Snowmaggedon

 

View from my front door Feb. 10th. It was about a foot and a half 

after Round 2. We got about 20-25 inches Round 1.

Since my last post, DC has gotten a ton of snow (in case you don't live here and haven't been watching the national news).  Now, I'm from Buffalo. I've seen storms with over 6 feet, but Buffalo can handle the snow. The airport has at least 20 snow-plows. The District of Columbia has four.

I've been snowed in and off of work since noon on Friday. On Saturday, my workout included shoveling for a half hour. On Sunday, I ran 10 miles. I didn't expect that many cars to be out, but I ran down the streets and it took almost two hours to get those 10 miles in. I was panning on 16, but it wasn't easy, and it started getting dark. I also couldn't feel that my feet were cold anymore, and since I had run through calf-high puddles of cold water and slush--this was a bad sign.

Since I was in the streets, I wore my reflective gear. I decided this would be categorized as a trail run. Instead of streams, I ran through giant slush puddles. Uneven terrain? Check. My "single-track" was running on tire-paths on unplowed streets. Ice? Yeah lots of it. Climbing over mountains? Well, do mountains of snow count? I think I can definitely put this under training for my upcoming 50k trail race in June. Wow, I'm actually going to be an ultramarathoner! Crazy.

Yesterday, I went for a 5(ish) mile run. It was pretty solid and my speed picked up a little. I was going to go to the gym, but the metro was crazy slow and my bus line hadn't started up yet.

It sounds like an extra week off of work is awesome, but I was getting pretty antsy. Other than meeting my friends for lunch (which I ran two miles to), a TWO AND A HALF HOUR trip to the grocery store (god-awful lines), and my running, I've been stuck in my hole in the ground (aka basement apartment). What does one do for 6 days?

• I rearranged my apartment. It looks cool and extra spacey. I now have a coffee table!
• Cooked extravagant dinners for myself nearly every night and big brunches every morning (french toast, pancakes, crepes, etc.)
• Went through almost two cartons of nutella. I discovered the amazing thing that is heated soy milk with nutella whisked in, and have consequently went through over 2 liters of milk.
•  Cleaned my apartment so thoroughly that you can probably perform open heart surgery on my floor. I cleaned and vacuumed out my closet for goodness sake, tore apart and scrubbed my stove, did about 15 loads of laundry, scrubbed the bathroom down with bleach...
• Finally hung things on my walls.
• Read and re-read multiple books.
• Watched two seasons of HBO's Big Love (my new obsession).
• Ate cookies.
• Made and devoured my family's infamous chocolate peanut butter fudge (yeah, that's two cups of sugar and a stick of butter).
• Reacquainted myself with daytime Food Network.
• Made meringues for the first time.
• Had dancercize sessions and made love to my foam roller. 
• Made up a google profile.
• Watched Ovechkin dominate the Pens. 
• Came up with my own blend of Malbec and Corbieres. I didn't like the bottle of Malbec, so I made my own blend of wine.
• Went for walks in the pretty snow (where I saw a woman XC skiing while talking on her cell phone--wtf?)
• Talked to my mom on the phone for hours.
• Went through all of my piles of paperwork. I like to ignore paper bank statements since they make me sad, so I had to do a lot of tearing up since I don't have a shredder.
• Ate everything in my fridge... including a tub of butter.

Now its Friday and I'm back to work, with birthday plans tonight, so no workout today. I'll be doing a 90-min spinning class tomorrow morning and a long run on Sunday.  Its weird when life revolves around the weather and not your training schedule! (wow, that's kind of sad)