I was disappointed this morning when I got up for my 20 miler, and realized that it really did snow outside. The friendly weather folk continued to say it was coming, it was coming, and by the time I went to bed last night, it hadn’t started yet. Somehow I was holding out hope that it wasn’t coming. They forecasted 8-12 inches of snow, with significantly more to the south of me (closer to Philly)… it appears we got about 8 or 9 inches based on my measurement, but there is a lot of drifting.

So the story for today goes, that I was NOT going to let it stop me from running today .. I figured a 20 miler was out of the question for obvious reasons, but I could swap my Saturday and Sunday runs around and get as many miles in as I could and just do my long run tomorrow. After I came to that conclusion, I looked outside, and it was literally a blizzard .. I couldn’t even see the street from my front window. I almost bagged the run today … I say almost because I did head out anyway and got in just under 11 miles, with pictures to share. I took my blackberry with me today for the first time because I was seriously concerned about my safety, either in the form of getting hit by a car, falling into a ditch somewhere or getting injured and struggling to get back home. I figured I would share my experience today of running in a blizzard, I hope you like the pictures.

The run itself was a challenge, and although I didn’t get my full Saturday mileage in, I did get a good workout. Some of the roads were plowed well enough to run on without slipping, others were not touched at all and were tough to go down. The hills where the roads weren’t plowed were quite terrible and there was one moment at the top of a hill, where its all farmers fields around me that I actually almost got blown away by the snow. The wind was SO bad and so much snow was blowing around me, I didn’t even know what direction I was running, it was quite scary.

I found that the worst part was when I running northeast (where the wind was blowing from). I thought during the run that I should’ve worn my old pair of ski goggles to keep the blowing snow from hitting me on the face so hard and burning my eyes.. I guess I just didn’t think of it prior to going out. Towards the end of the run, the snow died down significantly, and I may have been able to push more miles, but I was cold, wet, literally snow-covered and just out of gas from the workout. I did manage to piss off a large number of snowplow operators in the process .. and to the one snowplow guy this morning that seemed to purposely try to aim at me in an attempt to hit me, I meant what I said about your mother.. he was looking right at me as he came down the road with a smile on his face, and he sped up kicking snow all over the place, I had to literally dive to the side to avoid him. Ugh, thats why I had my phone on me, just in case.

Tomorrow is supposed to be bitterly cold again and windy, and with all the snow, should be somewhat blustery. My goal was to try and get 20 in today anyway instead of having to do 20 in the freezing cold tomorrow, guess it won’t work that way.

Well, kudos to all of you who ran in the snow, rain, wind, etc today .. for those of us who are marathon training, lets chant the “Marathon Runners Oath” … “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat nor gloom of night stays these Marathoners from the swift completion of their appointed training runs.”