Notes from a Nor'easter

Here in the mid-Hudson Valley, it could have been a lot worse. Thank goodness we did not venture to Boston. That city, and its surroundings, are truly crushed by this major storm. No joke, it's pretty bad out there. In these parts, it was your basic, garden variety big snowstorm. No really strong winds or downed trees or power outages. Just a steady stream of snow. At no point during the evening did it seem to be coming down particularly heavy. Just steady.

When I went out in the predawn darkness to start shoveling, there was a lot of snow. I would say there was probably around a foot of snow. We had done two rounds of shoveling earlier on Friday and Friday night. With the help of my iPod, set on shuffle with the Allman Brothers and Gov't Mule, I dug out for a good 2.5 hours. High priority was digging out my old Subaru so I could go to the East Park Stewart's for my cup of coffee. Fortunately, I did not have to be too thorough with this, as the all wheel drive on that decrepit bucket of bolts really powers through the powder.

Again, as major storms go, this was pretty tame around here. We are fortunate for that. In terms of the impact on our team's training, we adapt and we get by. Yesterday morning, Coach Chuck reserved a bank of treadmills -- cleverly using mini-hurdles to keep others at bay -- so that many women and men could get their workouts done in the sweaty Fitness Center. A few women and men ventured outside for tempo or fartlek in the just-starting snow on midday Friday. We kept them on campus, which is as safe as it gets for winter running -- albeit quite boring. We have pushed off Saturday practice till 2 p.m. Trust me. There are no complaints with this! By then, things should be passable for a longer run as we prepare for MAACs next Friday.

A quick scan at www.accuweather.com shows that the Curse of Schanz continues this week, as winter trudges on in earnest: Freezing rain on Monday morning, and the potential for a pretty significant snow event late Wednesday into Thursday. Hey. It's February.