Summer Team for a Day

On this first weekend of spring, four of us on the Spring Team joined our Summer Team colleagues for training. Our Shamrock Teammates for the past four months are doing their race this weekend at Virginia Beach, so the Summer Team welcomed us to their training session.
The weather was on the cool side, starting out about 32 degrees F and warming up to perhaps the mid-40's by the time I finished running. My route was 13 miles, and I walked the first 3 or so miles with the walk team, which is coached by Michal - my terrific teammate from my first year with TNT and my walk coach last year. Also walking today are Kathy, my former mentee who switched to the Summer Team when she got a stress fracture, Lynn, and Sarah. Sarah is a strong runner and was our team coach in Arizona last year, but is walking now because she is due to give birth to her first child in about two months.

We gave head coach Chuck B. a lot of crap about the route, which he took good-naturedly. The route was very complicated at the start (and end, since it was an out and back) and the roads in the park were not well marked, so everyone got confused and a bit lost - both heading out and coming back. But it was a fun route, and even though the weather was not real spring-like at the start, we saw plenty of spring colors.

After hanging with the walk team for a few miles, I switched to my run-eight-minutes, walk-five-minute routine and was by myself the rest of the way. Coach Sarah kindly checked on me several times by car, gave me some twizzlers (very tasty when you are running low on energy), and snapped a photo of me running along the VCU campus.

Here are some more photos from the route today.

The Kanawa Canal runs from Richmond to around Lynchburg. This section is between Maymont Park and the James River. It was hand dug - with some assistance from gunpowder - with a lot of slave labor. It was put out of business by the railroads.

Pretty Bradford pear trees in bloom in the VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University) area.

Spring flowers on the State Capital grounds

Virginia State Capital grounds

Running along VCU

Cool mural on side of VCU life science building

Maymont grounds - combination botanical gardens, zoo, landscaping, walking trails, and an historic mansion

One of the lakes in Byrd Park on the confusing way back

Beautiful cherries in bloom

Forsythia in bloom with its shocking yellow color

Michal and me