Snow Belt People

The first heavy snow of the year left about 8" of snow on the ground in my neighborhood, but it's compacted down a lot in subsequent days since the ground is still so warm so it's only about ankle deep in lots of places. We're south east of Lake Erie, and the wind that dumped the lake effect snow in northeast Ohio was out of the west south west, so areas like Madison and Ashtabula got hammered with multiple feet of snow and accumulation.

My wife and I walk the dogs at the park every single afternoon. I don't think we've missed a day this year. We go in the rain or snow, but we wouldn't go in severe weather like a thunderstorm or extreme wind. Anyway, we're not alone there even on the bad weather days. There's a younger guy probably in his 20s who runs the trails even with snow on the trail and there's a woman who walks every day no matter the weather. She probably puts in 5-10 miles of walking per day even on the snowy trails.

It's good to have a certain dose of adversity in life and to face some natural difficulty. Without that, functional strength, mobility, fitness and bone density vanish especially when 40+ years old, then a single random event can be devastating. I wiped out yesterday when cross country skiing, the left ski hit an ice patch and I flopped onto the snow, which is a really forgiving surface obviously, but even so there's a pretty significant jolt to the body from it which is beneficial.

Walking a couple of miles in deep snow or on trails with irregular compacted snow is great for balance and strength and mobility, plus it's extreme cardiovascular exercise. It's difficult to replicate those real world scenarios in a gym, or by doing a narrow range of motion exercise like riding a bike or running, which is probably even more limited.

Anyway, lots and lots of people feel "lucky" to avoid manual labor or severe exertion, but end up like a brittle sack of bones even at a young age. It's a lot easier to recover from a significant injury when all the surrounding muscle and bone is in good shape, and that also allows one to be adaptable.