We are having the most incredible winter--the most snow we've had in the 39 years I've lived in Massachusetts. We were only supposed to have a light snow today, so Mariah (my assistant) and I headed north toward New Hampshire at 6:30 this morning for a 9:00 meeting. We got about 20 minutes out when the radio announced for the third time since we left that we would be having snow with intermittent freezing drizzle all day. That freezing drizzle scared us and we turned around. I wish I had known that before I set my alarm for 5 am this morning.
We drove back to the office and I had the meeting by phone. By noon we had gotten an alarming amount of snow, so I decided to head home. It's normally a 10 minute drive, and in about 10 minutes, I was within 50 feet of my driveway. That was just to make me mad--I didn't get into the driveway for another hour and a half.
We live at the top of a 2 mile long hill, which is very steep just before our house. I had gotten a good head of steam up, but my car really didn't want to go up the last section. A kind woman stopped and tried to push me, to no avail. A nice man with a plow plowed a section behind me so I could get some steam up, but that didn't help. Then 2 city snow plows came roaring up the hill and passed me, leaving me in my little island of snow. I tried backing up onto the section they plowed, but still couldn't get enough traction. People kept suggesting that I go around and approach my house from the other direction (about a 10 mile drive--I live in the country), but as I said, I live at the top of the hill and while the hill is much shorter from the other direction, it's also steeper.
So I backed Up about a half a mile down the road to a flatter section to see if I could get enough momentum to get up the hill now that the road had been plowed. A nice neighbor gave me a pail of sand in case I got stuck. I got going really well and thought I was going to make it, but I needed to go onto the left hand side of the road to bypass the snow island where I had been stuck, and just as I was approaching it--could it be, yes it could, the snow plows came roaring down the hill, forcing me back into the snow island and stuck once more.
So I backed down again and tried it again. I got past the snow island and was really close to home now and lost all traction. Two men from the fire department stopped to help me spread the sand and push me. We made a little traction but the damn city plows came along again and plowed away my sand.
At that point I decided to park in my neighbor's driveway and walk home. I tried backing in, but guess what, I couldn't get over the pile of snow from the snow plows to get in her driveway. I got in enough to turn around and decided I would try the long way home. I was amazed, but I had no trouble on any of the hills and was about to start celebrating when I turned into the driveway and got hung up on the pile of snow from the snow plows--half in the driveway, half in the road. I tried rocking the car back and forth--I was going no where. I decided if someone was going to hit my car, it would happen whether I was in it or not, so I got out and went and got a snow shovel and dug my car out. It really felt good to pull into the garage.
What does this have to do with getting fit. Who cares--I needed to share. Actually, the point is that I have been training for 2 months, 4 appointments a week at Fitness Together. Tomorrow was supposed to be my final appointment before my assessment on Thursday, and it is cancelled because of the storm. No perfect attendance record for me. I'll consider it a day of tapering to improve my performance at the assessment. I have to do things like step up and down off a step for 3 minutes to a metronome and have my heart rate checked, see how many sit-ups and push-ups I can do in a certain time period, etc., so I'll be nice and fresh, especially if Liz is in charge of snow removal. It's a good reason for her to do it, don't you think?
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