February discontent

According to T.S. Eliot, "April is the cruellest month," but clearly he didn't experience a February like this one in New England. Our area has experienced huge snowstorms almost every Monday this month, canceling school for the kids and covering our yards, roads and sidewalks with feet of snow. The Hartford area (near where I live) has had 46.8 inches of snow so far this year according to meteorologist Bruce DePrest in a Connecticut Magazine article. That is no joke. Adding insult to injury, the temperatures for the last two weeks have been bitterly cold, often below zero in the morning (not including wind chills). Watching the Today show this morning, apparently now some kind of Siberian express extreme wind chill has arrived. awesome. This month has got to go!

View from our front door this afternoon. 

It has been such a struggle all month for me to stay on track with diet and exercise. It really is my own fault, but truly I believe all this frigid weather is affecting me. It is hard to stay motivated to get out the door to the gym (no outdoor running for this girl right now!), and with all the snow days the kids have had, it is very easy to stay inside and just snack on anything and everything all day long. And when that gets boring, why not bake cookies "to keep the kids busy." Sure, and then eat 7 of them. I'm disgusted with my lack of discipline this month. I've also been either unable to make most of my Weight Watchers meetings for one reason or another, or I've been afraid to face the scale and unwilling to go. Also not cool.
Today I made it to my regular meeting (finally!), and I was so glad to see some of my old pals there and "be among the living" as I called it. Maybe that's the key...get out of the house at any cost, regardless of the wind chill. Not surprisingly, I gained a bit on the scale, but it was nothing I can't handle. I've worked hard this week to stay on track, so it feels like my momentum is coming back finally. Plus, I've got a half marathon this weekend, so there's that, too.

Continuation of view. Imagine with strong wind blowing snow across landscape.

I head to Birmingham, AL on Saturday to run the Mercedes-Benz Half Marathon there on Sunday. I chose this race due to the "warm" climate for a winter run, but this morning the temperature in Birmingham was a delightful 19 degrees F. The forecast for Sunday begins with a low of 34F and tops out at 59F, with rain. I suppose it is better than here, but not exactly the warm run I was hoping for. And if it does indeed rain, this will be my first real rain race. I'm not looking forward to that, but maybe it won't be too bad. Here's hoping!
My mileage has been low this month due to my low motivation, but I managed to eke out a 9 miler two weekends ago, and I've consistently been hitting 5 and 7 milers. This is definitely not the level I am usually at when I have a race on my calendar, but I have to hope that the body will just somehow kick in to autopilot and bring me to the finish line. I'm not hoping for much with this race, just that I finish without major incident.
I haven't done much with P90X3 these last two months because our basement workout area is under construction, as we are having the basement finished. Work is getting close to wrapping up, so both my husband and I can get back to those exercises soon. I am looking forward to getting some muscle back and getting rid of some of this winter flab I've inherited. 
In the midst of all this crazy weather, it was also my youngest daughter's birthday, so we took her to Boston to see the Blue Man Group. Nothing like going to the city that is nearly shut down because of snow! Luckily we had matinee tickets last weekend and were able to see the show and immediately hit the road before Saturday's storm crippled the city. The drive home was treacherous, but we made it and celebrated her birthday for that reason, too. We are ready to say goodbye, February. You started with bad news from the groundhog...how about something nice to end the month? Maybe a day above freezing, say? So here's to looking ahead to March and some warming. And if it doesn't get warm soon, I'm moving to Maui.

View from Hotel Wailea, Maui, Hawaii