Snow Day Sunday at the YMCA

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event.  You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? -- J.B. Priestly

I go to the gym three days a week.  You have to or else -- I don't want to be the guy that dies shoveling snow. -- Douglas Coupland

I live in the mid-Atlantic.  We get snow every year, but we deal with it very poorly.  When the flakes start flying, schools start to close.  An inch on the ground, the churches shut their doors.  Two inches, and the entire city shuts down.

This past Saturday, we got between 6-8 inches.  As you can imagine, starting Friday night, everything shut down.  EVERYTHING.  (In fact, the kids just went back to school today -- Thursday -- which is totally insane and a different story altogether...they should have been back Tuesday at the latest.  Rant over.)  Anyway, Saturday was a day where everyone bunkered down in their houses.  And it was good, and kind of magical.  We woke up Saturday morning to a magical winter wonderland.

Then it was Sunday.  The churches were closed.  Stores were opening late.  But the key notice we all were waiting for...when would the Y open?  I mean, you can't run outside when there is that much snow (and we don't plow...that's why snow is so devastating).  And you've been housebound for 24+ hours, so you're getting a little twitchy.  When the Y opened late, at noon, on Sunday...the place was mobbed.

Adding to the perfect storm (pun intended), this snow day happened in early January.  Not only was the Y teeming with twitchy people who needed to get out of their house and twitchy fit people who hadn't been able to exercise in a day or so, there were also a large number of twitchy resolutionaries.

This, however, is not a post bashing on resolutionaries.  I am happy for them.  And if even one of them is still at the Y in February, that's a win in my column.  (I also prefer resolutionaries to resoluters...resolutionaries makes them sound like people who are interested in creating large changes in their worlds.  Resolutionaries - I salute you!)  And so while some people were irate about how busy the Y was at noon on Sunday, I'm OK.

It doesn't mean I just rolled with it - I got to the Y at least 5 minutes before it opened, because there are only so many treadmills and I wanted to be sure I got one right away.  People who did not think so far ahead got there at 5 after 12 and were sorely disappointed that the cardio machines were rapidly filling up.  Also, my training session was about an hour and a half...and the machines turn off at an hour, so I'll admit that I engaged in some subterfuge to reset my machine without losing it at 60 minutes.  (Uh, just tying my shoe.  Nothing to see here.  Nope, not done now.)  By then the Y was starting to flow a little better and treadmills were opening up here and there every 5-10 minutes, so I don't feel bad about hogging one.  You gotta do whatcha gotta do.

Winter is a hard time for triathlon training...getting to the pool when it's cold and dark, being confined to the treadmill by the snow and ice, and the trainer...the trainer...the trainer.  But it's also a time to remember that everyone started some time.  Look how far those of us who stick with it have come.  Later this spring, we can look forward to welcoming new triathletes to our ranks...remembering that they started at the hardest time and stuck through it for the least fun parts of training.  Resolutionaries - I salute you!  Can't wait to call you TRIATHLETE this summer.