Running Ruminations

Life sure has been weird since the initial announcements on Friday, March 13, and even though in the grand scheme of things, today is not that much later — it’s April 15 — all I can think is that time is going both really fast and really slowly simultaneously. It makes me think of having a newborn, except it’s like we’re all newborns, and we’re all caring for newborns. It’s disorienting. 

Two recent developments, closely related, worth discussing come to mind right now: Governor Newsom’s conference yesterday and the recent announcement of a rescheduled race date for Big Sur. The tl;dr version of Newsom’s address is that everyone wants to have a date on the calendar when life will go back to normal (or normal-ish), but alas, this virus doesn’t play nicely like that. No one knows because none of us can foretell the future, much to our chagrin. 

At the conclusion of his address, a reporter asked about big public gatherings– 49ers games, parades, whatever– and Newsom remarked that having anything like that is basically inconceivable until there’s a vaccine and herd immunity. I think it’s the answer that everyone rationally knows but no one wants to hear because we know that that stuff takes time, a lot of time, and no one wants to give any more of their lives, livelihood, the whole gamut to this pandemic than they already have. Let’s use a running metaphor here and say that the road ahead of us is long, quite long indeed. 

Just a day before Gov. Newsom’s address came Big Sur’s announcement of a rescheduled BSIM date, November 15, 2020, over the same weekend as the regularly-scheduled Monterey Bay Half Marathon, with the half occurring on Saturday and the marathon (and several other distances that are usually part of marathon weekend) happening on Sunday. Runners’ registrations will default to the November 2020 race date, but we can instead elect to register for the 2021 edition (in April) or the 2022 edition (also in April) at 60% of race cost. Alternately, we can decide not to run it at all, anytime, and use the registration as a charitable donation to the BS foundation that runs the race. In a moment in time where so few of us have options, the BS race team is giving runners many options, and that is impressive and commendable. 

Here’s the thing. As much as I’d love to run this race — and I’ve tried for many years, unsuccessfully, to enter it via the lottery and finally got in this year — right now it is unfathomable to me that it’ll go on in November. 

BSIM is a huge event, in terms of participant numbers, in a relatively small location, and thinking about those realities against the current reality where we find ourselves — where we’re being instructed to maintain a six-foot physical distance between ourselves and strangers at all times, where we’re really not supposed to be galavanting around in public or hell, where we’re not even supposed to be spending time with people with whom we don’t reside — having a large-scale race (or rather, several large-scale races) over a single weekend in seven months is inconceivable to me right now. 

I would love to be wrong about this, and I remain optimistic that the best in the world will create something that will protect all of humanity against this nefarious enemy that has upended everyone’s lives, but we can’t be naiive. This stuff takes time. In the grand scheme of thing, seven months is nothing. 

Let’s also talk about the (financial and otherwise) risk that the BS organizers are taking with moving the marathon (and marathon weekend races) to November. In one of the posts I linked to a few weeks ago, from a RD about cancelling races, they talked about the huge financial risks that the BS board (who also run the Monterey Bay Half Marathon) took by allowing the 2018 MBHM entrants to register for the 2019, 2020, or 2021 race since the ‘18 iteration was cancelled, literally the day before race day, due to the poor air quality from the horrific Camp Fire ~100 miles north of Monterey. It was a terrible fire, among the worst in California history, responsible for tons of deaths and destruction and event cancellations up and down California. 

With BSIM now slated for November, the same organizers may find themselves in the same dilemma in November — in the midst of a pandemic AND in fire season — and with several events that routinely draw in thousands of runners from all over the world and country. I cannot imagine the decision-making processes, logistics, and the enormous financial ramifications involved in possibly moving thousands of runners, over several different races, again this year to a future year (or years, plural). 

Again: that the board is even trying is laudable in my book. We’ll see what happens. Your thoughts? 

On occupying time and settling mental unrest:     

• Watching: Trolls World Tour three times this past weekend, since we rented it on Friday night for 48 hours. Let me know what you think (and tell me what you make of the plot compared to Frozen 2)! 

• Celebrating: Easter over the weekend with the family, though not in any religious sense. The kids were completely amped about it, which was sweet to see.  

• Running: Daily, #lonewolf (or sometimes with the girls), however I want and typically not more than 8-10 miles, usually on fairly hilly or rolling routes that I can easily create out my door. I developed an unintentional run streak since 3/9, so I imagine that I’ll keep it up because … why not? 

• Cooking: I had a lot of leftovers in the past week but also created some vegetarian marathon bolognese (excellent taco fillings!) and the superfoods soup from the Run Fast Cook Fast Eat Slow cookbooks. I’ve made the soup twice now and haven’t been impressed with it, which is odd because it’s fairly idiot-proof. 

• Reading: Still going strong on Hitchhiker’s Guide (albeit slowly) and in the last week I finished Mitch Albom’s Finding Chika and started Gavin Edwards’ Kindness and Wonder about Mr. Rogers. Chika was predictably depressing– I’m not sure why I decided to read this now– and so far, learning about Mr. Rogers has been a bit of a palate-cleanser to life. 

• Listening: the second episode of the Growth Equation podcast was pretty interesting, especially since I knew nothing about Sabrina Ionescu. Highly recommended.  

Stay safe, and be well.  xo