Relatively Speaking

At work one recent Friday, a co-worker came in from being outside and declared, “It’s really nice out there.”

Oh, really?

About a half hour, I went out to check our company mailbox.

I decided that, sure, it was lovely out there, if one was simply walking to one’s car after a leisurely lunch. But being outside for hours at a track meet? Not so much. And guess who was going to be attending a track meet that afternoon/evening.

This spring has been…wet…and cold; oh wait, and windy…so very windy.

Of course, there have also been some very lovely days.

These opinions are all based on track meets, don’t you know?

And back in the days of junior high track we had a couple of MISERABLE springs.

So, relatively speaking, this has been a decent spring.

Seventh grade was awful. So cold; windy and cold and snowy! That first meet was just amazingly terrible. It was held in Pettysville, Ohio. Go ahead and look it up on Google Maps.

I’ll wait.

.

.

.

See how it’s there in the middle of freaking nowhere? Yes, there are flat open fields around the track. No windbreaks what so ever. It was so awful and because I was a novice track parent, I hadn’t gotten Alyssa any of the necessary garments that track athletes wear under their uniforms on cold days.

So there she was in a tank top and shorts and it was all of 45 degrees Fahrenheit with a horrible wind blowing from the west.

We remedied the lack of running pants and long-sleeved shirt the very next weekend but I confess to still, four years later, feeling a bit of maternal guilt over that one.

I don’t really remember eight grade meets all that much except the one at my high school where it rained the entire meet. My mom and I both had umbrellas and yet, because of the way the rain was falling, we ended up soaked. I don’t think the temperature was much above 50 that day.

Last year, the weather was so crappy in the beginning of the season that they cancelled/postponed at least three meets.

I was glad for this…cancer treatments, bald heads and cold track meets do not mix well. But I wasn’t working and so I couldn’t justify not going to any meet that was actually happening.

They did postpone one meet so far this year. It was due to cold temps and rain. I think the high that day was 42. I greatly appreciate not having to sit out in that kind of weather for hours on end.

But on the other hand, we’ve had some amazing weather for a couple of track meets too.

The very first one was so nice that we all ended up sunburned because we weren’t used to 62 degree weather and sunny skies.

Basically, spring in the Midwest is a crap shoot. One day it’s 65, sunny and low winds and the next day it could be 40 degrees with 20 MPH winds and rain/sleet.

Tell me why we live in this area again.