Last night, I was all ready to post a Debbie Downer weather speculation report, with models showing lower snow totals and only a few days left before the race. But then I decided to exercise phase three of Birkie training (phase two was get food poisoning / norovirus two weeks before the race, not one; phase three is get a lot of sleep the week before race day) and go to sleep. And overnight, well, news has become better.

The last three NAM/GFS model runs are all printing out about four inches of new snow for Hayward. The ECMWF seems to be on board. And the Canadian model, while showing a bit less snow for the Tuesday storm, shows a pretty nice wave coming through on Thursday with a few inches. No warm up this week, and temperatures at race time around 10 degrees. (For what it’s worth, last year a week out we were expecting temperatures around 10—and then that dropped. In other words, don’t put away your wind briefs yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if the race started below 0.)

Oh, and recent trail reports make it sounds like even without new snow it won’t be an icy mess (well other than a few choice hills). But with a few inches of snow, it might take a lemon of a winter and make pretty good yellow gatorade.