January Recap

What can I say about January 2017?

It snowed.

A LOT.

It has been many years since it has snowed as many times or as much as it did this January.  It snowed a LOT at the beginning of January (like 2 feet), with much shoveling and slipping and sliding.  Then, it rained for a few days most of it melted away.  Only the big piles next to the driveway were left.  Then, the rain turned back to snow and hit with a vengeance.  This bit of snow is from ONE storm that happened one Saturday after we were down to almost no snow:

 It was HEAVY snow too.  Took forever to shovel, but the heavy stuff is at least good for one thing:

 Or maybe two (this is a pyramid of snowballs Arden made, but it was hard to take a picture since everything was white):

For some reason Dax was not in the mood to play in the snow this day, and this seems to be the only day I took pictures.

After this big snow, it pretty much snowed at least an inch or two every day for over a week.  Dax has been a great helper with snow shoveling this year, which is nice!  Preston's back has been giving him trouble so the shoveling is usually me and a little bit of Dax.  Oh well, it is nice to get an upper body workout once in a while.   But this year has been ridiculous.

Tons of snow (lit-er-al-ly!) is good for upper body snow shoveling workouts, but not so good for people who are trying to train for marathons (only 73 days until Boston!).  I've had to resort to long runs on the treadmill on two occasions.  Long runs on the treadmill (or, DREADmill) are akin to torture of the worst kind.  I am fine doing anything up to 8 miles on the treadmill, but anything over that just gets really REALLY old.  So, other than those two weeks when it was snowing like crazy (once) or pouring sleet (once), I've toughed it out, put on my little crampons over my running shoes, put on lots of layers and headed outside for my long runs.  The first couple of miles are a little rough until I get warmed up, but after that it isn't too bad.  I have had a couple of times when the water in my little backpack water bottle has frozen around the opening so much that I can't get anything to come out.  I have also learned (the hard way) that even if I have two pairs of gloves on, if the temperatures are below 20, I should bring hand warmers along.  But overall I still prefer running outside even in the single-digit temperatures to doing 15 or 16 miles on a treadmill.

The winter has been brutal for running, but the snow sure does make things look pretty.  And since the only alternative to frequent snowfalls in Utah is an inversion, I'll take snow any day.
Look at those white trees on the very top of the mountain!  Those usually look dark green but there was so much snow and ice on them they looked frosted even from down in the valley (sorry, not the best pictures...they were taken through a dirty window while going 70+ on the freeway.  Don't worry, Preston was driving, not me.)

And is there anything better than pink sun on white mountains?  I think not.

Anyway, January seemed to last about nine weeks, but now it is finally February.  Is it too early to have spring fever?