Running In 18" Of Snow

Saturday, we got 18" of snow. Saturday, no one went anywhere or did anything - well, except a couple of my crazy friends who wanted to see how their cars would do in the deep snow. But most of us - those of us who are sane - stayed in and watched the snow fall, amazed as it continued to fall and fall. As much as 2" an hour at times. Needless to say, I didn't get a whole lot of exercise. Most Saturdays, I hit the gym for an hour or so, or I go for a 30-40 minute run. Since neither of those was an option, I bounced on my exercise ball for a while and did some ab work. It was something, but not really enough.

Sunday was the day for shoveling. It took me two hours to get my car out from under all the snow. I had already shoveled the sidewalk a couple of times, so it wasn't hard to get that cleared. The sun came out. The day was pretty nice. There was a nice sense of camaraderie in the neighborhood as all the neighbors were outside at the same time clearing off cars and moving many, many feet of snow. A couple of hours of shoveling and some time on my exercise ball was some exercise. But Sunday's exercise is usually equal to Saturday's. Shoveling was pretty good cardio, but just didn't feel like it was as much exercise as I usually get on a weekend day.

Today, the roads were still pretty covered. The Federal Government was closed. I could get out of my neighborhood and had planned to go into the office. But one of my colleagues said the roads there hadn't yet been plowed. So we all stayed in our respective homes and worked virtually. At the end of the day, I was tired of sitting around. I needed to get out. I needed real exercise.

So I strapped on my running shoes, a warm coverup, and mittens, and ventured out for a run.

There was a foot-wide path on the sidewalks. It was mostly cleared. But it only went down the main drag, not down any of the side streets or around the lake. So I ran up and down the one road. Back and forth. Up and down. Resembling nothing so much as a pendulum. For 30 minutes.

It felt good.