Over the past 12 weeks now, I’ve been documenting in this teeny, tiny corner of the internet how COVID-everything has been turning life upside down and inside out, specifically here in SCC, in SJ, for my family and me.
SC library storytime, May 2020
And while COVID has most definitely dominated life as we know it for the better part of the past ~3 months, other stuff has been going on, too, of course, since life generally doesn’t wait for one catastrophe to clear before beginning another. Just a couple weeks back, I wrote about 25 year-old Ahmaud Arbery’s murder at the hands of white supremacists, a story that didn’t come to light until months after it happened. The gut-wrenching tragedy rocked the running community, myself included, and it has helped spawn subsequent conversations about race in the running world, a place wherein I spend a lot of my time in some capacity or another (be it actually doing the thing, reading or writing about it, or talking to people about it). Race is fresh on many people’s minds, some maybe for the first time.
And then, nearly three months to the day — February 23 to May 25, 2020 — yet another Black man, George Floyd, 46, was murdered at the hands of a white person, this time a police officer in Minneapolis, and like Mr. Arbery’s death, Mr. Floyd’s, too, was captured on video for all the world. In the subsequent days since Mr. Floyd’s murder, people have taken to the literal streets across the world, including here in SJ, to protest police brutality and this country’s long-standing, institutionalized racism towards BIPOC. Alongside the many peaceful protests have been unfortunate incidents of looting and vandalism, resulting in citywide curfews across the country (including here), and in some places, an activated military presence. Some people are focusing their disdain on the riots, looting, and vandalism. Others are on the aforementioned racism and invoking Dr. King’s prescient line that riots are “the language of the unheard.”
It is messy, it is complicated, there is literal loss and diminishment of human life, and this is all independent of COVID. COVID is only exacerbating the social stratification that’s a consequence of this country’s ingrained racism.
I’m not going to try to write anything eloquent here and say or reiterate things that have already been said, but from my point of view, it seems like a public reckoning on race is underfoot, which I’d argue is good. We can’t do anything to bring back Mr. Floyd or Mr. Arbery (or anyone else), but we can change the conversation — we can have conversations — about race in this country, and that’s a start. We owe it to ourselves. Dear god, we owe it to our kids.
Every human should be talking about this stuff right now, regardless of how uncomfortable it may make us feel (that’s ok; growth comes from discomfort) or whether we feel it’s applicable to us or not (it is; we’re human; even if we don’t identify as BIPOC, there is so much that we can learn from people’s personal stories [among others] that, in turn, we can use to make this world a better place for everyone). None of us has all of this figured out — none of us are perfect — and many of us, myself included, have come to the realization that even though we may abhor racism and consider ourselves allies, our passivity can make us complicit in this struggle.
In other words, none of us can afford to be anything but actively (vociferously) anti-racist.
On racing. Thanks for chiming in here and on fb, IG, and Strava last week about my musings related to fall races (particularly, BSIM) being cancelled or postponed. It seems like races being cancelled are just a hot a topic as GPS watches’ distance accuracy. 🙂
Meredith, Austin, and I chatted over the past week and ultimately decided to collectively defer to 2021 for BS. We were all going to be going down together (along with other people), sharing a room at the “romantic lodge,” and making a big ol’ event out of it, and none of us can foresee the event happening in November. Or, even if it does go on, none of us are especially comfortable with the idea of being around hundreds of thousands of people. Maybe we’ll be wrong — which would obviously be fantastic — but I guess time will tell.
2017 throwback when Austin ran BS
To everyone else who has races, tournaments, and other life events that are being thrown to the wind, I see you, I feel you, I get you, and I get the emotions. Ride ‘em out because — though we’d like to think otherwise sometimes — we’re not robots. We have feelings.
Pertaining to the rest of my race schedule for 2020, all that’s left is CIM in December, which I imagine will also cancel in due time. Earlier in the week (4/20), CIM announced “worry free” registration, saying that if the 2020 race is canceled due to COVID, “all 2020 CIM registrants will receive a one-time voucher that will allow them to register for free for any one future CIM through 2023,” which is pretty incredible. Yesterday (4/21), Berlin canceled, the first Major to do so, so I think it’s just a matter of time for the other World Marathon Majors to follow suit. And just now (4/22), Mountains to Beach emailed its 2020 runners and are giving us all the opportunity to donate our race registration fees to a local charity beneficiary of the MTB race, defer our 2020 race to 2021, or get a refund. Again: that’s incredible. All these RDs are making some enormous decisions with extremely limited information (and with no crystal ball, unfortunately), and I feel for all of them. I didn’t expect any of this, so I’m pretty blown away.
I think the 2020 competition year is a wash, and instead, we’ll all be presented with this magnificent opportunity to remind ourselves why we do this stuff in the first place. It’s always a good conversation worth having from time to time, but it’s also one that gets lost rather quickly when the tedium and uber-commitments of our daily lives overtakes us. I don’t know, I guess sometimes breaking from “the motions” can be a fantastic way of asking ourselves why we go through “the motions” in the first place.
Besides — being honest — even if races were to happen this year, I don’t think I’d feel comfortable participating or competing. (While we’re at it, I can’t foresee my family or me willingly participating in huge public gatherings anytime soon). I encourage you to take the RRCA’s survey about running, races, and the pandemic here, particularly if you had races on your calendar this year.
On feelings. With all of the death and despair and joblessness and Really Huge Problems going on right now throughout the world, I think it sometimes feels completely selfish or juvenile to think about all the things (the events, the milestones, even the totally vanilla stuff that we’d otherwise not particularly anticipate with any amount of enthusiasm) that we’re missing. I get it; it’s hard.
In a way, it makes me think of how oftentimes parents, when talking about their children who are driving them crazy, feel like we have to buffer our comments with “I love my child SO much, buuuuuuuuuut…” at the risk of otherwise sounding like our feelings toward our children are anything short of unconditional. The same goes for when partners are talking about each other, when they’re getting on each other’s nerves: “My husband is SUCH a good guy, buuuuuuuut…” In a life defined by COVID right now, I very much feel the same. Yes, absolutely, I feel god awful that thousands of people are dying each day, that literally every person on this planet is threatened and adversely impacted by this insidious disease about which we know very little, and so on … buuuuuuut I’m still allowed to be frustrated that I can’t buy mundane stuff like diced tomatoes or chickpeas or flour seemingly anywhere on god’s green earth right now, or that I am 100% responsible for my children’s education right now with very limited direction, or any number of other issues.
It’s not a competition; you’re allowed to feel unhappy or annoyed or whatever.
Don’t feel bad for your feelings.
On doing the best you can. The whole thing about living in a COVID-filled lifetime right now is that we’re all swimming in uncertainty. There are precious few things that we know about how to protect ourselves and our loved ones right now (prolific hand washing and physical distancing chief among them), but there is a whole bunch of speculation and, probably, wishful thinking about what we should or shouldn’t be doing at any given time. It can be overwhelming, to say the least. Plus, suddenly everyone is an expert and is clinging on to the latest “research” “study” they “read” about all of this. Again: it can be overwhelming (and probably a bit annoying, if I’m being completely honest).
I guess my only real, unsolicited recommendation here is that if you’re wondering if you should or shouldn’t be doing something — like Lysol wiping-down your groceries each week, or wearing a mask when you’re running outside, or whatever — consult a (real life, medical) expert. Just because you did something last week doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to do it again the same way this week because our knowledge is evolving quickly.
Unless you’re already a physician or an epidemiologist, our personal expertise on this stuff probably isn’t as top-notch as we think it is. I’d like to think that we’re all doing the best we can, unless you’re purposely flouting the rules right now, in which case, I’ll refrain from my color commentary about your selfishness.
On occupying time and settling mental unrest:
Cooking: the quarantine taco game is still going strong, this week combining a couple black bean/sweet potato recipes that I had read from the NYT cooking app and Budget Bytes. Also, for whatever reason I felt compelled to make vegetarian sloppy joes, so that was also in the rotation this week.
springing for HL from time to time, too
Reading: I finished Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and began The Restaurant at the End of the Universe shortly thereafter. I hadn’t yet finished that book about Mr. Rogers (Kindness and Wonder) before I had to return my e-copy to the library. And for whatever reason, I also began reading Chasing My Cure, a book about a young doctor who was diagnosed with an exceedingly rare condition that took him to the brink of death. Otherwise, the girls and I are on a Beverly Cleary kick, having finished The Mouse and the Motorcycle and Runaway Mouse recently and will soon be starting the Ramona books. I loved these when I was younger. Also, this post is not to be missed. Holy shit.
Listening: Bille Joe’s version of “That Thing You Do!” is delightful. There have been some great new podcasts that came up in the past couple weeks, too, including Lauren Fleshman and Jesse Thomas’ “Work Play Love” (I about died when LF described removing a tampon mid-race), as well as the “I’ll Have Another” episodes with Molly Seidel and her coach Jon Green, and the one with Courtney Dauwalter, Maggie Guteri, and Sally McRae. I’m trying to think of the worst/funniest thing that has happened to me on a run, and aside from many episodes involving mid-run emergency bowel movements, I got nothing. You?
Enjoying: A week or so ago, the kids and I made a ton of homemade bath bombs. I was a little nervous that it’d be a disaster since you never can really tell from the internet what you’re getting yourself into, but it was actually really easy. Plus, they work!!
Running: Still going strong on the streak and really just enjoying the mileage, usually somewhere in the mid-50s each week right now. I finally got a modicum of desire for some fast running last week, so I threw 5 miles of MP effort into the middle of a 12 mile long run. Another day, I had an unintentional progression from 8:4x down to 6:16, and it was a pleasant burn. More than anything, I’m just grateful for the release and the sense of normalcy that mileage and volume brings. The intensity will come when it comes.
