Day 52 of the 100 Days Challenge (AKA Winter Storm Q)


Clicking on any of the pictures will let you see a larger version

Well, what an interesting day! Last night we had Winter Storm Q (yes, they actually named this storm Q, not me) bearing down on us. The predicitons were grim. 10-15 inches of snow plus sleet and possibly even the dreaded freezing rain. Okay, sounds bad, sure, but I've been living in Kansas almost my entire life. I know how this work. 10-15 inches predicted = 2 inches actualy; 2 inches predicted = 10-15 inches actual. No biggie. I was more concerned with the possibility of freezing rain. With freezing rain comes very trecherous roads and often, power outages. It wasn't predicted to start until around midnight last night, so I went to bed not sure what I was going to wake up to find.

I woke up to not much really. I got up at 6:15 am and it had just started to snow. It wasn't snowing terribly hard, but steady, and there was just a light dusting on the ground. Okay, this storm was WAY over predicted, right? Well, not so fast. Just a few minutes later, as I was feeding my dogs & cats, I saw a flash of light at the window followed by a load crack of thunder. Hmmm, okay. They say thunder snow is pretty crazy so I went and looked out the window. Right as I got there, BOOM, another crack of thunder. The snow was coming down so hard I could barely see across the street and I already couldn't see the ground anymore. Maybe this storm was exactly what they thought it would be.

By about noon or 1 pm I had 10-14 inches of snow. Great. Good thing I got permission to work from home, no way I could get here if I had left. On a good note, the dogs sure had a good time! Especially Katya, I had to yell at her to get her back inside every time I let her out. She definitely has the cold weather Husky blood in her! So that of course led me to workout #1 of the day:
  1. The only good thing about this winter storm is that they named it after one of my favorite Star Trek: TNG characters, Q. I had to shovel the deck to get the door open and for the dogs to be able to get out & of course I had to shovel the driveway as well. 2:29:07 of hard, cold work. It was 25* with a 19* windchill & snowed off & on while I was shoveling.
  2. I must say, after 2 1/2 hours of shoveling who knows how much snow, I strongly considered skipping this run. So before I had a chance to talk myself out of it, I pulled out the treadmill & did my run. I didn't really enjoy it, but I got it done & I'm proud of that. Sometimes you just have to suck it up & get it done. 4 mile Easy Run in 38:40 (9:40 avg pace).
That all adds up to 3:07:47 of working out, and yas, I really am counting shoveling snow for 2 1/2 hours as cross training. I think that's fair considering that 1 cubic foot of snow weighs between 5-25 lbs depending on how wet the snow is; shoveling an entire driveway and deck covered in 10-14 inches of snow is a lot of weight to move. Yep, strength training! That wraps up day #52 of the 100 Days Chalenge & consecutive day #53. Bonus pics...

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