Testing the blizzard route

One concern I have for the 60k on the first day of spring is that we might have a blizzard that day. It's been known to happen. More than once.

Today we awoke to 12 inches of new snow; perfect for testing a blizzard route. It turns out that a loop built around two of the main streets through our neighborhood works out to 2.5 miles. Four times around would give me 10 miles, the minimum I wanted to run today; 6 times for 15 miles and the most I wanted to run today. (And for those interested in the math, 14.88 times around for 60k. Eeegads!)

I knew that at least one of those main streets would be plowed and, indeed, exactly one of those streets (for about a mile long stretch) was plowed. Probably once. Probably very early on during the storm, leaving that stretch much like a two-track road. The other major road was a mass of ruts, snow and ice. After the second time around, the loop was losing much of its charm. The third loop earned the title of dog and spray loop. For some reason, that was the time period everyone was out shoveling their walks, letting their dogs run loose. Loose dogs sure love to say hi to folks slip/sliding/running by. As for "spray" - by now the snow in the busier portions of the road was slushing up and passing cars were hitting that slush with aplomb. Lots of head to toe soaking ice sprays. As I was finishing the third loop I had to give myself a stern talking to in order to continue on the fourth loop. "I can't end with a puny 7.5 miles!" "What if the 60k day is just like today?" "It's just one more loop, only 2.5 miles you wuss." In any case, stubborn kicked in and I made it one more loop around.

But that was the end of it. Besides not being a whole lot of fun, I noticed I was getting stupid - not stepping aside as quickly when cars were coming down the 'two-track', jumping from rut to rut without paying attention to where I'd be landing, fogging out rather than watching for traffic. Time to call it a day. Good call too. Kendall had made chicken pot pie while I was out running; definitely worth coming in from the cold for!

Devon & Paul, young studs tackling the driveway