Did I leave WI, really?

Hey icewomen-

So I made it home to Pitman, NJ on Wednesday. It's usually a lot warmer here than in WI, and I hadn't even bothered to pack my snow boots as we usually don't get snow while I'm home. However, Glen "Hurricaine" Schwartz of NBC 10 Philadelphia warned of a storm- 15"-25".

These imminent warnings of an apocalyptic-esque blizzard happen every once in a while in NJ, but it rarely ever turns into anything. Regardless, when I went food shopping yesterday for a family dinner, the supermarket was a madhouse, people scrambling for food like it would run out. I felt like I was on the NJ Turnpike with my shopping cart, especially coming out of the cereal aisle. I was patiently waiting for a stream of other carts to go by when an old lady (who I had just helped get a box of cereal off of a moderately-high shelf) passes me on the left and makes her way in.

After over an hour of trying (and failing) to find everything my mom wanted, I waited in line, checked out, and exited the store slowly in order to avoid a small child running by. I heard a lady a cart behind me "HUMPH. Why do people take SO LONG to walk out of the store?"

Well, to avoid head-on collisions with small children. God I love NJ.

Anyhow, this morning it actually did start to resemble a blizzard, a dark sky whipping snow everywhere. At about 1PM I stopped procrastinating and decided to brave the storm for a wintery run. After about a half hour of goading, I convinced my sister Melissa to come with me to run the first 1.5 miles with two monsters (my "dogs"). She was very reluctant. Getting her to go with me involved some deal making, including me lugging her suitcase out of her trunk. After she insisted that we take some pictures to document, we set out.

Sleigh dogs?

About 30 feet later, Homer had pulled her face first into a snow bank. (PS I am not the only one that screams when i fall). She trudged on and we watched a cross-countrier skiier go by on Pitman Ave. Not something you see too often around here.

After a while we were both actually enjoying ourselves. Despite the swirling snow, the landscape was pretty and the going was not too rough. But after changing directions, we discovered that there was one factor that we had forgetten about.

The wind.

Freezing, whipping snow started pelting our faces. We could barely open our eyes to stare down at the ground and make sure that there were no more wipe outs. I stopped at home to drop off Melissa and the dogs and grab a scarf for the rest of the run. I smelled cookies coming from the kitchen, tempting me to end the run now. I resisted, having taken the day off that I traveled, and trudged on into the wind.

I saw another, older runner on the street who said "I'm glad I'm not the only one being made fun of." Upon, passing the gas station, I noticed that an attendant was taking a picture of me. I'm hoping that it was because I was running in the snow.

It was one of those runs that feels pretty epic, like the scarf flying behind me is my cape and I am a superhero, the wind as my foe. I mean, please, but thats what I thought about while bullets of snow landed on the parts of my face not covered by my rock solid frozen scarf. I finally turned around after 2 miles to reap the benefits of taking a run where I hit the wind first.

It felt so EASY with the wind at my back. Even going up the bump that native New Jerseyans may call a hill in the slippery snow was not so bad. I could still barely see, however, as my eyelashes were frozen in snow. Leftover mascara- not a good thing to have on during a snowy run. I stopped to pull the ice out of them.

BAD CHOICE

I saw in horror that black hairs were mixed in the with the snow in my hand. I started up again and booked it the last mile, wondering if I was going to have to wear aviators in public for a while for a lack of any eye lashes. The last time I wore sunglasses inside was when I was 12 and gave myself a black eye by putting my knee straight into my eye socket. Rope swing on a lake during the summer. I'm now 21 and its winter, making it even worse to show up to indoor family functions with sunglasses.

After passing him again, the same gas station attendent asked me "aren't you cold?" which eased my fear of him using the picture for creepy reasons. I finally arrived home, a mix of white (my clothes) and red (my face). I allowed time my eye lashes to melt and saw that only a small fraction of the lashes had fallen off and I could go without the sunglasses. I'll probably go without the mascara too, at least while its snowing.

I'm glad I didn't stop the first time through the house. The cookies were still there when I got back, and now I have one of the those runs that I'll remember, like a certain work out (Kinnick Innick) or a night run. My eyelids do hurt a bit though.

Anyhow, happy winter running,
Julie