Actually, I walk like usual all winter, unless the roads are too snowy or icy, or if the wind chill goes below -20°, like today. I just add some snow shoveling to the program, as needed. Yesterday it was needed 4 times! I suppose we could have waited until it finished snowing to shovel, but it was some pretty wet and heavy snow, so we shoveled every few hours, just so we could keep up with it. It was heavy enough when we only had 2 or 3 inches to clear. Imagine if we'd had to try and move the entire 12 inches or so all at once! As they said on the news, doing that could be 'bad for your body' - not to mention hard!
As it is, we got plenty of exercise yesterday, and I can definitely feel that I did something. The muscles are a bit sore! Shoveling definitely works different muscles than walking or the exercise videos that I do.
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| The driveway is on the other side of the snow-covered bushes. *snow enhancement courtesy of Google |
It was really nice getting outside yesterday, even it was to work. The snow coming down was absolutely gorgeous! It was a bit frustrating to finish shoveling the driveway just to have it completely snow covered again, because the perfectionist in me wants to get it done. Perfectly. Yeah, no such thing. That's also why I always want to get the driveway done before anybody drives on it - so there won't be any snow-packed tire tracks to deal with. Thankfully yesterday was Sunday, and we didn't have anywhere to go. So no tire tracks. Until the last time we went out to shovel.
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| Back Yard from the kitchen window |
Somebody had decided to pull into our driveway, probably to turn around, or get out of the way of another car. Since there didn't seem to be any snow plows out, the street was pretty much one lane of tire tracks forged by whatever vehicles had to come or go. While we were out shoveling one time, two cars met on the street and had to back up and maneuver around one another to get by. One of the drivers seemed to think it was the other guys fault for not paying attention and driving down the middle of the street. Never mind that there was really nowhere else to be! I guess the next guy found our driveway. Oh well, pretty much the whole driveway is a packed layer of snow now, since the temperature dropped overnight, and the wet snow froze to the driveway. Frustrating at the time, though - couldn't he have just pulled into the driveway of someone who had already driven in or out and packed their own tire tracks into their driveway? They never would have noticed. Or probably cared.
It was probably our own fault, anyway. The time before, we had shoveled out to the part of the street where cars had been driving - so that we could actually get out if we had to. It was like an invitation, really. Or at least we made it easy for them.
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| More falling snow courtesy of Google, but it pretty much looked like this ALL DAY |
My biggest question in all this is - not whether snow shoveling should be classified as a winter sport or weight lifting - but where are the snow plows? In Wisconsin the plow would have gone by several times over the course of the day, and we would have had to shovel that mess of heavy, wet, slushy stuff off the end of the driveway every time. I guess I don't miss that heavy, slushy mess, but passable streets might be nice. Then again, I'm not going anywhere... And Jeffrey only has five minutes to work. Or maybe 10 when the roads are in this condition.
How's your winter exercise program going?
