The coronavirus, aka Covid-19, has wreaked havoc on the globe. It’s a pandemic and it’s a major stress on people, places, markets, institutions, and just about every facet of life as we know it. It is not a hoax. It is not going away anytime soon. But we do our best, united, standing together… albeit 6 feet apart from one another.
On a selfishly personal note, separate from the financial and emotional toll, the covid quarantine has disrupted a number of my marathons I had planned this Spring (and may impact Summer, Fall, and Winter but let’s keep our fingers crossed and our hopes alive… with a dose of reality and acknowledgment that wishing doesn’t make it so… so let’s put our faith in science, my preferred solution anyway).
Today is the first race on my calendar that has been cancelled outright. I feel for the race organizers as they’re being hit from all sides — from local governments, from vendors looking for payments on services that had been prebooked (shirts, medals, supplies, venue permits), to finally runners who paid to register.
In the immortal words of Forrest Gump — it happens.
So this morning instead of running in Huntington Beach, CA, I did a virtual marathon, a term I’ve always hated. Because there’s nothing virtual about running 26.2 miles….
Got out the door here in Central Florida at 6:30 AM. It was dark. And I was wearing sunglasses, anticipating the sunrise… forgetting it does not come until much later thanks to stupid Daylight Savings.
Eyes on the prize though, yeah?
I looped 10 miles and my Mom was good enough to setup a water aid station for me outside the house. I knew it was for me thanks to the big giant head!
I was feeling pretty good, the sun was up, it wasn’t too hot — things looked promising.
From there, it was another 10 mile loop — and, well, it got hot. I was doing pretty well through 15 and then miles 15-20 turned into something of a slog. Fortunately, my Mom was manning the Aid Station to help me at Mile 20. She was a much needed boost to power through the remaining 6.2 miles.
Unfortunately, I powered through my third water bottle about a mile into this final segment. And my Little Engine That Could mentality wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders. It became a real grind, a minute or two of running and then a longer stretch of walking. I don’t think this QUITE counts as the Jeff Galloway run/walk method since the breaks became super arbitrary and the cadence was more, um, arhythmic, like a metronome corkscrewing through a space-time wormhole.
Like I said… SCIENCE!
Anyway, Mom cheered me into the finish and had a giant PowerAde waiting for me.
As the day wore on, there were more and more folks out running, walking their dogs, riding their bikes… and we all kept avoiding each other on the sidewalks or streets, always trying to keep a 6 foot buffer between us. Still, I think there’s some stir crazy cabin fever happening already… and we’re not even a week into self-isolation. It’s going to be tough… on family, friends, strangers. But, citing the oft-used phrase from this week, we’re all in this together.
It’s just that sometimes you run solo… even if no one ever really runs alone.
And so this one’s for you OnHill Events. The SoCal Marathon, remote edition. Because I actually ran 26.2 miles… or at least, ran/walked it.
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Note: This weekend was going to be a double weekend for me, with Socal today and the Oakland Marathon tomorrow. Oakland has postponed until August 30th and I’m hoping to run it then… so no 2nd “virtual” marathon this weekend. One race at a time; one day at a time.
Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay sane, everybody. We truly are all in this together.