Running Through the Coronavirus Pandemic

Practicing social distancing on my run

Life has changed a lot in the last week.  I went from having way too many activities and things to do that I was worried about fitting in my long runs to now I literally have nothing to do but go for runs.  All of our kids activities have been canceled indefinitely and actually we extended their visit with my mom while school is canceled.  So I don’t even have to take care of my kids right now.  Things are changing rapidly at work as well.  Even though I work in a hospital, they are closing rehab floors and changing them to medical floors which leaves us with a surplus of physical therapists and lots of uncertainty about getting all our hours etc.  For now, I am able to keep working which I am grateful for many reasons including just being able to get out of the house and interact with people.  

And then there is all the changes to running life.  So many race cancellations including my 24 hour race at the end of April.  It was really just going to be a training run since my main focus of the year is Leadville in August but I was very much looking forward to it.  A lot of my running friends were going to be there and if you have never been to a 24 hour race they are giant parties, so much fun.  The race director has been awesome and given us so many options which honestly the entry fee was so minimal I wouldn’t have minded if he just said it was canceled and that’s that.  My problem is I don’t know what to do.  I can sign up for this other race in June however will we even be allowed to have that one?  Also I was scheduled to work that weekend however now that rehab is closed, my weekend days have been canceled for march and April with no idea how long this will be for.  And then there’s my even bigger fear that Leadville will get canceled. I’ve been trying to get in for more than 2 years so to say I’ve been looking forward to it is an understatement. If it does get canceled, then what? Do I keep training? How do I train?

Luckily I have coach Caleb to give me some guidance but it’s hard having it all be so uncertain right now. And that anxiety can make it harder to even get out the door to run even though running is the one thing I can do right now to make myself feel better.Many times when I’m finding it hard to motivate myself or my anxiety is holding me back, I turn to my running groups and friends to help push me through the tough times of my training cycles. But now even that’s not an option. We can virtually give each other encouragements and high fives but all group runs and special running events I had on the schedule are a no go right now.  So where does that leave me?

Well instead of letting all this get me down, I’m going to use this time as an opportunity. Regardless of whether I end up running Leadville this year, I love to run and I love pushing myself especially up all these beautiful Colorado mountains. So I’m going to spend my extra time enjoying just that without having to carefully carve out time between the zillion activities we usually have which truthfully can be super stressful so it is nice to not have that pressure. I’m going to get my husband to do some runs with me which is something we haven’t done in well over a year. Im going to get extra rest and relaxation now that there’s not the crazy hustle and bustle of normal life. I’m going to be grateful that I can still go out and run. I’m going to try to come out of this weird time as fit as possible, ready for whatever ends up happening to my race season because eventually races will be allowed to happen again and I want to be ready!