The Gaps

If you're not a cyclist or triathlete that lives in Georgia, "the gaps" don't mean anything to you. What's that? the rip-off version of Gap clothing line? no... not even close. The gaps are the climbs in North Georgia mountains. They are 6 of them, Jack's, Unicoi, Neel's, Wolfpen, Woody's and Hogpen. Every year Cycle North Georgia club holds the Six Gap Century ride. The gaps are famous for cyclists and triathletes who train for different events that involve long and steep climbs. All of them wish they were mountain goats when they ride on the gaps.

The first time I heard about the gaps was when I was training for my first tri in 2009. I thought why? Who's crazy and stupid enough to ride on the mountains on a two skinny wheel vehicle? The answer is (fast forward 3 years later)... I am.

When I signed up for IM Canada, I knew I had to tackle the gaps. Where else do you train to simulate the climbs in Canada? I guess we're lucky enough we have the right venue to practice. I started doing the Ultimate Cycling classes in January. Some of the drills would prepare me to ride the gaps. My IM Canada training partners had a great idea to camp at the Vogel State Park for a weekend and ride the gaps. Vogel was at Rest Stop 7/3 on this Six Gap map. Ignore the arrow signs. We didn't follow the same route.

The plan was to start at Vogel and ride the following gaps in order, Wolfpen, Woody, Unicoi and Jack's for a total of 66 miles. Here's the elevation chart.

It was a big task. I never climbed that high and never descended that steep. The latter part scared me more than the first part. Climbing was relatively easy for me. If you were tired, the worst thing could happen was you fell off the bike because your feet stopped pedaling. But descending was scary, my bike handling skills were practically nonexistent, cornering didn't come naturally for me, I was afraid of height, it was not just a straight downhill, but there were switchbacks.... the list was on and on and on. I was super nervous. a week before the ride, I carpooled with Eric and Sarah to Hard Labor Creek ride. Eric showed me Woody's descent http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4TnUrzL5e8&feature=related. After I got home, I watched the other gap descent on youtube. I didn't know if it made feel better or more nervous. I emailed Mary on Thursday. I fessed up about my fear. Since she was going to SAG on Saturday and she's my coach, I thought she should know. She gave me 4 tips: Look straight ahead, not what's right in front of you. Don't turn the handle bar, instead, lean towards the direction that you're going to. When cornering, drop the outside foot down and drive with your other knee. Feather the brakes, no kung-fu grip. I knew them but it was nice to be reminded again of what I'm supposed to do. Funny that on Friday, xtri.com posted this article http://www.xtri.com/features/detail/284-itemId.511713881.html. Perfect timing.

I took a day off on Friday. I thought I could relax a little before Saturday epic ride but it turned out I was busy packing, loading up the car, running errands, dropping Chloe off at Rebecca's house for the weekend.... next thing I knew it was 2.30PM. I stopped by at Lake Lanier to do a quick open water swim. I just wanted to get a feel for swimming with a long sleeve wetsuit. On the way to Vogel, I started noticing the climbs. At one point I was sure I was driving on Neel's gap. I tried not to think too much of it. I was the first one to arrive. I shared a 3 bedroom cabin with Wendy, Eric and Sarah. Susan and Ellen camped with their 2 dogs. The cabin was nice. It was old but clean and spacious. I ate dinner on the back deck overlooking the mountains.

Less than an hour later, Wendy came. I was glad I had somebody to chat with so I didn't keep thinking about tomorrow's ride.I guess we had nothing to do, so we took pictures of our bikes.

Eric and Sarah came a couple of hours later. We talked about tomorrow's route. It turned out that we would climb the switchbacks, not descend, which made me really happy.

The next morning I got up around 6AM. We were all ride ready by 9AM and met with Mary and some  friends at the parking lot. While waiting for the group, Sarah gave me some pointers on descending. I felt more confident at that point.

Carlos, Katie, Mike, Sarah, me, Susan, Eric, John and Jane

Eric, Sarah, Wendy and me

 Mary, my coach, is on the left

After a quick pow wow, we took off. Silly me, I went to a different direction and when I realized nobody behind me, I realized that everybody else went the other way. The good thing I caught up with them right away. Our warm up was just a half a mile. We started climbing Wolfpen right away. It was steep and a couple of sharp turns.... so glad I didn't descend on those. I was going really slow. I was just focusing on my cadence. As long as it was 70 plus, I was on the right gear. Keep it nice and light, it was going to be a long day. Wolfpen was about 3 miles long. I got to the top. One down, three more to go. It wasn't bad at all. Easier than what I expected.

At the top of Wolfpen

Now the first descent of the day. I focused on the tips that Mary gave me. Susan was in front me, Mary was behind me. Susan passed Carlos not long after. Carlos was pretty cautious wasn't going too fast. Having somebody in front of me helped a lot. Not long after that, we got to the bottom and started climbing Woody's. Honestly it was a blur. I think part of me was just a huge relief. Now I knew what to expect on a descent. The other part was Woody's was shorter and less steep climb than Wolfpen. I got to the top of Woody's, everybody asked me how I was doing. This was the first time we regrouped after Wolfpen descent. People were very supportive. I was really thankful for that.

At the top of Woody's gap

Woody's descent was long and less curvy. You could see far out in front of you. By this time, my aero bottle's sponge/ plug went inside the bottle, so the aero bottle didn't have a cover on. The drink kept splashing all over, my bike, my face and my legs. It was pretty annoying. There were 20 miles stretch from the bottom of Woody's and the next gap, Unicoi. On the elevation chart, the climbs looked nothing compared to the gaps but there were actually pretty tough. Something funny happened. While descending on Woody's, I heard something was flickering. What was that? was my brake caught on fire and made that flickering noise? but it was rubber... shouldn't be caught on fire. If anything, it was just going to melt (which I heard it could happen if you brake too much). Several miles later, I realized it was my cue sheet that made the noise. I taped it to my bento box but the wind blew it away.

For a while I rode by myself, I got nervous because I lost my cue sheet. there was not too many turns and Mary pretty much stopped at every turn, so I wasn't too worried. When I got to the next intersection, Susan, Jane and Sarah were there. We started climbing Unicoi. I knew this was the longest climb. I passed Eric after several miles. I heard Sarah asked Eric how many miles we had to climb, he said 10 more. I was like, there was no way, my guess was around 4 more. We were climbing switchbacks so I couldn't see how much more to climb until the next turn. I wasn't sure if I wanted to know what was coming up or not. It was steep and practically no break. I peeked at my Garmin to see my speed. A couple times I saw 5 something MPH. I could run much faster than that. Then, I saw a white van in front of me. The top of the van started to disappear as it was driving away. It's the top of Unicoi. I made it.

The view I had been waiting for

The rest of the ride wasn't too bad. Jack's was short and sweet. I was ready to be done. We made the last turn to Vogel. It was actually part of Neel's climb. It was a little scary because there was no guard rail on my right. I was just praying that no car would knock me over.

Kinda like this

We got back to the park, I ran for 30 minutes and took a group ice bath at the creek. I was the only one who got submerged from the waist down.

We had a nice dinner that night. Eric made baked meatball pasta with cheesy broccoli. Yum! The next morning, Sarah, Susan and I climbed Neel's.

Day 2 Vogel State Park

At the store, on top of Neel's

We went down to the park and climbed Neel's again. Sarah and I were talking about what body parts hurt the most, it was actually sitting bones. My quads felt fine. I think that was a good thing. Ellen took a really cook picture when I was climbing up Neel's.

After a short ride, we ate lunch and parted ways. What a great weekend at the gaps!

Swim...Swim...Swim...

This week is the first week that I don't have the Ultimate Cycling anymore. It feels great. I have more time to do other things, sleep and rest. Mary, my coach, just bought a new underwater camera. We met her at the Mountain View aquatic center on Wed night. She was going to film us swim. I was so excited about this because I wanted to know how my strokes looked (Plus this session was free. Other coaches would charge $75-$100 for underwater analysis). Do I drop my elbows, do I catch the water when I pull, do I rotate my hips etc? Oliver would go underwater to watch us swim and gave us feedback but it was not the same when you could see it with your own eyes.

Mary made us swim several laps, back and forth. She took it from the front, the side, back and above water. After that, we sat down with her. She plugged her camera to her laptop, so we could see it better in a bigger screen. It's so funny to see yourself swim. I now understood when Oliver said my right hand was not pulling straight down right away as soon as it entered the water. Instead, I was wiggling. If I have a pen at the tip of my fingers, I was drawing an S. I didn't know why I did that. My left hand was fine. That's one issue that I have to fix. It sounded easy but since it was something that I had been doing for a while, it was hard to break an old habit.

That night I woke up with a sore throat. I took care of myself, getting enough sleep, eating my veggies, taking my vitamin, but when you got sick, you're just sick. Couldn't do anything about it. I took Zicam right away. It's a Zinc supplement that was proven to reduce the severity and length of your cold. Sometimes when you were lucky, the sore throat went away in a few hours and you didn't get a cold. I was unlucky this week. It got worse. I was sneezing a lot and my nasal was congested. It was official I was sick. On Thursday I could see dark lines under my eyes. I got that when I had a cold. I texted Mary to ask her what the minimum miles I had to run. I was supposed to run for 2 hours and 10 minutes on Friday. There was no way I could do that. I felt horrible and couldn't bear the thought of running. She said ZERO. Amen. I liked it. I thought she would say 6 or 8 miles. I didn't like missing a workout but this time around I didn't care. My body was achy. My scalp was even sore when I touched my head. Friday afternoon was worse. We had a conference call and I would have to walk out of the conference room when I had to sneeze and blow my nose. I sneezed like a man.... so loud.... I left even before the call ended. Jen and Matt were on the call anyway. I went to Walgreen. It's been a while since I bought cold medication. Finally I bought sinus and allergy med even though it wasn't allergy. The symptoms were the same... runny nose, nasal congestion, sneezing. That was what I needed.

I went home and tried to sleep. I didn't know if I could do an open water swim the next day. That was another thing... We were planning to go to Lake Lanier to do the first open water swim. The water temp was around 63F. I didn't think it was a good idea to swim in cold water while having a cold. I decided to wait until the next morning before I made a decision.

I woke up around 6AM. As soon as I opened my eyes, I was analyzing my body.... any chest congestion? nope. nasal congestion? a little. runny nose? nope. I felt much better than the night before. I got ready and ate my breakfast. We had to swim for 50 minutes. If I felt horrible, my plan B was to swim less than that. It was actually not only open water swim, we would practice transition to bike and then to run as well. Oh by the way... did I mention that I had the biggest canker sore ever? The diameter was 1/3 of an inch. No kidding. It hurt like crazy when I put Albothyl, but after that, it went numb for a few hours.

After a quick warm up, we started the continuous swim. The water felt good. It was so different swimming with a long sleeve wetsuit. I breathed every two strokes and sighted every 6-8 strokes. I went pretty easy. I thought about the swim video. I drove me crazy that my right arm was doing what it wasn't supposed to be doing. It actually helped thinking about it to kill time and helped me concentrate on my stroke... not what's at the bottom of the lake. I could freak myself out when I didn't see other people swimming around me.

John, Susan, me, Sarah and Eric

Mary brought her 9 month old German Shepperd puppy with her, Lucinda. Lu learned to swim that morning. It was funny to see her doggie paddle. It was a pretty good day overall. I suffered a little bit after I got home. My body was a little angry after the swim, but I was pretty confident that I could ride 60 miles tomorrow. Maybe slow but as long as I logged the miles in, I would be okay.

Publix Half

Before I knew it, the weekend of Publix Half marathon came around the corner. I picked up the race packet with Ken and Elishia. We left the office at 11.30AM. I was fine taking Marta to go to downtown but Ken insisted that driving there was a better idea. Since I wasn't the one who drove, I was okay with that. Traffic on Friday afternoon in Atlanta can be a crap shoot. This was one of those weekends. Getting on the exit ramp was taking forever. The traffic was slow after getting off and there was a long line to enter the parking garage. We finally found a spot, parked and went into the Georgia World Congress Center. Seeing the race signs, walking into the expo, picking up my number... really brought back old memories when I ran 2007 ING Atlanta Full Marathon. It was my first race ever. I never did a 5K or 10K before the marathon. After we picked up the packets, we walked around and went from one food station to another, basically we started the carb loading that afternoon. From Greek yogurt, crackers, bread, lemonade, chips & hummus, tomato soup, almonds.... anything that was free. After we were full, we went back to the office.

On Saturday, Susan, Sarah and me rode 42 miles. It was a leisurely bike ride. I felt I could go all day riding 15 MPH at Silk Sheets. We were planning the Gap camping trip on April 14th. I'm excited thinking about it since I've been wanting to ride the Gaps. After the ride, I quickly went home and took an ice bath. I wasn't sore but I felt more confident running the half knowing that I did everything to keep my legs fresh. Plus I learned from the previous weekend. I didn't take an ice bath and kinda did minimal stretching and foam rolling after a pretty hard 60 mile ride. I was suffering a bit when I ran on Sunday. My legs felt heavier and didn't have the speed. I drank plenty of Powerade Zero & water and went to bed early.

I got up at 3:50AM and did my normal routine. I was out the door at 5AM. I was meeting Sarah and Susan at the Marta station at 5:30AM. I was surprised to see there were only a few people on the platform. This was nothing like the morning of Peachtree 10K race. I saw Wendy sitting on the bench. Not long after that, Sarah came. We still didn't see Susan. Then, the train came.... still no Susan. We decided to walk past the first car and surprisingly... Susan called us from inside the car. It turned out that she got on the North Springs station, one stop before the one we were on. We got off the train around 6AM. Potty break was the number one destination. The lines were long but moved quick. It was still dark when I heard the Star Spangled Banner... the race was about to start. I went to my corral. I started to feel nervous. It was the first race of many this year. I prayed for strength. My goal was to run 9 min pace. I was pretty sure I could do it, but I didn't want to be overly confident. I didn't taper. This was just another training day. At least, that was what I kept telling myself.

The corral started moving....walking...jogging... I heard the beeping sound when runners in front me crossed the timing mat. Ready or not, here I went. I pressed the start button on Garmin. I tried to maintain a quick pace and ran very carefully so I didn't trip over somebody's feet or step on pot holes. It was a little crowded but it was expected. I skipped the first water stop at Mile 2. It was too early. I peeked at my Garmin. The average pace was 8:46. After a couple more miles, the air felt pretty humid. I was sweating even though the sun wasn't out yet. I ran passed a few people that I knew. After the second water stop, I checked my pace again, it was 8:35... Holy cow! I thought I was going to be in trouble. I couldn't run this pace the whole race, especially after mile 9 when there were hills after hills until the end.

My strategy changed a bit. I didn't slow down, at least not right then. Sometimes I had to run faster to pass people. I really like the changes in the terrain. Up. Down. Flat. Up again. Down again.... you got the idea. I wanted to get to mile 9 first and checked my pace and figure out what the pace for the last 4 miles. I ate the first gel at mile 6. It was nice to see people that I knew on the course spectating. I saw Kristin, Karen, TNT staff, Sasha and a few more friends. At mile 10, after running a long hill, I was tired. I was running 8:33 average pace. I blamed myself a bit for not slowing down a bit in the beginning. My strides weren't light and easy anymore. I was passing another TNT girl. Normally I would say Go Team but I was tired, then I heard she called my name. It was Katy Aguilar. I ran besides her and she asked me how I felt. I said tired. She said we had 5K left and I could do that in my sleep. That was true. It was a big help running with somebody. I pushed her pace and she pushed my pace. A couple times I lost her but she pulled up besides me again. She was a strong runner. My calves started to twitch. I was nervous that I was going to cramp. I just prayed a lot.
We chatted a bit, talked about the next race and the Blowing Rock weekend. It's funny that I wasn't out of breath, I could speak normal, not gasping for air even though I was running 8 min pace but my legs just hurt.

I started doing the count down when I was at Mile 12. One more mile. Then I  saw the 3/4 mile left sign but we were going uphill, so the thought of 3/4 mile to go was annoying. Then I saw the 1/2 mile left sign, again we were on the last (I hope) hill. My calves were still twitching. After the last hill, we turned left. I'd better see the finish after this turn. Sure enough I saw the arch. Finish line!!! I kicked harder and crossed in 1:53. Personal Best. I was really happy with the result because this was the first race which I didn't taper. It gave me confidence that I could do Zooma Half, Rev3 Knoxville Half IM, Eleven Lake Oconnee Olympic tri well without proper taper.

Stone Mountain Park

I went to Stone Mountain Park on Sunday to run 12 miles. It had been a while since I went there to run or ride. The park had a five mile loop and half of it had lanes just for runners and cyclists. I thought it was a perfect training place since it was hilly and I could run on asphalt, much easier on my knees.

One loop's elevation gain was approximately 180. The plan was to run 2 loops and add 1 mile out and back, a total of 12. Since I didn't want to pay $10 for parking, I parked at the trail entrance on Main Street. There was a restroom across from the parking lot which was so convenient. I listened to Pandora's Taylor Swift radio. Feelin' a little country this morning. The first few miles were fine. There were some downhills and a little bit of uphills. I felt a little hot and took off my right glove. Every time I feel warm during a ride or run, I just take off my gloves and it cools me off right away. After 3.5 miles, the terrain was up and up and up. This time the wind really picked up and my visor was hanging on for dear life. Wow... it's really windy (later I found out that the wind was 14-17 MPH). I felt like running on treadmill a little bit. My feet kept moving but I wasn't going forward. Finally I got to the main parking lot, I saw Frank. I knew the Spring team was meeting for a ride. I said a quick hi and started my second loop. I peeked my Garmin. My average speed was 9:12 min pace. Too fast! Mary says run 9:30, but I thought a little quicker was good, so I could sand bag on the second loop when my legs were more tired.

The temperature was cooler than the start. I was happy that I wore gloves. On the second loop, I passed the same runners that ran on the opposite direction again. It was nice to see I wasn't the only one who ran more than 5 miles that morning. The hills towards the end of the loop felt longer. I could see my own shadow. I just focused on keeping my torso straight up, no slouching. Work the abs and lower back muscles!
Finally I got to the top. That's 10 miles. I ran 2 more, it was hard not to keep looking at my Garmin. I just peeked at the distance, not the average speed. Finally, it was 12.0 miles, 10 feet away from my car. I hit the stop button right away. I was pleasantly surprised to see my pace was 9:14. Awesome. Perfect pacing even with hills and wind. I couldn't stop smiling, but then I was feeling guilty that maybe I had a great run today because I didn't push hard enough during yesterday's 50 mile ride (which should've been 55 miles). Oh well.... can't win...

Habis Gelap Terbitlah Terang (trans: After Darkness, Light Is Born)

I know it was a weird title for a post, but that's what happened this weekend. First of all, After Darkness, Light Is Born is a letter that was written by Kartini, an Indonesian woman born in late 1800's. It was about the move for women's emancipation. Anyway, the ride didn't have anything to do with women's emancipation. The only thing that came close to that was Sarah and me were the only two female cyclists on the Silk Sheet route this morning. Back to the title, in the past few days, the weather had been pretty rough. There were tornado touchdowns in several states and last night at 9.15PM, my eyes were glued on local channels. A tornado was passing Marietta and heading to Johns Creek. That was just 10-15 miles away from me. I was a little nervous. Thank God. It didn't touch down here in Atlanta. We still didn't know what the firm plan was for Sat morning. Plan A was to ride at Silk Sheets at 9AM. Plan B, if we had persistent rain, was to ride at Cadence Bikes. My butt was already protesting Plan B. Sitting on a trainer for over 3 hours was pretty painful. I had my share with Will's classes on Tuesday and Thursday for 1.5 hours each. I don't need more quality time with a trainer.

Long story short, I got a hold of Sarah. I think her childhood dream to be a meteorologist was fulfilled this morning. After reading the radar, she said it should be okay riding outside. We may get a little bit of rain but it wasn't going to pour. Susan was sticking to Plan C, which was riding in her basement by herself. Sarah and I wheeled down at 9.30AM. It was just a little cloudy, not a single drop. We were good to go. 0.5 mile from the start, this is what we found....

Raging river... well okay, it wasn't a river but the river was overflowed to the street. I asked her if there was a way to detour. Sarah just shook her head... so, we decided to cross carefully. She took the plunge first and I followed. After she got to the other end, she turned around and was laughing at me. As I was pedaling, the water was splashing up pretty high like a fountain. My right foot, because it was at the bottom, was soaked. Crap! It was going to be a cold ride. After that, the road was actually pretty dry. There were some puddles but it wasn't bad at all. We crossed South Fulton Highway, and we noticed that the sun came out and the sky was blue. It was really great.

Around mile 23, I shifted to the big gear and snapped... The shifter was up but I got stuck in the small gear. what's going on? I told Sarah and she said, oh that's your cable. It's busted. Nice! No wonder I had a problem shifting last week at Brookhaven. I thought it was because my chain was dirty so it was a little sticky. We still had 27 miles to go. I was a little mad but at least I could still shift the rear cassettes. It would really suck if it was the other way around. I've had the bike for almost 2 years and the cables had not been replaced. I guess it was time. We stopped at the gas station to pee. I was hungry and I had to eat something solid. I bought Nutter Butter. I've been wanting to try them during rides. It hit the spot.... so tasty. After the stop, I felt much better. I wasn't annoyed anymore with the busted cable.

We stopped at one point and took some pictures. Look at the blue sky in the background. Who knew we had a tornado watch the night before.

We had a little fun coming back. We had to cross the raging river again. This time, we took some pictures and videotaped them to show Susan what she missed.

When we got back to the parking lot, I was stopping and turning around at the same time. I unclipped my left foot but accidentally was leaning to the right. I went down. My right knee kissed the ground. I had long tights but I still managed to scrape my knee. Oh well.... a rookie mistake.

Silver comet

The last time I rode at Silver Comet trail was two weeks prior to Gulf Coast triathlon in Spring 2009. I remember that I rode 50 miles by myself. My speed was around 15 MPH. I rode it again last weekend with Susan since Sarah and Eric were out of town. Same distance. This time was over 17 MPH. What a difference 3 years made.

Bitter cold windy day

Just a few days ago, I was talking to some people about how nice and warm this winter was. No ice storm like last year. I had to wear a winter coat only once or twice. We had some rain. The temperature had never been below 25F. What a mild Georgia winter! Lo and behold... this weekend surprised us with the dreaded winter cold snap.

We agreed that we would wheel down at 9AM. Instead of meeting at the Bud plant, we decided to start from the Sosebee Bike Park, just 2 miles from the plant. When I was on I-75, snow flurries hit my windshield. Just a tiny bit but that confirmed what the temperature was like. The current forecast was 38F with 15 MPH wind, it felt like below 32F. According to the forecast, the wind picked up 2 MPH every hour and the temp kept dropping. I wasn't concerned about the temperature. The wind was what scared me. As I was driving, I had to grab my steering wheel tight because I could felt the wind sway the car. I was looking at the pine trees. The branches were waving quite a bit. I got to the park and nobody was there. I checked my iPhone nervously. If they backed out on me, they would be in so much trouble. A few minutes later, Susan came. As soon as I saw the expression on her face, I knew she doubted whether she wanted to ride outside this morning. I said to her "is this stupid or what?". She couldn't agree more. We called Cadence Bikes to see if the spin room was open that morning. And... they were. Awesome! Apparently TNT Summer team had their GTS over there that morning. Cadence told us we could come this morning to spin. That was great news.

Sarah and Eric pulled up to the parking lot and we told them what our Plan B was. I knew they would not want to ride indoor, which was fine. At this point, we each had to decide what worked best for ourselves. You made a decision that you can live with for the next 3 hours (on the bike, that is). Michael joined Sarah and Eric that morning also. They were going to try to ride. If it was too cold and windy, they would drive down to Cadence. Susan and I left and got to Cadence around 10.30AM. As soon as I got from the car, the cold snap hit me. I was so glad we decided to ride indoor.

Cody set us up on the Computrainer. This time we rode the Ironman Germany course. It was a 2 loop course. Computrainer had 51.5 miles programmed, not sure why it was a few miles short. I found out later the elevation gain was 1,300. I forgot to mention something important. I got a new compact crank yesterday and got refitted also. The ride felt different from last week since I managed to stay in the big ring a lot more. I felt my right leg was over-extended a bit. My right knee kept brushing against the cable and my elbow when I was on the aero position, which was annoying. I may have to go back to Curtis to get adjusted.

After we rode 10 miles or so, Sarah, Eric and Michael came. They rode for 3 miles. Michael couldn't feel his fingers and decided to ride back. I felt bad for Eric, I don't think he could stand riding on the trainer. He was done after 28 miles, I think. Michael was done early also. Susan finished the course first. She was getting stronger on the bike. I finished second. I was so glad to be over. My sitting bone had a nagging pain after riding for 2 hours. The next morning I ran 9.5 miles on the treadmill. I was such a wimp. I didn't even want to walk to my townhouse to the club house which was around 1 mile. I drove and parked by the lake. I forgot what cold 14F felt like. I could hardly breathe.

The weather forecast from this weekend