Hello Cold

I would be willing to guess that the next seven days could indeed be the coldest stretch of weather we see for the rest of the winter.  Before I get into that let's rewind briefly. 

After our last winter weather advisory, which I believe was for 1-4 inches, I said I would post a picture of what actually would be waiting for me the next morning.  Which I stated I thought would not much of anything.  Here it is.

I believe that would qualify as not much of anything.  Only the windshield and top of the car had anything on it and the little specs of white on the bottom of the picture are on top of bushes.  There was nothing on the grass.  I'll give myself a point for this one.

It was however interesting to see the changes as I drove to work.  Once I got into the Blandon-Fleetwood area I noticed some slight icing on trees and branches.  By the time I got to Topton, everything except the roads had a layer of ice coating it including signs and practically anything outside.  Doesn't take a lot of distance to see a change.

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THIS WEEK

By now most of us are aware of a light system coming into our area tomorrow.  There really isn't a lot of moisture to work with but whatever falls will be snow.  Everybody in the area should see a coating.  I'd expect about an inch in areas closer to the Appalachian Trial or higher elevations.

The real change this week is going to be the cold coming down from the arctic.  I'm not sure places like Allentown ever make it to 30 this entire week.  Temperatures will average anywhere from 5 to 20 degrees below normal straight through the weekend.   

All eyes are looking ahead to Friday.  There has been a constant agreement in runs that there would appear to be some sort of snow event.  All the details will have to be worked out as model runs continue to pick up on the storm.  For a change it would not appear that many places in our area have to worry about the rain/snow line.  Of course I say that now.

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RUN UPDATE

I guess the quick version of the story is I actually made it out to run today.  Last night I thought I had no chance.  I woke up sore yesterday morning and it wasn't like a worked-out-too-hard sore either.  That and I'm never sore after working out.  I went through the day drinking loads of water and tea before catching the Flyers.  It was during the game that the battle between whether I was cold or hot started.  When the game was over I decided I better get ready for the night by cranking the heat up, turning the sofa into a bed and putting on a sweatshirt with the hood up.  I rested while putting hockey on but knew I also had to make a meal if I was running the next morning.  Needless to say, my normal bag of tortellini, two sausages and spinach dinner took me at least five attempts to finish.  That's when I called it a day.  By nine I had my head down facing away from the TV and ready to fall asleep with the though that there is no way I can run like this tomorrow and maybe I can send a message to one of my friends to at least pick up my shirt since I already registered.  Or maybe I could at least make an appearance to get my shirt and leave.  I fell asleep and woke back up at 10:41 thinking it was morning.  I changed to the late NHL game but caught none of it.  I was back asleep quickly sweating out the fever and thinking this is just the beginning.  The next thing I knew I woke up and it was morning.  My phone said 7:34.  I looked around and thought, I actually feel decent.

That was all I needed and I started to get ready.  I went with oatmeal and four cups of coffee as my pre-run meal.  For once I just wanted to get through the run and didn't care how many times I had to stop and walk or who passed me.  I even started towards the front so I wouldn't have to deal with a log jam.  It didn't take long before I could feel my legs were weak.  Not only that but within about two miles I had to tinkle.  I spent most of the race trying to figure out if I should indeed stop and go behind a tree or keep going so I was done quicker.  I ended up never going.  At the beginning the organizer told us they had to change the course the day before (something about whoever owning the grounds saying we couldn't run there).  It's not uncommon for that to happen since normally this area is never disturbed by people, and they'd like to keep damage to a minimal.  With that being said he had no idea what the actual distance of the course was and would wait for the people with GPS to finish and let them know.  For the first time, probably because I wasn't feeling the best, I listened to my Ipod during a trail run to pass the time.  It doesn't have GPS.  I can only assume the trail was at least a half a mile shorter than the intended 7.2 miles.  I will find out when it gets posted tomorrow.  My guess is because I finished with a better time than I had last year.