Spring Training: One man's desperate search for spring after an unrelenting New England winter

By Published On: April 1st, 2003Comments Off on Spring Training: One man's desperate search for spring after an unrelenting New England winter

Spring Training: One man’s desperate search for spring after an unrelenting New England winter{mosimage}This might be difficult to believe for those of you who are prisoners of the snowbound northern latitudes, but there are places not too far away where the green grass grows. I wouldn’t have believed it myself, if I hadn’t witnessed this phenomenon on my recent spring training trip. Now, I can personally attest that in this very same country are pockets of nirvana, where flowers are blooming, birds are singing and people are mowing their lawns. And I’m not making this up — it is even possible to drive the car with the windows open. Call me depraved, but never has an exposed elbow looked more sensuous, than one casually protruding from an open car window in March.

It is a well-documented fact that surviving New England winters is totally dependent upon the absence of short-term memory. Experience one day of sunshine and all the weather sins of the previous two weeks are forgiven, or at least forgotten. Like most Vermonters, I’ve been endowed with a pitiful memory, but after the third zero-degree reading in a week, I snapped. Suppressing a panic attack, I made a quick call to the airlines, then stuffed my toothbrush, a few T-shirts and a pair of shorts into a bag, located my golf clubs, and bolted. It was North Carolina or bust.

Although I maintain my actions were entirely based on free will, the reality is my wife would have had me drawn-and-quartered if I hadn’t made the trip. Every winter she migrates south with her horses to jump-start the equine training and competition process, and every winter I hem and haw and make up implausible excuses as to why I can’t make it. A trip south might be alluring, but my reluctance is due to the perverse pleasure I take in watching spring evolve ever so slowly. Spring skiing, melting snow, expanding bare spots under trees and deer feeding on south-facing slopes hold far too much fascination to wimp out and go south. To leave would be like leaving the ballpark in the seventh inning with the scored tied — there’s still so much drama yet to come.

But even for me, the most ardent winter enthusiast, this year the game went on on too long. Starting at the end of October, every flake of snow that has fallen for more than four and a half months is still here. The cold has been unrelenting. My long underwear is baggy and riddled with holes from overuse. Buster, the dog, still keeps a lookout over his domain from an eight-foot pile of snow at the end of the driveway and anything potentially green is still buried under four feet of snow and doggie deposits. It’s time to face reality: It’s mid-March and the game is well into extra innings with no end in sight.

Imagine my relief at stepping out of the Raleigh-Durham terminal and inhaling the rich aroma of growing things. I felt like rolling in the first patch of thick, green grass, pulling it out in tufts and stuffing it down my shirt. And so it went for four luscious days of euphoria, relishing the simple pleasures of breathing, walking and riding a bicycle. On one occasion, I wandered onto one of the endless trails of the Fort Bragg wilderness area and became thoroughly lost, but even then, the first two and a half hours were quite enjoyable. And when I blasted my first golf ball deep into the pines, I couldn’t have cared less. I was in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt with the Carolina sun replenishing my depleted batteries. Yes, I was in training — training for spring.

Peering out the window as my tiny plane flapped its way north, the snow line began in what I imagined to be northern Pennsylvania and thickened to become a uniform blanket as we approached Manchester, N.H. Yet, I felt no dread. After a brief search for my car in the long-term parking lot, I found it encrusted with a sheen of fresh snow and ice and my door locks frozen. Did I panic? Never. Upon turning down our driveway into home, there was Buster on the lookout, his promontory still a full eight feet tall and littered with garbage. I handled it with nary a shudder.

I realize the game is far from over, but I’m now ready and eager to see this one through to the final out. Never again will I underestimate the importance of training for spring, although the final test of my training program will come after the next foot of snow.

Editor’s note: Bill McCollom is senior editor at Ski Racing.

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About the Author: Pete Rugh