Snow is SO fun!

K-Swiss Tennis Snowman With Aaron Scheidies and Ben Collins  Seattle has had the best winter storm of my lifetime (a quarter century). The airports are cancelling flights, so my friends are stuck in town. There’s enough snow that I can’t see pavement within a 1 block radius of my house, and the pavement I see on the highway is just two ruts through an unplowed bump-n-grind of ice-n-snow.

[Left: Aaron Scheidies decided to skip riding the bike trainer with me in favor making a K-Swiss snowman out by the lake.]

So we’ve been stuck at home, and limiting out trips away. The pools were closed last week, which kept me out of the water for a full day, and the IMA at U of Washington has been closed,  so even if I could get there I can’t use the treadmill. HSP is definitely too hard to get to for me in this weather, so – since I refuse to try running on ice – I’ve really struggled with running the past few days. Until today anyway, when I went in and signed up for a seven day free trial of Gold’s Gym. YAY for taking advantage of a gym that charges so much for membership that I’m not sure how they have any members. (My opinion might change if I find out it’s like cars where they give you one price and you pay something much less, but right now I can’t see why you would pay a $270 “initiation fee” to join a 1200 square foot gym with 20 cardio machines (treadmills and 2008_12_21_burkSkiing 029ellipticals a small free weight section and a minimal weight machine department.) They do have nice treadmills, however, and tonight I ran with my friend Matt Camp from Honolulu, who is in town visiting on his way to Walla Walla, Washington to see his parents. But more about the Camps in a second.

Sunday night my mom decided that there was way too much snow outside for her to keep my Christmas present hidden any longer. Around 9pm she busts out a pair of skate skis, boots, and poles and announces that  we will be doing a late 2008_12_21_burkSkiing 045night Nordic ski adventure. I probably would have protested that I needed to sleep and that it wasn’t on my training plan, but when your mother gives you an early Christmas present and says you should go exploring late at night, only an idiot would say no.

We headed out and skied down the Burk Gilman trail. Her on classic cross country skis and me skating through the powder. It was among the best late night adventure I’ve had, and it was with my mother – which really makes it much better. The trail had a ton of snow. We only went about a mile and a half up the trail and back, which took a long time due to both the frequency of photo taking and our combined inexperience with Nordic skiing.

2008_12_21_burkSkiing 039What I find hilarious about snow in Seattle is that any native Seattleite will tell you that, “it never snows in Seattle, and when it does it’s gone in a day.” This is true 9 of 10 years, which is why the city has no means of clearing roadways or otherwise operating in the event of a “snow storm” (we only got about 8 to 12 inches over the course of 4 days). Meanwhile, the transplants (non-native Seattleites) always relish in memories of towns they left behind, “back in Michigan this wouldn’t even be considered a ‘storm’, it’s a normal winter day. We certainly wouldn’t get off from school or be allowed to miss work!" And you’ll hear this exact exchange of phrases in just about every social setting you go to over the course of the snow days. Some find it annoying, and some just don’t seem to notice the monotony of it. I choose to laugh.

Back to the Camp family. It looks like no flights are able to go to Eastern Washington, so when Matt’s younger sister was in Seattle on a layover today, her connecting flight was cancelled. I ended up telling her to get on a bus so she could come stay with us until she figures out how to get to her parent’s place. Now I have Mr. And Mrs. Camp’s children, and I’m holding them for ransom. I love house guests, so now that Aaron’s gone (he flew to Nebraska today) it just seems fitting that Katie Camp would fall right into the vacancy.

Published by Ben

Ben Collins Professional Triathlete

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6 Comments

  1. What is funny is that I can tell how freaking excited you got to do all of this. No wonder your mom loves to have you and your friends around – lots of great positive energy! Enjoy the snow.

    I’m off for a long run in shorts now.

  2. I very much enjoy running in the wintry cold, not sure why but I miss that from the east coast, there was something amazing about it. Don’t be a wuss run OUTSIDE.

    Oh and I am a member of Gold’s, but I doubt I payed that much for initiation and I only pay $20/month.

  3. my mom came and announced to me this morning that seattle got SLAMMED with snow and people are stuck at the airport, etc.

    then one of her friends told me it always rains there.

    so, everyone is talking about seattle!

  4. when we were spending our last two days in the airport, this woman was talking about how she spent 5 days trying to get home from seattle. you people are screwing up everyone’s flights

  5. Maybe, instead of complaining, you should make the best of your situation. For instance, I was stuck in Dallas for a day and a half last year and Aaron and I found out that there was a bed in the back of a Starbucks, and we met a nice couple from New York that took us out for dinner after the NYC Triathlon this year. It was awesome. If I hadn’t spent that time in the airport, I would have completely forgotten that day of my life because it would have been totally uneventful.

    Snow is awesome, and that lady shouldn’t have tried leaving Seattle. That’s her fault.

  6. That snow man is wonderful! … it didn’t look as stunning after he drank hot cocoa and got tipsy… I sure was wishing I had my cross country skis last week so I’m glad you and mom took advantage of the opportunity!

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