Summer Team??? Good Thing We’re Not the Winter Team!

Well, the inauspicious start for our summer team continues. We had a kick-off that wasn’t. Our first practice last weekend was cancelled due to the heavy snowstorm – about 12 to 14 inches – that began very early Saturday morning. It would have been the first chance for the team to meet up, since kick-off didn’t happen.

So we were all looking forward to today, to finally train as a team. But the weather gods interfered again. Yesterday morning, the snow started about 8:30AM. After accumulating about 5 inches, it turned to heavy sleet for a couple of hours, then a drenching, ice-cold rain began about 3PM. It rained heavily all the rest of the day and well into the night, turning the new snow to slush and finally almost washing it away but leaving an icy residue all over. Sometime in the early morning, it turned back into snow and our coach wisely made the decision to cancel training once again. It has finally nearly stopped as I write this, but I would guess we got close to eight or ten more inches today.

Even if I lived up north, where people are used to the snow, I can’t see how one can run safely in snow covered streets. It would be easy to slip and fall, or get hit by a car. Our summer team is not too lucky so far, although several of my six mentees are kicking butt with their fundraising. And given the difficulty of fundraising in a bad economy, and the importance of our mission, this is a really good thing. Because I know at some point, hopefully a week from today, we will meet as a team and start training for real. And it will be nice to know that so many of our team has already hit the ground running with raising funds.

Well, so far, it does not feel much like a summer team. I wrote before about Team in Training's curious seasons. I hope soon that we can all meet up in person and train together. Until then, the snowy days are perfect for fundraising, but not at all for running or walking.