Trying to be normal
2 weeks before the Tokyo Marathon was to happen, the race was cancelled out of concerns for the COVID-19 aka CoronaVirus. There was outrage and frustration from a lot of runners. Japan was miles away and the virus was something that was happening in China. In time the focus shifted to Boston and London Marathons. And before I could realize, race cancellations/postponements started rolling in. Rome, Paris, Barcelona, … and then Boston and London.
BOSTON. Boston was postponed. Boston which was to be my 6th and final World Marathon Majors was pushed back. Boston for which I was proud to be part of the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge was now to be in September. I don’t quite know what my reactions were on hearing the news. All I could feel was that I was feeling empty. The postponement wasn’t entirely unexpected, but the new date was (to me at least), with the prospect of having to train through summer in Atlanta. It wasn’t like I was super awesomely trained and crushed not to race, but it was still a weird feeling.
Within a week of race cancellations came schools shutdown to online schooling, offices asked to work from home, social distancing of atleast 6ft from each other to mandatory ‘shelter in place’ in Bay Area.
After a weekend of feeling empty, I gave myself permission to NOT feel anything. I would deal with things as they come day by day. Instead, I will count my blessings.
I will run outside alone for as long as I can. Even if I my legs somehow know of the cancellation and protest having to run anything longer than 2hours.
I am trying to medidate and add yoga/stretching to my everyday life for atleast 15minutes a day. Even if my kids make fun of me and take weird photos of my poses.
I am chilling with my kids when I can. The teen is stressed out too, although she might not admit it and a late night face mask session might just help us both.
I try to have a normal work from home day. Even though I work from home plenty, I am still learning setting boundaries and expectations when EVERYONE else is also working from home.
I don’t have any questions to ask of you, but will send ‘stay safe’ vibes to everyone and hope that the situation is soon under control.
