Running Ruminations

I think I’m running out of ways to describe the new normal that pandemic life has brought, and I’m also feeling like as we speed closer to the presidential election in 20 days, my mental real estate is becoming a hotter and sparser commodity, moreso now than ever before.

There are only so many different ways to say the same thing. 

SIB’s Generate Good Energy Challenge over the past couple weeks has reminded me daily that even with the cacophony of All That is 2020 raging on, a lot of good is still happening daily, even if it’s not always super evident. We’re the narrator to our own lives, and energy flows where energy goes.

When I begin to feel what I can only describe as an existential-level type of despair (or disdain, since TBH it’s sometimes hard to differentiate day to day), I remind myself that people are still doing good things, making real progress, and that not all hope is lost.

Call it self-care, self-compassion, self-preservation, or sheer naivete and privilege; I think all of the aforementioned apply. For me, it comes in the form of running as much and as hard as feels right (“training for life” is a fantastic way to run); it comes in the form of being pretty damn selective of what I’m reading online and in which types of social media I’m consuming; and beyond all else, it comes in maintaining connections with loved ones and being in the right here, right now with them. 

I sincerely hope that as life, and this school-year, has continued on in such a weird way these past seven+ months, you have found a healthy outlet into where you can pore some of your being when All of This has become suffocatingly, exceedingly tough. 

You don’t have to run (though I’d sure as hell recommend it!), but I can’t speak highly enough of the benefits of physical movement for both body and spirit right now. I cannot tell you how many times something as mundane as a daily run — pace and distance completely irrelevant — has flipped my mental state over the past 31+ weeks. 

For this being a little ol’ running blog, it doesn’t particularly make for titillating blog entries when I don’t have much in the way to talk about racing and training for racing, which has been the case for the better part of the past year-plus. Running’s not cancelled though, of course. Far from it.

If nothing else, though, let me be the first (or the second, or the third, or whatever) to implore you that if and when you start feeling some feelings over the next twenty days, get up and get going. 

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2 weeks and 6 days.  

Stay healthy and safe, take care of yourself and others, and keep reading and listening. And vote! 

It’s pretty bizarre when you’re living in a world where each week, you wonder how things could get any stranger … and then they do, almost like clockwork. Since last week, in news that is unsurprising to anyone who understands the key concepts of cause and effect, DT contracted COVID-19, as did a bunch of his staff. 

I would never wish ill will on people, so I sincerely hope he and all his colleagues get well soon and that they begin to understand, on a personal, fundamental level, the magnitude of That With Which We Are Dealing Right Now. 

Nationwide, we’ve seen over 210,000 deaths from this pandemic, and of course DT (and his colleagues, I imagine) will have access to therapies and treatments that precious few normal people in this country get. It’s a travesty on so many levels. 

In more bad news, since that’s the 2020 specialty, late last week our air quality here tanked for a few days due to heartbreaking fires up in Napa and Sonoma. For us, it simply meant that the kids couldn’t spend much time outside for a few days, and that I had to cut my outdoor runs very short (or jump on an indoor treadmill), both of which are reminders to keep some perspective. Fortunately, by Sunday, our AQI scores were trending in a positive direction. 

As I try my damnedest to not have an existential crisis on a near daily basis (just me?), I keep reminding myself of the premise behind SIB’s GGE challenge (namely, to not let the innumerous horrors and atrocities and travesties that are seemingly consuming our world right now to drown out The Good). Last week, I wrote a bit more about SIB’s Generate Good Energy challenge, so here’s my brief attempt at recapping some of the positive happenings over the past week, trivial as they may sound in the grand scheme of things: 

A is going for a (virtual) tri. Of course, COVID put the kibosh on basically all in-person endurance events, including a kids’ tri that she had wanted to do. Within the past couple weeks, I saw that Mermaid Series was offering a virtual tri, so that’s the plan: a sprint tri, consisting of a 750 meter swim, 20K (12.4 mile) bike, and a 5K (3.1 Mile) run. It’s as serious as you want to make it, so we’ll break up the legs over the course of as many days as it takes. It’s something that she’s excited about, which makes her happy, which, in turn, makes me happy. 

Her troop started their fall product programming to help save sloths. This year’s Girl Scout Fall Take Action project is all about sloth conservation, and she’s really into it. I have read and learned more about sloths in the past few weeks than I ever have before, so it’s fun for me, too. (And if you want to buy any nuts, chocolates, or magazines to help support the endeavor, lmk). We had a guest speaker come on our call tonight from a sloth conservation foundation in Costa Rica, and it was so cool to hear and learn more. 

G has bike fever! G’s confidence in her bike riding and handling is growing by leaps and bounds each day, and like I mentioned last week, it’s just so fun to watch. We break up the distance learning day by going outside and biking (or sometimes scootering) around for a bit, and as a parent, it gives me such great joy to see her so happy to be outdoors and in motion. Like any other kid doing distance learning right now, my children are getting incredible amounts of screen time each day, which sorta makes me cringe a little, but I’m relieved to see them still content to go play outside for a while each day. 

I gave blood on Monday. Whenever I am eligible to give blood, I do because I think it’s just one of those things that’s good to do for society if you can, and of course, it helps that needles (even the huge ones they use during donation) don’t faze me. That said, for the past few years, I’ve been more ineligible than I’ve been eligible simply due to our international travels over new year’s. The FDA recently changed some of their restrictions, so I became eligible, hooray! And locally, there’s a dire need for O+/- blood (my type), so yay for contributing to society. During the earliest days of the pandemic, when the blood need was also very high, I felt awful because I felt like that was one of the few things that I could to “make a difference,” yet the travel rules precluded me, and I didn’t think lying about where I had been was prudent. Needless to say, I’m glad the FDA amended its rules in the interim. 

I recorded deer this morning. In one of the more random things I’ve done on a run recently, this morning, as I was exiting ARP, I noticed a buck and a doe out on PC Road (or very close to it), happily munching on some leaves or twigs (or whatever they eat). I see deer all the time in the park or near it, so it wasn’t an unusual sight. This time, however, the doe was remarkably close to me, so I stopped running and simply waited for her to bound into the trees. Instead, she and the buck began walking toward me, and I just stood there, looking like an idiot, completely transfixed by them. They were marvelous and just perfect. 

And finally, because it’s late and I’m tired and my creative juices ceased flowing hours ago, just one six-word poem from the past week: 

27 days left, people. LFG!

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3 weeks, 6 days.  

Stay healthy and safe, take care of yourself and others if you can, and keep reading and listening. We must and can do better. xo