I was supposed to be running in Louisiana this weekend. I had registered long ago in the belief the pandemic would be over. Texas and various Republican “leaders” would have you believe either there never was a pandemic or that the contagious deadly virus was overblown and any danger has long since passed, I’m not so sure. To me, it still feels too soon to be rushing about to new locations, even if I had intended on driving and avoiding rest stops as much as possible.
The truth is, now is not the time to get complacent or nonchalant about Covid-19. There is a lot of good news and hope on the horizon… but the horizon is still a good ways off. To throw caution to the wind now is to invite a surge in cases and in problems. If wearing a mask, maintaining social distance, and washing my hands makes even ONE front line worker’s life a little bit easier, than that’s absolutely worth the inconvenience. If doing that saves somebody’s life, it is even more worth doing. To say otherwise, to say that wearing a mask is somehow unpatriotic or Un-American is baffling to me. what could be MORE American than trying to help other people… whilst also selfishly helping oneself by protecting against the spread of this thing?
I actually was expecting Louisiana to cancel their marathon, as so many others have done over the last year. But much like some events here in Florida, Louisiana has sought to apply their own method to the science and feel it is safe enough for the event to go forward. I sincerely hope everyone has a great, healthy, non-super spreader race. I hope I’m just being overly cautious. And I am fine with taking my ounce of prevention to avoid a pound of pain. I will be running the Louisiana Marathon this weekend as a virtual event (for an “upgrade” fee of $11 and change because I waited too long to avail myself of the free option).
I have grown to hate the virtual events, the same-same-ness of my routes, the solo supporting aid-station efforts of looped stashes of water bottles. But it is what I think I need to do. We can’t always get what we want. But if we try sometimes, we just might find, we get what we need.
A rolling stone said that once. He also sang wild horses couldn’t keep me away… the Coronavirus however is no wild horse.
