Snow Day

Ah, the joy of the snow day. One of the perks of working for a school system is the occasional surprise school closing. This morning, I got up at my normal 4:45 AM for my early morning swim practice with ProK Racing. There was no snow in sight and everything was open at this point. I drove to the Y and walked in at the same time as my coach. We even got to chat a bit before practice about some of my race goals and my training progress. More on that later.

When I pulled myself out of the water at 6:30AM after an hour of nubby arm kicking (kicking with arms down at your sides and rotating the body left and right as you slowly make your way down the lane), sighting drills (swimming with your eyes closed and only opening them when you lift your head out of the water), swimming with fists, and other various drills, a teammate who was getting ready for the 6:30 class said that the school systems had all decided to go two hours late because it was snowing. I simply smiled and nodded my approval.

I was delighted to hear the news because that meant I would have about 2 and a half hours to myself before I would have to leave for work. I could relax, make a good breakfast and lunch, drink some hot water with lemon and read the news, etc.

When I got home from class, I was home for about 15 minutes when the phone rang. I recognized the number as Henrico County Public Schools. Alas, they had changed their mind and decided to call off school all together. Now, I am not going to complain about a free day off but it seemed odd since there was no snow on the roads at all. Even as I write this at 1:00PM, the snow is still falling but has yet to accumulate on the roads and has only just now started accumulating on the parked cars. In fact, I can still see the grass in my front yard.

So far, I have accomplished a few things on this free day off. I put in some time on our bathroom renovation, took a nap, and had lunch with Melissa which is something we rarely get to do. And now, I have the rest of the day to work on some other projects. My plans include writing my blog, cleaning the house, working the foam roller and doing some other PT exercises. If I get the gumption, I may even continue working on the bathroom renovation. Mostly, I am just going to dilly dally my way through the day. It is nice to have the extra day. Instead of rapidly refocusing in front of a few computers at work, I will just do what I want to do and get some extra relaxation. Like I said, the joys of a snow day.

And now a quick training update. Last week at track practice, I improved my 1 mile time by 2 seconds. I felt pretty good about that and after talking with my coach this morning, she believes that I can PR at Monument and make the Kinetic Half Triathlon my A race. She has faith in me which is reassuring. Since, I have not nailed all my pace runs, I am not sure about hitting the 40 minute 10K mark that I discussed earlier. Right now, I am going to continue to work hard and shoot for beating my last year's time at the very least. As we get closer to the race, I will have a better idea if 40 minutes is really doable.

Well, I got another item on my mental checklist completed. Now I have to work on some PT. I will never reach my race goals if I don't continue to work on my knees. With the extra time today, I should be able to make some good healing progress. That is all for now. Thanks for reading.

What snow means to me

We have been getting a lot of snow here in Virginia recently. My parents are still under more than 2 feet of snow up in Northern Virginia. Here in Richmond, we have had a great deal of snow also. I always like it when it snows. Mostly for selfish reasons. When it snows, I get to do more of what I want. We have missed some work and had some late openings. Plus this past weekend, we were pretty socked in. All of this extra time at home allows me to work out more. Also, I love to shovel snow so this winter has been really great in that respect.

Today was another snow day. But the county did not decide to call off school until about 7:15AM. When they checked the roads at 4 AM like they usually do, everything looked fine and the forecast called for little or no accumulation from the storm that was coming. Unfortunately for the county administrators, the snow came like a blizzard and there were white out conditions. I was lucky. I don't leave until the last possible minute so I had not left when I got the call that school was closed. Some others were no so lucky. The emails from my coworkers were flying back and forth describing road conditions all over town. We all have mobile devices that allow us to keep up with email no matter where we are so I heard from all different parts of town that the roads were terrible and it was like a blizzard out there.

Also unfortunate was the fact that some students had been picked up by the buses already. Some buses turned around and took the kids back home. Some took the kids to school where they stayed until parents could be contacted. Needless to say, parents were pretty upset about the whole ordeal. Buses were sliding around, cars were in ditches, there was even a 50 car pile up on one of the highways. Later in the day, we received an apology message from the county. Apologizing was probably a good idea. That probably lessened the outrage or at least the number of people vocally complaining to the county about it. They were probably still mad but some were probably willing to forgive.

For me, it meant I could do more working out and get some chores done as well as go out to lunch with Melissa which is always nice. I managed to get a bunch of laundry done and get in a very long workout. I rode the bike for 45 minutes during a live Manchester United game. After the ride, I did all my PT exercises plus upper body work including bicep curls, tricep curls, overhead presses, dumbbell flys, chest presses, and push-ups with the inverted BOSU ball. I do 3 sets with 10 reps on each exercise. After all that, I did my BOSU ab workout. I have not attempted part 2 of the BOSU abs workout yet because it starts out kneeling and I am not quite ready to do all that. Since I got such an early start on my exercises, that gives me more time to ice.

So here I am with 1 week left before I go to the doctor. I still have some pain in my knees but they really get better everyday. I am hoping the doctor can tell how hard I have been working. And I am hoping he can give me a better idea of what I can expect in the coming months. My exercises are getting a little old and I am ready to start being able to do other things. I will probably have to continue doing the PT for quite some time but I am thinking eventually I will be able to cut back to a few times a week so I can d0 other kinds of workouts. Just in time for Spring I am hoping.

I have one race on my radar at the moment. Sunday, September 5th is the Shenandoah 100. The race is a 100 mile mountain bike race that is supposed to be quite grueling but also very fun. I have some friends who have participated a couple of times but they have yet to actually finish the race. Right now, when I ride my trainer, I do have a very slight pain in my left knee when I finish riding but during the ride, it does not hurt at all. I am hoping that my Glucosamine regimen helps with my knee joints. It takes about 3 months for the Glucosamine to start to have beneficial effects. I will be approaching the 3 month mark in about a month and a half. So we will see.

Tomorrow we open 2 hours late. I am going to try to get up early and get some sort of workout in. I have recently added the foam roller routine. Basically you roll your quads, glutes, and IT Band on the foam roller as a sort of self massage. It is very helpful to loosen up tight muscles. I may just wake up and try to do some stretching and foam roller. I don't have a good track record for getting up to work out before work but there is a first time for everything.

Thanks for reading.