Monday, December 10, 2007

Plan B, C, and D...


Well, it's been one of those weeks in Chicago. We went from rather nice running weather in the 30-40s to sleet, snow, and cold. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining about that but what I am whining about is it all came in one week! We are on our fourth weather storm warning in less than 10 days! And all at the time when I had to get in my 18 miler.

So, I modified, tweaked and practically duct taped my long run plans. First I was going to run it on Wednesday and take a cab north to Lake Forest which is about 18 miles from my home and then run home, but the snow started and it would have been nasty. Then I was going to run it Friday and run loops on the lakefront path but by that time the ice and snow hit and the path was nasty. I scheduled it confidently for Sunday morning as my schedule was clear and surely by then the weather would pass, right? Nope. We had an ice storm all day and the streets and paths were slippy.

So I decided to get it in on Saturday. I ran 8 miles as I coached with my training team Chicago Endurance Sports and then headed back out and finished the next 10 miles. I was dreading it because the path was sort of plowed but still had a significant amount of snow and ice and it takes so much more energy to run on that stuff. It turned out to be a good run even though the conditions were still slippy. The sun was out which was a gift and the winds were relatively calm.

So, the moral of the story is to have several plans and routes in your pocket for winter running. You never know what is coming and it pays to have a lot of choices in your pocket.

Happy Trails,

Jenny

While I was

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Glad you got the run in. I did the Rudolph Ramble on Sunday and the paths were crazy snowy and icy. I was just glad to stay on my feet!