Blizzards and the Golden Ticket

Ah, the wonders of spring in South Dakota. Last week, I wrote about how I slogged through some "heat" during the second half of my 20 miler. It got up to 77 degrees that day. The next two days we were snowed in by a spring blizzard. So, you would think we'd be done with the winter weather after that, right? Wrong. Yesterday we got a repeat performance as yet another spring blizzard struck, exactly one week after the first. This one wasn't as bad as the first, but it still shut everything down for a day. So, are we done yet? I hate to even speculate. Here's how last week went:

Monday - 6 in the morning before the first blizzard hit, 4 at the indoor track later that morning just as the storm was starting and before everything shut down (the gym closed 10 minutes after I left).

Tuesday - 0. Nada. Zip. Zilch. My 85 day running streak came to a screeching halt thanks to the blizzard. The road crews gave up on plowing sometime on Monday evening, so the roads were covered with 3+ foot drifts. Consequently, literally the entire town was shut down because nobody could drive anywhere.

Wednesday - 8 miles with 8 strides. I managed to dig my truck out and make it to work for the first time in the week. The roads had been plowed, but weren't really runnable thanks to the huge mounds of snow in the middle and on each shoulder. Also, the gym in Belle was still closed and the indoor track at Black Hills St. was being used by the high school and college track teams, so I ended up having to pay $4 to use the indoor track at the Spearfish Rec Center.

Thursday - 15 miles total including 40 minutes easy, 15 minutes tempo, 35 minutes easy 15 minutes tempo and 1.5 miles cooldown. I had to do this one on the indoor track again (the Belle gym was open again) because the roads still were too treacherous to run on. Running tempo pace on a tiny track sucks bad, especially when everyone and their dog, including the Belle Fourche High track team, is on the track too.

Friday - 8 miles in the morning, another 5 in the afternoon. Back outside for both runs.

Saturday - 6 miles. We also had my son Caiden's 5th birthday party in the afternoon. His actual birthday is April 1st, but we wanted to have his party on the weekend. Let me tell ya, having 20 or so screaming kids running around the house is much more tiring than any run.

Sunday - 20 miles. It was cold and windy and another blizzard was bearing down on us, but I got the run done before the weather totally went to hell. Last 20 miler before Boston.

Total - 72 miles

The most exciting thing that happened this week was on Saturday. I grabbed the mail out of our box and there was a fat little envelope from the Boston Athletic Association in there. Inside was my welcome packet and confirmation card. This is the running equivalent of Willy Wonka's golden ticket. They're actually going to let me run this damn thing!!