Snow Daze

A few thoughts now that Febru-buried is behind us...

• For those of you living in Boston, who claimed back in January that winter hasn't been too bad this year, this is all your fault. You can also stop reading now, as you've seen / heard the rest of this already.
  
  

• Most of my coworkers are rooting for more snow. We're currently at 104.1 inches for the season, and the record is 107.6. Why not at least set a new record, right? Of course, 64.8 inches of snow this February is a Bob Beamon-esque mark.
  
  

• Ever notice that it's hard to take a picture that conveys the magnitude of a large snowfall? Or in this case, consecutive large snowfalls. All perspective gets lost.
  
  
  
  How tall are my kids anyways? Or maybe you just get used to it. But photos plus poetry? The "Becket Quotes on Photos of Boston's Snow" Tumblr was pretty awesome.  These were two of my favorites.
  
  

• I squeezed in a snowboarding trip out west, between storms in February. Checking the ski reports as we got on the plane, we couldn't help but notice that Wachusett and Blue Hills had the most fresh snow in North America. Harley was quick to point out the continued lack of elevation. But still. I swore I heard them doing avalanche control work on Heartbreak Hill later that week.
  
  
  
  
  

• In terms of natural disasters you can do a lot worse than snow. Some people were starting to get pretty worked up. Ice dams! Potholes! Traffic! Snow days! I'm not going to pretend to know the economics of lost business and snow removal budgets. If financial relief is in order, great. But come on. Would anybody like to compare notes with the people of Moore, Oklahoma? Lots of snow can be really annoying. Let's leave it at that.
  
  

• That said, this post also made the rounds, and it's worth remembering: "The day-to-day mechanics of being a member of the working poor is a ton of work." If you relied on public transportation to get you to your job, a job you could not afford to be late for, well, the MBTA was not prepared to hold up their end of the bargain. Back in the day when I took the commuter rail in from Worcester, it seemed like the MBTA had a "we'll do our best" attitude. That's a great answer from my six year old, not so good for a public transportation system. But by all means, bring on the Olympics!
  
  
  
  

• So what about training? Like everything else, you grind it out. Most of my old routes and routines got tossed (running from the house in the morning) so you come up with new ones (driving over to Jamaica Pond at night.) Core work was replaced with shoveling. Sprinting from driveway to driveway on busy streets, growing a really ugly yet super-practical beard, remembering to wear safety glasses at night when it was snowing hard, etc. Still no days on a treadmill, but I definitely thought about it. There were lots of times where it felt like nobody else was training, but then you get on the course on Saturdays and runners had filled the Comm Ave carriage lane to capacity. Not ideal, but you make it work, and every once in a while maybe even enjoy the scenery.