tuesday, before anything even happened. Our district was a bit more sensible, waiting to call off until the snow actually started, late Tuesday night. We went to bed with heavy snow and woke up to a decent amount. Not the two feet as predicted, but it was very cold and the road crews took their time clearing the roads since EVERYTHING was cancelled today, except for my husband's work. He went in with in our 4x4 with little issue, and made it home faster than usual just because there wasn't hardly any traffic to deal with. The gym was closed, so I used it as an excuse to take the day off. I considered running outside, but my husband talked some sense in me, saying that there was only about 1 mile of cleared sidewalk in our neighborhood, and it wasn't risk falling and injuring myself for a short 1 mile run. We had fun in the snow with the kids, and it was a good restful snow day. It was really overrated, in terms of being not as bad as expected at all, but that is always better than the opposite.

On Thursday, it was like the snowstorm had never happend. Everything was open and the roads were dry and clear. I did my 7 mile treadmill run in less than an hour, and just under BQ pace, and then Friday I did swimming drills. I felt like I was going to sink while practicing breathing on the other side since I hadn't worked on this in forever. I am sure a few more days of drills and it won't feel as strange or like I am going to drown, but it will take a while before it is second nature I am sure. I wanted to take the day off as scheduled per my plan since I had a 19miler for Sat, but I have to swim sometime, and with Wed being nothing, I couldn't justify it at all. I was elated that Cristina had called me asking if I wanted company for my 19 miler, which meant we would get it done, no matter what!

On Saturday, it was a beautiful morning, but I can't run in the morning because of Ryan's schedule. He rides with his friends indoors on the trainer (more on that to come) on Saturday mornings, and I run outside in the afternoon, when it is the warmest. I did errands(browsed for a new tri bike) with the kids and as we were finishing up around noon, it was starting to snow. I didn't get too worried since we had driven way out to Ann Arbor to pick up a clearance cost for Keira that was the last one in the state, and that was pretty far from our house and run site. I still wasn't worried when Ryan came in the door at 1:30 with snow in his hair from the walk from the car to the house and his comment, it is really snowing outside. Eh, we were running 20 minutes from here, no worries, right??? I still wasn't worried when I struggled to make the turn on our street without sliding. I considered going back to get the truck, but then I knew Ryan would make me stay home and I didn't have the park pass on it anyway. I got a little worried once I got out of my sub and traffic was not moving, and it took a LONG time to get to the freeway. Once on the freeway, things were snowy, but good. I arrived at the park a few minutes after Cristina, and we could not believe how hard it was snowing. We were the crazy ones AGAIN out here running. It wasn't too bad for the first 5 miles or so. We made it to the end of the plowed path and opted to turn around after we had gone 8.5 miles (oops, should have been 9.5), which would keep us away from the cars until the last 3 miles (should have been 1.5 miles, but the engineer in me apparently doesn't compute simple math correctly while running). It did stop snowing on us after that first leg of the run. We did make up a little bit of the mistake by running around a parking lot a couple of times. When we got back to the far parking lot/bathroom the second time, we popped inside for a bit of water. When we came out, it was like there was a blizzard going on outside! It was crazy, and the snow was really coming down for the last 6 miles. We got back to the cars and had to make up 1.5 miles. It wasn't as slippery as it was when we did our 17 miler, but the snow was deeper, so we really slowed down those last few miles. We did get it done, crazy snowstorm that was not forecasted and all. Also, to top it off, we saw a beautiful sunset once we got back to the car. Here are a couple pictures from Kensington.
Conditions when we started:

Snow that accumulated on my car over the course of the 3 hour run. The car was warm from the drive over, so some of it melted before sticking. (Disclaimer- yes, it is not a Ford, but at the time this car was purchased, Ford held 40% share of Mazda, and this car was needed before the Ford Fusion was available for purchase.)

Sunset:


My husband called just as we were finishing up. He was worried about me doing the drive home in my car. It had apparently snowed a ton more at our house than at Kensington. Ryan was expecting the 20 minute drive to be an hour based on the conditions in Novi. It really wasn't too bad at all here, comparatively. I made the drive home in about 30 minutes with no issues. Ahem, no issues until I got to my court. Our main street had been plowed, but as soon as I turned off of it, I had little control of my car again. The snow was super deep, and I could barely get the car into a space. I could see our neighbor's car was only half pulled in due to the snow. Persistence paid off, and I got the car parked, where it sat for almost 2 days, until I had to drive Keira to school. Ryan took the truck out once I got home to get some well deserved pizza for dinner. Yeah, it doesn't fit in with the diet, but after a run like this, I needed a cheat meal!

Cristina and I are really hoping to have better weather luck on Saturday's 20 miler. This is our first of 3 planned, and they said it is supposed to get UP to freezing on Saturday. That is a good sign, right? With 3 20 milers planned, I figure if one goes bad, at least I have 2 other shots.