Playing in the Snow

I would really like to thank the city of Philadelphia for not being as terrible as they used to be at cleaning up after a major snowfall!  Sure, some parts of the city are still snow-covered, but the major streets are clean, the highways are pristine, and - the best part - the Schuylkill River path is shoveled!!

 

The whole path as far as I went was beautifully clean (a few icy spots under bridges, but whatever) - which is a major feat when you consider the 28 inches of snow we got the day before!

Along my way, I found a LOT of people out taking pictures of the snow - hopefully, it was for photography class or something, not because they were so fascinated by snow?  There were also a lot of people sledding, which you can see by the tracks down the hill by the art museum.

I was so thankful for the clear path to run on - I'm pretty clumsy, so even a little bit of ice can be treacherous for me.  It was a nice, if chilly run - and I just told myself I was playing in the snow, not suffering through a long run in sub-freezing temps :)

 

This shot shows just how deep the snow was - it came all the way up to the bottom of the benches along the trail.  Drifts got up to three feet in some places - perfect for the little kids who got time to play outside with their parents this weekend!

I resisted the urge to jump in the snow, but I did have a very nice 4-mile run outside.  My average pace was 13:45, a vast improvement over my long runs last year.  I was finishing up C25K, so I was doing walk 10/run 3/walk 10/etc - I think I will try to run a little more and walk a little less for my future long runs, but I might end up trying to do something like 15/2/15 or 20/2/20 as my distance increases, if it's hard to keep running that long.  I know I may end up walking some during Broad Street and the half, but I think that if I keep my walks to a minimum, I'll finish with no problem!

Off to work - it's a long day full of lab and TAing.  Happy Monday!