It's warm and sunny, aaaaand it's not.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

You really shouldn’t take the weather in Northeast Ohio for granted.  Not for a day, not for an hour, not for a minute.  You really shouldn’t.

I had exercise plans for the evening that included stopping at the park on my way home for a Survival Workout to be followed with time on the trainer, or a run.  Then I started hearing weather forecasts from members at the Y and decided I’d better check out the weather channel on my computer.  I didn’t like what I saw, which was a prediction that a monster winter storm was, well, storming in and would be dropping the temperature into the single digits, with gale force winds and 6-8 inches of snow.  And all this would be happening over the next several hours…starting somewhere around right now.  It was 3 p.m.

I decided I’d make the drive home early, though I still angled towards the park.  Snow was falling slightly in Warren, but as I reached Middlefield on my way north, things were getting seriously nasty.  By the time I was passing through Chardon, I was facing white-out conditions and had reduced my speed to about 20 mph.  I descended Wilson Mills hill, the one I manage to smoke down at more than 52 mph on my bike, in low gear and with a prayer on my mind.  I reached bottom, but now had to ascend the other side to get home…but I was right next to the park!  I slowed and thought ‘maybe a quick Survival’ and then home.  Thankfully, common sense won out and I continued on, just making it up the hill since the roads had yet to receive any salt.

I made it to my driveway and discovered my workout after all.  Snow shoveling, of course.  I spent the next thirty minutes scraping the driveway down to the pavement and returned two more times before bed to make sure I stayed ahead of the snow curve.  It wasn’t the workout I had planned, but it was the one given me.  Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow.  My double workout is only a day away.