I'm in a transition period of working out. I'm swimming when I can, but not doing too much else. I haven't run since Thanksgiving, and the bike's been on the rack since before then. Now that it's December it might be good to get back to some base training. So I figure shoveling yesterday's snow and last night's rain would be a good warm-up before getting on the bike this morning. It was a good warm up and then some.
One of the local meteorologists suggested to wait to shovel the snow until the freezing rain stopped. Because if you shoveled the snow before the freezing rain, you'd have a slippery, dangerous layer of ice. But, if you waited, then the ice would just get shoveled away with the snow. A nice concept until the rain soaked through the snow and ended up as ice under the snow. Add to that the heavy foot traffic compacting it all even further.
All of this snowballed into very heavy shovel loads. Each scoop ranged from 20 to 40 pounds, depending on the water content. After a good hour of this, I moved from our sidewalks to our car. Parked in the street, the plows show no mercy to the cars and casually drive by, piling even more snow up against the doors and wheels. After another half-hour of digging around the car, I was done.
I estimate I cleared over hundred full shovel loads. At an average of 25 pounds per, that's over 2500 pounds! Over the course of shoveling, I removed two layers of clothes, exchanged my stocking hat for one that I wear running, and switched from my heavy gloves to lightweight ones. I decided not to get on my bike just yet.