Wind, cubed

Spring weather in the mid-Hudson Valley can be volatile. The weekend was mild and pleasant. Today and tomorrow, not so much. Not mild. Definitely not pleasant. The sun feels warm, but it is not warm. The air is cold, and the wind is strong. Our first practice of the day was at Spackenkill High School. It was breezy but manageable. Until it was a lot more breezy and a lot less manageable, as the wind whipped in earnest. Our second practice of the day was at both Spackenkill and at Vassar. I brought a crew to Vassar’s track. It was a wind tunnel. I had a difficult time standing upright without getting blown down. What did get blown down were the big nets that keep lacrosse balls off the track. That netting is so big and unwieldy that we simply left it on the track and our athletes had to gingerly traverse out to lane 4 at around the 200-meter mark. Empty plastic garbage pails were strewn all over the place, blown around like rag dolls. The workouts, and the workout times, were greatly affected. But the effort was strong.

Finally, as though I did not get enough of the chilly wind, my youngest son James had his first Little League practice of the season on Tuesday evening. More time in the cold and wind! A temperature of 38 degrees and a biting wind are not exactly the formula for baseball instruction for 6-, 7- and 8-year-old boys. That did not stop them from giggling, goofing around and throwing baseballs all over the place.

Wednesday’s forecast looks equally chilly. Long-range for Friday, in Williamsburg, Va., where we will be for the Colonial Relays? Windy, with heavy rain. Coach Terry Horton, not nearly the weather geek that I am, noted that the first weekend in April has seemingly always featured terrible weather through the years. Gotta love spring track weather in the Northeast.