Winter Update

This is my 28th winter in Charlottesville (if I count the two years in the early nineties when I was living in Chicagoland but kept close tabs on Charlottesville) and it is by far the worst Charlottesville winter that I've known. It's not just the amount of snow, or even the number of times that it has snowed, its the temperature. Typically during winter in Charlottesville we have many nice, sunny days. Snow usually doesn't last long, even when there is a lot of it, because it usually melts within a week of falling. But this winter sunny days above 42 degrees have been rare. Our first big snow came about a week before Christmas. About six weeks later, just about when most of it had melted, we got another big snow.

My running has been almost nonexistent. In early January, when I was in Las Vegas for four or five days, I had hoped to run everyday. However, the fact that I was in very poor running shape combined with all the walking I did each day as I visited thousands of booths at the Consumer Electronics Show limited me to one run of about two miles. I think there were about two days in mid January when the snow had melted off the track and it was above 40 degrees and I did run on those two days. Last week I was in San Diego for three days and I had my running shoes with me, but I was battling sciatica.

All is not lost though. I have done quite a bit of exercise bike ridding. I ride 45 minutes/day and am planning on starting to increase the time and intensity of those workouts. I am planning on buying a road bicycle once the weather is good enough to ride outside and then hope to start training with the eventual goal of doing an across-the-country. No timetables have been set. Our good friend Chris Lennon has invited me to join him and his wife on a trip riding almost 300 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway in June. I think that good sense will prevail and I turn down this opportunity. As much as I would enjoy the challenge, I just don't think I can properly prepare. My concern is that this trip could potentially be such a negative experience that it would discourage me from the bigger goal of the across-the-country ride. So for now, I am not making any decision and will see how things look as Chris's trip gets closer.

I am looking forward to both biking and running and wish it would stop snowing and get to a reasonable temperature. If I wanted to live in a climate like this I'd be in Buffalo (sorry Mark).

I was planning to compete in a 200 meter footrace this spring. Stay tuned for more on that...