Running Ruminations

I haven’t written much in the past couple weeks because between being on President’s Day (week) break and needing to disconnect, and then getting back into the grind of distance learning (and thus the pendulum swinging in the opposite direction), I haven’t particularly felt like I had the bandwidth to pontificate on the state of our COVID life because, well, we’ve had this conversation before — a lot, actually — over the past fifty-plus weeks. 

My family and I have been extremely lucky throughout the past year to be able to stay healthy and safe. Employment status hasn’t changed, kids are doing fine with distance learning, we have a little routine; same ol’, same ol’. 

Buuuuuuuuuuuuut change is underfoot these days. As of today (3/3), SCC has been downgraded into the red tier, and effective a couple days ago (2/28), a broader segment of Californians are now eligible to receive their COVID-19 vaccine: folks in agriculture/food industries, in education/childcare, and in emergency services, in addition to medical personnel and those 65+ years old who have been able to get theirs for some time now. Plus, in a couple weeks (3/15), providers will be able to vaccinate people 16+ years old who have the highest risk of morbidity and mortality from COIVD-19, due to their pre-existing conditions. 

What’s more, yesterday afternoon President Biden announced that any adult who wanted a vaccine could get one by the end of May — two months ahead of the predicted schedule — and that, combined with what is happening here in SCC, gives me reason to be hopeful. Vaccines obviously aren’t a panacea, since we still have to do all the other stuff, but it’s an astronomical assist.  

Locally and hyper-locally speaking, SCC’s downgrade to red means that indoor dining and some other indoor activities can resume, which personally doesn’t change anything for us; I don’t think anyone in my family is itching to go eat or work out indoors right now. It goes without saying that the move is a lifeline to all the affected businesses who have been teetering on the brink for the past ~year, and I hope that they can safely re-open.

In keeping with state and county health department guidance, as of Monday (3/1), Girl Scouts has also begun to allow troops to meet for in-person outdoor-only activities and meetings, as well as some in-person cookie sales-related business. They’ve extended this year’s cookie program through 3/31 (instead of 3/14, the original date), so girls get to rock their businesses for a few weeks longer, since the conditions in the county are improving.

And that’s not all! As we are completing the second trimester — and because of the accelerated vaccine pace — the girls’ school district is surveying families to see how many want to send their child in for a hybrid instructional option (in a cohort system, where kids would go to school M/T or Th/Fri and be remote the other days) versus simply finishing off the school year exclusively remote. The last day of school is in June, so essentially families are being asked whether they want to send their kids in to school, twice a week, for about the last eight-ish weeks of school this year.  

It’s a lot to take in right now, and it makes for a lot of decisions at each individual family level. Much of all of the aforementioned leaves me feeling optimistic that we are moving in the right direction, yet some of it also leaves me feeling a bit wary that we may backslide because so much is changing simultaneously. I’m assuming that I’m not the only one with those concerns. So much is at stake.

More pertinent to this blog — not saying you’re not dazzled by the tedium of COVID-affected life in SCC — the running world is also mirroring some of these recent developments. Predictably, Mountains to Beach’s ‘21 event has changed to being exclusively virtual, and if I’m reading between the lines correctly, besides all the normal COVID-related reasons, it’s in part because the fairgrounds — which usually houses the expo and some of the other pre-race or post-race logistics and staging areas, IIRC — will be used as a mass vaccination site in Ventura County. I think that’s pretty awesome.

Runners are automatically deferred to MTB ‘22, though we could instead choose to donate our entry fee or transfer to a virtual option this year, so hopefully, this will mean that this arrangement is beneficial to everyone, including the race. It would be heartbreaking if MTB (or any race, for that matter) went under, forevermore, because of COVID disruptions. 

Meanwhile, the Boston Marathon is offering the first 70,000 registrants an opportunity to participate in a virtual Boston, while they figure out the logistics of this year’s anticipated October in-person event that they’re planning to keep with its usual 80 percent qualifiers/20 percent charity runners makeup, albeit with a smaller-than-usual field size to accommodate COVID restrictions.

Some people may boo-hoo Boston allowing “just anyone” the opportunity to participate in a virtual Boston Marathon-named event, so I suppose it’s a good time as any to remind ourselves that other people being granted the experience of running Boston — virtually or otherwise — doesn’t take away from *our* experience. It’s not a zero-sum thing. I guess I just don’t get it if people think that their experiences should be predicated on someone else not being able to do it. (Related: if you want to be entertained, check out the comments on the Boston Marathon’s fb announcement. Lots of oh this race is going to trash; look, now everyone can do it; this is a far cry from the glory days of the race in the 80s, yadda yadda yadda). 

Races are almost certainly hurting after a year of cancelled in-person experiences in 2020, so I think BAA’s pivot is brilliant. I don’t imagine it’s something that they’ll do every year for the foreseeable future, but I think doing it in 2021 makes a lot of sense; maybe that’s just me, though. Hell, maybe I’ll sign up for a virtual Boston just because I want the BAA to succeed!   

While there aren’t any in-person road racing opportunities in SCC that I’m aware of, SRA — the folks who run CIM, as well as many other races in/around Sacramento — recently kicked-off their in-person “Relaunch Racing Series,” an offering of road races ranging from the mile to the half marathon. They explain all the COVID-19 precautions they’re taking, and I’m interested to see how it’ll all work. I guess conditions in those Sac-area counties a couple hours from here are more permissive for sizable in-person events than here in SCC, and I hope it goes smoothly and safely as possible.

I won’t be driving up to Sacramento anytime soon to run in the aforementioned races, but I am happily running along, doing my own thing here in SJ. After Coach Lisa and I wrapped up our mile training block, we’re gingerly transitioning into 5k territory, which is both exciting and terrifying, ha. We’ll still have some mile TTs thrown in there for good measure and to keep things spicy. RunLocal has also begun its California Challenge series, which gives runners the opportunity to race everything from the 800m to the half marathon, while supporting wildfire education and Leave No Trace. Bonus: you learn a ton about California’s state parks and the state’s diverse regions, which is awesome for someone like me who didn’t grow up here and has only seen a tiny part of the state. 

And that’s about it. I feel like we’re crossing into somewhat known, somewhat unknown territory with a bit of bated breath as spring creeps closer.

It is beyond bizarre that next week will be my fifty-second entry in this series of posts I began a year ago, thinking that it would be a few-week or few-month topic at best.

Little did we know.