WINTER HAS ARRIVED

An aerial photo from the GVSU downtown campus, right along my downtown running route. Looks almost magical.

The usual horrible drive.


We got a record early snowfall yesterday--some areas up to 15 inches! Probably about 5 only by my house thankfully.

November had been one of the best weather months of the year, taking into account the time of the year. It was mild and actually sunny many days, while October had been unusually cold and rainy. So many bike rides in the freezing or rainy weather in October, and then November turns out to be perfect training weather, when I was in recovery mode. Naturally, just as I get back to training, we get this stuff!

This week has really been my first week back to training. I did a few swims last week but nothing serious until now. It seemed like a long time to basically be doing nothing, but it also took a couple of weeks to get over some extreme fatigue that hit. So this week is was 3 spin classes, 3 runs, 3 weight training sessions. Again, nothing serious, just trying to re-establish fitness.

It also has been extremely busy at work (which is where I am now and will be on Sunday), and with my home computer out of order for now, I haven't had much, if any, time while at work to blog or even get on Facebook! I feel shut out!

Starting to look at winter race options, and hoping to find a couple of indoor tris. And then there's the New Year's Eve run (4 miles), and I am slowly rebuilding my running miles so that I'm at 6 miles by the end of the year again. I'm not hurrying it because winter mileage is so unpredictable. I don't want to get any high expectations just yet of getting back to high mileage, because a good majority would end up being on a treadmill, which, while I can't totally avoid it, I would prefer to try to get outside more this winter.

So despite the icy, snowy, and fairly cold (24 degrees) conditions today, I managed to get out there for 4 miles. I used my Yak Trax (they were actually right where I put them at the end of last winter), bundled up in 2-3 layers (2 tights, 3 shirts, facemask, gloves, headband) but ended up taking the facemask off after about a mile. For some reason I can't breathe in that thing and it really didn't feel that bad out anyway until the last 5 minutes or so.

Its always interesting to note all the slackers who don't clear their sidewalks--ever. Yes, there's a "path" if that's what you want to call it on the sidewalk, but its mainly a narrow foot path beaten down by kids walking to and from school. I ran as much as possible in the street, and it never ceases to amaze me that while it is full daylight and I am wearing bright red, how people driving don't manage to see you! I am hugging the curb or parked cars, so its not like I'm out in the middle of the street, but they veer right in my direction like I'm not there. I honestly don't know how these people manage to keep a car on the road the way some of them drive.

And the Yak Trax worked well. Most of the snow on the streets had actually refrozen, so it would have been difficult to maneuver without them.

It continues to snow--huge, fluffy flakes falling. I don't know if this is a sign of what winter will be like, but I guess I'd better get used to it. After all, its almost like winter lasts until May around here anyway.