So, as I think back through the week, I remember the optimism I felt during the multiple days of rain. I saw how the snow and ice were being washed away from my favorite running paths. I thought this weekend was finally going to be an opportunity for something long and enjoyable. As the rain continued, the paths went from being covered with snow to being completely under water. Shrug. I’ll deal. Still better than ice. Since doing a 40 mile run a few weeks back, mostly through snow, I lost all tolerance to do any running on snow.

Then the weather forecast came and spoke of the rain turning to snow. Bah! No way it’s going to stick. pfft, the ground’s too warm and everything is already wet. Nothing is going to ruin this for me.

I look back now see how naive and delusional I was.

Thursday night the snow came and by Friday afternoon we were in a blizzard with over a foot of snow. This snow was the heaviest and wettest slop that I ever saw fall from the sky. And it was sticking despite the temperatures being over the freezing mark. The 15 foot arboretums that line along my backyard fence were weighted down from the snow and bent. Some of the trunks snapped, while others were worth saving. After spending a few hours shaking off the snow, tying them together, and getting them off my neighbor’s house, the survival of 3 of them seem to be ok, while the other 2 are left questionable.

left ones are ok, right ones are a mess.

Then shoveling my driveway was next. When done, I realized I didn’t run yesterday, Thursday, and not yet that day either. Our development gets plowed, and the streets had some puddles, but were completely cleared of snow and ice. I figured I’d get 5 easy miles in by doing 10 laps around my neighborhood, which is half a mile each.

As I was running, it slowly got darker. The street lights turned on. Not long after, the street lights turned off. How odd. As I continued, I realized all the houses were dark. I then realized the whole neighborhood was without power. Passing my house at around 2 miles, my wife called out to say she was taking our daughter out to eat and if I wanted to stop and come with. Being that I just got started, I declined and asked her to bring something home and then continued on.

I kept going and things felt quiet. I took off my ipod. The darker it got, the more it seemed that it was brighter without the street lights. Although the moon was covered by clouds, it was a full moon that still shown through. The moonlight reflecting off the snow made everything brighter than you would think. Only when there was a car with it’s brights on, did the contrast make it seem dark outside.

I finished 5. Things felt good and all the stress from the day with the snow and arboretums breaking finally melted away. I saw no reason to stop since sitting in a cold dark empty house was the other option. So I continued on thinking I would do 8. 8 turned into 10, and I had thoughts of doing 20, but decided to cut it since my family was home and I was being asked to come inside.

We were informed we would be without power until 8pm the next day. Thankfully, it came back on sometime around 3:30am. I was already up since 1:30am. Every house in sight was brightly lit at this time. Obviously they all went to bed with their light switches left on.

Saturday morning, I still had 20 to do. The original plan was the treadmill at the gym, but I thought I would try to capture some of what I had during my run the previous day. The roads were clear and it was hard to think of a reason not to do laps around my neighborhood again instead of the treadmill. Any argument against doing laps could be made an even stronger argument against using the treadmill. And, honestly, I had enough of the treadmill. I was determined to run outside this weekend.

Unfortunately, it didn’t go as seamless as I hoped. The loop has a 50 foot elevation climb and I do always go clockwise around when I do this. I decided every 5 miles I would reverse direction to break up the monotony. Still, each lap felt like it took forever. Then, after I got to 10, which was the same distance as the previous day, I realized the difference in how I felt then versus now; mainly being that I felt like I’ve been running forever and was only half way done.

I reversed direction a second time. I stopped counting laps. I stopped thinking, and instead of half mile laps going by, miles went by. I reversed direction a third time at mile 15 and realized it was the looping that was making it harder. I’ve given thought to doing a 50K next weekend which consists of a series of 2.6 mile loops. After doing 40 plus loops for 20 miles, I’m not sure I have the head for something like that for 50K.

During the run it also occurred to me how I needed to get this done because I knew how I would feel for the next few days if I did not. My previous blog post reflects the thoughts I had at this time. Eventually, I finished, and I was glad it was over. And, I realized the elevation of this half mile loop makes a tougher course than I initially thought.

Today is the last day of February. It’s also my little girl’s 7th birthday, ending an otherwise shitty month on a happy note. I have no urge to run today so I’m taking a rest day. This will end the month with 203 miles. Not bad considering February is a short month. Not short enough though, if you ask me.