In principle, the plan would have been drive to work, run at lunch, drive home, load car, drive to Liverpool for nice weekend with the in-laws.
There was a reasonable covering of snow on the ground before I left for work and it was falling lightly. I thought that, apart from the run at lunchtime (which I downgraded to a walk), everything was still going to plan. Just as I was leaving the house, the school announced it was closed, which gave the kids a snow day with Stellian.
When I started my walk at lunchtime, even though the snow was falling heavier, it was actually quite pleasant. For the first mile, my route traced where I would have run. The towpath looks so much bigger because of the snow as you can't tell which bit is the path and which bit is the verge!
The first thing that surprised me was that the canal in Birmingham wasn't frozen. For the past 2-3 days whenever I've driven over a canal bridge near home, the canal has been pretty solid. As I left the city centre, I realised they must have had an icebreaker keep it clear as there was suddenly a straight line across the canal where it became ice.
After the first mile, I crossed the canal and started to walk back on the other side... and that's when it hit me... the wind that is. I'd obviously had the wind at my back on the outbound trip and now it was bitterly cold in my face!
I'd been taking some photos on my walk and I continued past my start point so I could see how the Gas Street basin looked in the snow. In the end I covered three miles, which I was quite pleased about.
I got back to the office to find that they were starting to send people home who lived outside the Birmingham area. Looking out of the window towards Broad Street, I could see a line of stationary traffic. At this point, I remembered that Sandwell council (where I live) are quite good at clearing their roads, but Birmingham City council aren't (IMHO). I also got a text from Stellian saying we weren't going to Liverpool due to the weather, which was probably the right decision.
In the end, they decided to close the office at 3.00pm, however the unexpected bonus of getting out of the office early was quickly countered by having to pay full price in the car park as I hadn't been parked there long enough! It also took me around 40 minutes to drive 1 mile as the roads out of the city centre were pretty gridlocked. Driving slowly, I was quite happy to use some of the smaller, ungritted, roads I knew to avoid some of the traffic and the rest of the journey was completed without incident.
As the council had closed the leisure centres for the rest of the day, the only other exercise I could do is on the exercise bike downstairs, but as I'm not in the mood for that at the moment, I'll leave you with my stats and some of the pictures I've taken today.
Total for today (Walking):
Distance - 3.00 miles
Time - 53m 23
Janathon:
Total Distance - 139.35 miles
Total Time - 21h 54m14
Photo: Brindleyplace, by the National Sea Life Centre looking down the Birmingham Main Line Canal in the direction of Wolverhampton.
Photo below: Old Turn junction, looking towards the City Centre. The bridge to the left is the Birmingham and Fazeley canal. Round to the right goes past the ICC, through to Gas Street Basin through the tunnel under Broad Street. The photo is taken from under the bridge, which goes over the Birmingham Main Line Canal connecting Brindleyplace with the National Indoor Arena (NIA).
Photo below: The towpath, running in between the Birmingham Main Line Canal and the West Coast Mainline.
Photo below: The 1-mile point of my walk, looking back towards Birmingham - I'd walked down the towpath on the left and was crossing to return on the right-hand path.
Photo below: Gas Street Basin, Birmingham. This is where the Birmingham Main Line and Worcester Canals meet. Historically, the small channel running under the bridge didn't exist and cargo had to be unloaded from one boat, passed across the 'Worcester Bar' and reloaded. This was because the Birmingham Main Line and Worcester canals were owned by different companies and one didn't want the other to benefit from their water! (History lesson over).
Photo below: Ducks 'enjoying' the snow at Gas Street Basin.
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