Yop! I’m still here.

Wow, is it February already? Chris gave me a rough time about not blogging and ok I’m guilty of not checking in here, but I certainly haven’t felt left out. I’ve really been enjoying the email chains going around and those have been a great motivator for me, so much so that I’ve been able to shrug off many of my old excuses for not fitting in my exercise. Post Marathon weekend I’ve only missed 5 days of not getting in at least an hour of walking or elliptical work. My KOTH mileage for January is 74.36 miles. That’s a big jump from the 10 miles I was getting in during the previous months.

On Tuesday I kicked off February with 4.5 miles. Regrettably I was not able to get in any mileage today but I have an excuse.

What’s that Jeff, an excuse!?!

Yes and it’s legitimate. Here’s what happened. Yesterday while I was at work (evening shift this week) one doozy of a blizzard rolled in creating poor visibility and deep drifts. I should have stayed at work but decided to leave an hour early at 9pm to top off my gas tank and see what the roads were like. I decided that it was worth trying to make it home. The interstate was well plowed and I was able to follow a Semi most of the way home. Once I left the interstate the roads were pretty poor but as long as I kept the car moving all was fine. I found the east bound lane of the highway heading out toward our development was drifted over but fortunately there was no traffic in the other lane. As I approached what should have been my turn I noticed a hip deep drift blocking my access. Nothing in the neighborhood had been plowed. Luckily we live near a 24 hour Wal-Mart and I was able to make it into the lot. I called my wife and explained where I was and why and that most importantly I was safe. I went into the store twice during the night for some water, a sandwich and a nature break but most of my time was spent in the car.

How does one occupy their time when spending the night in a car?

Well my time was spent listening to The Savage Nation, playing some games on my Itouch and watching Oceans 12 on my laptop. I also tried to get some sleep and found the back of my HHR fairly comfortable when the seats are folded flat. Only thing missing was a pillow. I would run the car for 30-40 minutes at a time to keep warm. Around 2am I noticed a few trucks pull into the parking lot to begin plowing and finally about this time I fell asleep for an hour. When I woke up I found the parking lot was mostly clear and I also noticed plows go by on the highway. At 3:15 I tried for home and found the streets had been cleared. Pulled in my driveway at 3:30 to knee deep drifts and decided to break out the snow blower before heading in to bed. An hour later I finally made it to bed and slept until 10am.

So my excuse is that I was exhausted and didn’t have time to work out before driving back into work.
I hate missing a workout because I feel it means I need to catch up to reach my mileage goal. I’d much rather have my 25 miles in and then take a day off than feel like I’m behind. But hey I still have time this week so I’m not going to dwell on it.

Enough about me, how’s the weather in your area?