Running Ruminations

Last week feels like it was at least a year ago at this point.

It has been a sobering year-of-a-week since I wrote last, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death at 87 on Friday (and the resulting circus of the GOP, led by Mitch McConnell, trying to move fast to nominate her replacement, despite everything that he said in 2016 when he stole Merrick Garland’s seat). 

That tragedy isn’t enough, so let’s also remember that yesterday, the US surpassed 200,000 deaths from COVID-19, all the while DT claiming that the virus “affects virtually nobody” (while at a rally in Ohio, no less). 

Oh, and just this afternoon, the city of Louisville failed to charge the cops who shot and killed Breonna Taylor, who was asleep, in her bed, in her home, with murder. 

If we thought that the final 5 weeks leading into this year’s presidential election were going to be tumultuous, no doubt the events of the past week (and their sequelae) promise that the next month-and-a-half will be nothing short of catastrophic. 

And remember: our children are watching our every move. The next generation is looking to us right now, and depending on their age, they may remember how we reacted in response to the never-ending turbulence of 2020 when they re-learn history as young adults. Complacency is the easy, lazy way out, of course, but growth comes from the work, however untidy and uncomfortable it may be, and it all starts at home. 

To say that the pressure is on is to make what feels like the biggest understatement of the year. 

I sincerely hope that everyone in this country has some type of (healthy) coping mechanism because damn, this year is hard and is just getting harder. 

Terrible and sobering events aside from the past seven days, hope is slowly showing up in these parts. Our air quality improved significantly in the past few days, and this morning, I ran under lovely blue skies, with AQ-in-the-20s this morning, and it seemed like just overnight, the morning air transitioned into the “California crisp” mode that comes with the onset of autumn. All of it was delicious. 

This week also kicked-off the Womxn Run the Vote online relay event. When I first heard about it, I registered right away and encouraged a handful of friends to do the same, and now our team of 10 is among a sea of 10,000 runners from all over the world who are virtually making our way from Atlanta to Washington, DC. Along the way, as we post our “mileage,” my teammates and I get to learn about historic Civil Rights sites and people. 

The WRTV online relay is a meaningful fundraiser for Black Voters Matter, an organization that exists to increase power in traditionally marginalized, predominantly Black communities. Their rationale is that “effective voting allows a community to determine its own destiny,” and their mission agrees with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s sentiment that “Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” So far, the event has raised over $260,000 for BVM. 

As of Wednesday afternoon, Team ResistNPersist is over 130 miles in (as we log everything from our runs and rides to our swims, weightlifting, barre ballet, yoga, and everything else that the algorithm can convert to “mileage.” Cool, right? I’m all for the accessibility and encouraging all types of physical activity). I’ve enjoyed learning about all the historical sites and people we’ve encountered on our journey so far. Last night, A and I spent some time reading the map and postcards online — each significant historical post looks like a red pushpin that yields a postcard of chock full of information — and everything about this is really well-done.

For as absolutely terrible as COVID has been, one silver lining has been seeing how races and race organizations have pivoted (in the absence of holding in-person races) and are still engaging their runner audiences. Part of this is necessity, of course — because in the absence of real-life racing, how are these small businesses going to make money and pay their bills? — but like anything else, a lot of it boils down to choice. Evolve or die, right?

Like many other runners, I miss racing and competing, and like many other runners, pre-COVID, I always turned up my nose at virtual races because… why. At this point, 28 weeks into this weirdass time, I can say that I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how so many races have made the best of a shitty situation and have continually and meaningfully engaged their running community. Whether it was runlocal’s California 500 Run the 1 event in the summer, or this Womxn Run the Vote relay, or any of the other online events my kids and/or I have participated in, we’ve all had great experiences and would likely do them again, if for no other reason than to continue to show my support for the people and orgs who are making all of it happen. 

I don’t know when I’ll stop prefixing all my weekly entries with COVID and the week number that we’re in, but part of me thinks that I should keep doing it for as long as it takes. To that end, the NYT recently began a series where readers can submit their birds’-eye reflections on life during the pandemic, from the profound to the silly. They call it six-word memoirs, and I encourage you to write some. Maybe I’ll begin incorporating them into these weird weekly summaries of how bizarre life is right now. 

DL kindergarten works. Still ate glue.

Zoomed out. Went outside. All better. 

I never missed people so much. 

Ineptitude kills. Believe science. Act. Vote.   

—-

On occupying time and settling mental unrest

Reading. I looked forward to finishing Eloquent Rage last week and then had to return it before I finished. Fortunately, I just got it back and should be finishing it soon, in the next couple days. Also queued up is How to be an Antiracist. Reading PS Be Eleven with the girls each night remains one of my favorite parts of the day.   

Listening. Got in just a couple in the past few days, one of the newer SWAP episodes from the Roches and the newest Work Play Love. That was it though. Unless I’m running with Janet or with my kids, the best sound I can hear on the run is silence. 

Running. Having blue, healthy skies for most of last week meant some good running (finally) and getting in the pool three times with the girls both last week and this week. The relay event has been a real highlight to my running in the past few days, too. In real-life racing news, CIM was supposed to make their announcement regarding the 2020 iteration last week Friday (the 18th) but apparently had to postpone their announcement due to a delayed meeting with the state officials (who couldn’t meet earlier because of the fires)… or something. I guess we’ll hear the announcement this week Friday (the 25th). Honestly, it all seems so irresponsible to even be thinking about having a large-scale event in a couple months’ time, so I’m really perplexed why they hadn’t made the call to cancel (or go virtual) months ago. I don’t know a single person who has signed up for CIM this year who realistically plans to run it. I mean, c’mon.    

Watching. We are making our way through musicals (I LOVE this), and last weekend we watched Brigadoon. If you haven’t seen it, oh man. It’s memorable. 

40 days until Election Day (5 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 

The west coast has been on fire for over a week. 

Last week’s weird-as-hell yellow skies gave way to terrible, unhealthy, and perilous air quality for basically all of the west coast, from Washington/the Canada border all the way south to the California/Mexico border. Here in SJ, our AQ got as high as 200 (that I observed), replete with visible ash falling from the sky, though my friends in Portland have been experiencing 400+ level AQ for days at this point. 

By yesterday afternoon, our AQI score finally began dipping from the 170s into the 100s — finally making me comfortable with the kids playing outside for more than a few minutes. After dinner last night, the AQI score went sub-100, which at long last, it seemed, finally made me feel safe enough for A and me to go out for a run together for the first time in a week. This morning was our first green AQ morning in I don’t know how long. We’ve had nearly a month straight of Spare the Air days, a new record.  

It’s all super heartbreaking — being more or less trapped indoors for nearly week is rough, no matter how much you love your home and the people who reside in it — but it’s all quite enraging as well. I mean, DT came to California the other day and told Gov. Newsom that scientists aren’t quite sure what to think of all of this, and he assured him that it’ll cool off soon (and also told him that exploding trees were to blame for our current catastrophe. I wish I could say that I were making this stuff up. 

In not surprising news to any sentient being, scientists agree that climate change is aggravating the frequency and intensity of fires out here, and yet  … and yet, DT continues to flat-out deny that human actions and policies are at least partially significantly to blame. You can’t comb over climate change, DT-slash-Republicans.

Given the state of our environment for the better part of the last week, it follows that my running tanked a bit over the last week. It’s obviously of little importance to anyone but me, yet I think it’s a good reminder for all of us that we are all living in a world where our normal, everyday lives — like whether we can safely run outdoors without damaging our lungs or whether our children can spend any amount of time outdoors — can and will continue to be affected by all the other myriad choices we make in our lives. 

All our itty-bitty microdecisions we make each day — whether to drive to run an errand versus walking there, whether to drive at all versus taking public transit, supporting businesses whose environmental practices are for shit versus those that are more positively impacting — can accumulate and affect our lives in ways that we may not see right away yet still be quite profound. 

Of course, I’m not saying that someone’s gas-guzzling, environmentally-treacherous SUV caused the west coast to light up in flames over the past week. However, it all goes back to knowing better and doing better. When there’s an environmentally friendly option, it behooves us to go for it as often as we can. 

Many of us often fall into the all-or-nothing mentality, thinking that unless we all become present-day Rachel Carsons, our choices are ultimately for naught — but that’s obviously not the case. We must do that which we can, often, and strive for more. It’s the same type of skewed thinking so many of us have regarding to COVID and risk-taking; it’s not an all-or-nothing situation. Cumulative effects matter.      

The current political climate encapsulates a once-in-a-generation firestorm of the COVID-19 pandemic, racial unrest, economic malaise, joblessness, voter suppression, and raging climate change — among so much else — and I hope each of us can commit ourselves and our families to doing the good work (or getting in John Lewis’ so-called  “good trouble”) as often as we can so that our future tomorrow is better than that which we’re presented with today. 

To know otherwise, and to choose inaction, is pretty unconscionable, IMHO. That’s the president’s brand, not ours (mine).

I know this is a running blog, and I highly doubt that you come here each week for me to apprise you of my most recent political hot takes. That said, I think most runners would understand that politics permeate our world, in every single thing that we do, and more specifically, this very activity that we love so much. 

By our nature, runners spend a lot of time, well, in nature, so when we can’t — due to hazards like fires, terrifyingly high AQI scores, or Hades-hot heat or the opposite — it matters to us, and we respond. (Naturally, though, of course runners can care about the environment for reasons that don’t include our hobby of choice).      

In that same vein, much can be said about how impossible it is to divorce other areas of politics, like racial unrest, to this activity that we like so much when the former (profoundly) affects the latter. The recent turmoil between Ben Chan and the notorious RD “Lazarus Lake” illustrate this point beautifully. When we all go out for our daily run, we don’t simultaneously cast aside other areas of our identity: or rather, the most disenfranchised don’t. Those of us who can, who choose to, are among the privileged few.    

At the end of the day, I suppose it’s safe to say that the events of the past week here on the west coast are a solemn reminder of what’s to come if we continue to do more of the same. It’s not so much about being someone who likes politics or who cares for the environment as it is about being a runner, a human being, who moves his or her body through space on this planet that we’re all currently inhabiting and by virtue of our mere existence, being affected by everything. 

It’s on us “to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” 

After all, we are all we’ve got.

—-

On occupying time and settling mental unrest

Reading. Due to the aforementioned poor AQ all weekend long, I progressed through Eloquent Rage and am just about finished, so I’ll save my commentary for it until next week. The kids and I are loving PS Be Eleven, much as we enjoyed One Crazy Summer, and TBH I look forward to reading it with the girls each night during bedtime.   

Listening. Still nothing. I’m at the point now where I’m even behind on downloading stuff. 

Running. Aside from all the aforementioned commentary about what running looked like in the past week, I hit 2k for the year, which was a testament to how much I’ve turned to this activity this year for stress relief, mental clarity, and anything (and everything else) simply because I’ve never hit that mark at this point in the year. I’ve kept my run streak that I began at the onset of the shelter-in-place order by either running a single, super easy mile outside (after checking and refreshing the website all day long) or by getting on a treadmill. I hadn’t done the latter since 2018, when the Camp Fire was raging up north during the final throes of CIM training. (Thank you, 3drunner Performance and Therapy for the TM access!).

Props to folks who regularly train on treadmills. When I first began marathon training waaaaay back in 2007, I routinely ran (or ran-walked) during the work week on treadmills and only ran my long runs outside on the weekend. It is mind-boggling to me now that I did that for as long, and as often, as I did, because I’m dubious that I would do it now. 

Watching. I haven’t finished watching it yet, and I have no idea how I found it, but if you haven’t checked out My Octopus Teacher on Netflix, it’s worth a watch. It’s a lovely palate cleanser to everything that is 2020.  

48 days until Election Day (6 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