NH's State of Emergency Run

We just passed Week Three of TNT practice - and Mother Nature reminded our team who's boss, dumping several inches of rain on us the day and night before practice and whipping our area with hurricane-like winds.

Literally, hurricane level. On top of that, the overnight brought several inches of heavy, wet snow.

The mix of this wild weather resulted in tress and power lines down throughout the state. Even today, four days later, many are still without power.

So what does that mean for our TNT training?

Nothing, essentially. Sure, we had to re-route our plan to avoid roads that were closed because of downed trees and power lines. But we still got our miles in.

The university where we meet hadn't had power for days, so we huddled in the darkened hallway in the athletic building's entry.

I was pleasantly surprised to see most of our teammates arrive - a dedicated group, for sure! We talked about the challenges this winter running would bring - no sidewalks, slushy roads, deep puddles, poor visibility and guaranteed big splashes by passing cars.

The team handled all of these obstacles with grace and smiles - and plenty of laughs as piles of snow fell onto our group from the branches overhead. We got splashed, had soaking feet from the puddles we couldn't miss and zig-zagged across the street when the lake-like puddle was too big to avoid.

We ran through the biggest snowflakes I'd ever seen and surely got curious looks from people outside snow-blowing and shoveling their driveways.

The State of Emergency Run (yep, the governor declared it the day before our run) was definitely a bonding experience for our group.

I'm pretty sure we'll look back on this run - probably sometime in May when the birds are chirping, the sun is shining on us and the flowers are starting to bloom - and laugh.

And take a little pride in ourselves.

Here are a few pics, courtesy of Coach Geno, who was acting as Waterboy for this run and had the foresight to capture a few of Saturday's moments with his camera-phone.