Summer Team, Un-Summer Weather

Finally today, much of our Summer Team trained together for the first time! Summer weather occurred somewhere else, but not where we were. The seemingly ever-present wind coming off Swan Lake at Byrd Park chilled us thoroughly by the time we started training. The wind chill had to be in the single digits, even though the actual air temperature was probably in the high 20’s. The sidewalk was covered in sheer ice, and many of the sidewalks and streets we ran on were icy or snow covered in patches. From time to time, strong snow flurries would break out.

We were missing about a half dozen members of our team, but those that came were a spirited group. Coach Chuck gave us a mission moment about a little boy he knows, ill with leukemia. The child’s birthday is less than three weeks away, and he is not expected to make it. Totally sad, and why we do this, so future children and adults can have cures, not face untimely and horrible deaths.

I just realized as I write this that Coach Chuck didn’t lead us in a cheer, which has to be a first for him, because usually he has great team cheers. We did a brief warm-up, then started running and walking for our three to five mile routes through Virginia Commonwealth University and as far as the start of the downtown. I was pleased to learn that my prior walk coach and teammate Lelia is also doing a run / walk training, and so we ran and walked together. It was fun to train with her again! I did five miles and Lelia four, and she was kind enough to wait for me to do the extra mile so we could do the final two miles together on this out and back route.

Here are a few photos from the day:

Summer team at our first training on a wintery day. From left, Coach Chuck, Coach Betty, Ann Marie, Lauren, Art, Coach Walter, Lelia, Nancy, Stephie, Gus

Here is where we normally do our pre-run warm-up, but not today!

This is the memorial to the victims of the Holocaust at The Cathedral of the Sacred Heart near VCU. It never fails to move me, to think of the unimaginable suffering and loss.

The inscription that goes with the memorial.

Yours truly near the end of my five mile outing. Given my lack of running lately, I felt pretty good.