The Curious Seasons of TNT

Since 2005, I have been with Team in Training for five teams, including one season as a non-fundraising mentor. These include the “summer” team three times, one “winter” team, and my current team, “spring”. Ah, spring – sounds pretty nice doesn’t it? And those three summer teams sound pretty idyllic – early morning runs in the cooler start of the day, pretty summer flowers, maybe a dip in a lake afterwards.

Well, not so fast! TNT seasons are named after the approximate time of year of the events. So the “summer” teams had their events in late April to mid-June, which I always think of as spring. In fact, my first time or two, I kept referring to it as the “spring” team.

Our summer teams started training about the first of February, and often in cold and nasty weather. As the winter gave way to spring, we often saw beautiful flowers, listened to birds – and trained in heavy rain-storms. We never trained in summer weather on the summer teams, the last event being the Anchorage marathon just before the Summer Solstice.

Our “fall” teams, which I have not yet been on, essentially train through the hot Virginia summers, starting about the end of May and continuing through October. Often they start training at 6AM or even earlier on Saturdays to escape some of the heat. I would guess at the end, they get some of the nice fall weather, but one of our cornerstone “fall” events is the Rock “N” Roll Half-Marathon at Virginia Beach, held Labor Day weekend. It is almost always hotter than hell for this race, and even though everyone has a great time, fall it is not.

Then there is the “winter” team, which I was on last time for the Arizona marathon of 2008 in Phoenix. Of the teams I have been on, we actually trained through the nicest weather on the “winter” team. We started in mid-August, and went into mid-January, with a lot of fall-like weather, beautiful fall foliage, cool mornings and warm days. Of course, there was also that cold drenching rain in late December where several of us had bad colds and all of us were soaked from our heads to our toes within about a half mile. The bunch I was training with decided after 10 miles that we had had enough, cutting the final two miles off.

As for my current team, the “spring” team, we have not had much spring like weather to date. We started training in early November, and have gone right through the winter months. Five degrees one morning, so cold that our salt-laden Gator Aide turned to slush. Plenty of cold and windy weather where your core is warm and sweaty from exertion but your face and fingers are frozen. Then, the other night, it was so mild and spring-like that I did my 4 miles in the dark with just shorts and a tee-shirt. Especially since I have another cold, it was a pleasure not to be out in cold weather. And I have noticed more birds singing in the early morning, and the longer periods of daylight in the evening. These are all signs of the approaching spring, at which point my spring team will be aptly named. I think that everyone on the team looks forward to the days just ahead when mild weather is the norm, when the early flowers start to bloom.

Even though the seasons of our teams seem a little mixed up at times, the experience itself, in any weather, is joyful. I feel so blessed to be healthy enough to participate with Team in Training. Spring, summer, fall or winter, we are changing lives one mile at a time!