BostonBound59

Before I began my quest to qualify for Boston approximately a year ago I was only marginally interested in the weather. The extent of my research consisted of little more than getting up from my desk, perhaps glancing outside or swinging the door open at my office or home. If things weren't to my liking, well, I'd put the run off for a few hours or maybe until the next day.

Things are different now. For both the Steamtown Marathon last October as well as the upcoming Boston Marathon this April the McMillan Training Plans I have been following require me to keep a constant eye on the weather. For Steamtown, it was the heat. I'm a terrible hot weather runner and easily wilt in temperatures above 70-74 degrees. The heart of my training for the Boston Qualifier in October took place during the months of July, August and early September and this required often heading out the door before 6 AM on many long run days or risk temperatures in the 80+ range in the most difficult stages of our 18-22 mile runs. I initially found the popular Weather Channel website helpful http://www.weather.com/ --it allowed me to track hour by hour the weather conditionas 2-3 days in advance and for the most part, it has been accurate. Now I've taken it to a whole different level with the discovery of the Weather Underground website http://www.wunderground.com/ This is an incredibly useful tool. In Amherst area alone there are 32 separate weather tracking stations--so many that I can accurately track the weather and wind conditions for different sections of my run prior to heading out the door. http://www.wunderground.com/US/NH/Amherst.html The site and each of the specific stations update every few minutes. It provides wind chill, humidty and dew point data as well as wind at certain elevations. It has historical date going back decades. I was even able to track the weather conditions decades ago to buttress my excuses for running slow marathons at the Mayor Daly in 1978 and Boston 1982. Ok, I agree it may be a bit excessive (alright obsessive) but with weather conditions in the months leading up to Boston brutal most of January and February...can you blame me?

I was forced to take Friday off due to work obligations (only my second day off in January) so we were more than ready to get going Saturday morning when the weather seemed downright balmy (18 degrees at 10:00 A.M. with only occasional wind gusts). What I didn't take into account were the road conditions. We were hit with close to 12" of snow last Wednesday and while the plows made one pass late in the day the temperatures plummeted by early evening preventing the snowplows from finishing the job. I was inside the Hampshire Dome both Wednesday and Thursday so I didn't fully appreciate the extent of the carnage until we were out the door and well down Horace Greely Road, about a mile from our home. Probably 80% of the Amherst-Merrimack-Mont Vernon course (what I call the Tater-Kendall course) was covered in hard packed ice so we spent close to three hours this morning slipping and sliding our way over 20 miles. My screw shoes (see my post of January 7, 2009) were only minimally helpful, skates would have been better. Our overall pace was (gulp) over 9 minutes per mile, 45 seconds-1 minute slower than our usual pace. Total time for today's run: 3:03:55. January mileage total: 285.