Wave 1

The Snowmaggedon is expected to hit us in waves. The first wave was from last night into this morning, the second wave will be this afternoon until tomorrow morning, and then another wave will hit Friday afternoon into Saturday. It looks like there could even be more snow Saturday and Sunday as well.

I woke up this morning (well, actually, it was more like early afternoon), saw that it was only lightly snowing, and decided to head out. I figured the sidewalks weren't cleared, so I experimented with a trick I've heard about but never tried because I'm sensitive to getting blisters:


I put on a pair of knee-high compression socks, layered on my regular running socks, covered my feet in plastic bags, then put my running tights and shoes on over that. As I pulled out my camera to document how ridiculous I looked, I noticed people gliding over the path in my backyard on snowshoes. I knew my tiny little Brooks shoes weren't going to keep me atop the half foot of snow we got overnight, but hopefully my feet would stay dry!

(Oddly enough, I have been eyeballing a pair of Tubb snowshoes, poles, and gaitors on Amazon. I ogle them in my Wish List every day, hoping the money to purchase them will magically show up in my bank account. Man, this morning I wish I had put them on a card!)

My 5mi run this morning was beautiful, to say the least. I saw a number of walkers, runners, snowshoers, dogs on walks, and even a few bikers. There's something about fresh snow that's undeniably (if not literally) breathtaking to experience.

The plastic bags were a brilliant idea as, right off the bat, I had to create a new path to get to the Greenway. The one I was using previously was snowed over and the plows had pushed all of their snow into this area. But, alas! My feet stayed dry the whole time! (This is the snow going up to my knee. Yikes.)

The Greenway wasn't perfectly plowed, but it had been cleared at some point overnight because it was easy to distinguish where the path is compared to where the grass is.

This is actually the canal that canoers take to get to Lake of the Isles. It's completely snowed over and it appears people have been skiing on it. Personally, I didn't think the ice was that thick yet, but perhaps because it's just a canal and not a deep lake, it's safe for traveling on.
Running in fresh snow is hard work, and at times I felt so tired and had no choice but to slow my pace. But, at the same time, something about truly getting out during this beautiful White Christmas is actually really fun.

My splits:
5.03mi: 8:36, 8:38, 8:36, 8:41, 9:02, :17
Windchill: 23F (Actual: 30F, light snow)