COVID, week 27 + the pale blue dot

COVID, week 27 + the pale blue dot

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. 

crazy that this was a week ago

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.  

good ol’ Smokey in ARP (which was also closed for days due to the poor AQ)

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. 

behind a paywall, boo, but still

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. 

post-lap swim the other night — their first time in a pool since March! — before the AQ really tanked last week

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 

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