The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the entire world in a dramatic way, in a very short amount of time. In the past two weeks, Emory University has gone from normal operations to a shutdown of virtually all campus activities, excepting the hospital and associated health care facilities. I'm getting a crash course in teaching on-line, working hard to prepare and practice in advance of my first synchronous on-line class meeting next Tuesday, March 24.
My employment is secure, for which I'm extraordinarily grateful. I have a room at home where I can work without much distraction when I'm teaching a class or participating in an interactive meeting on-line. In contrast, many friends and some of my younger colleagues are trying to do the same, while simultaneously overseeing their children's homeschooling.
For many other people, there is no safe option but to completely shut down and lose the income on which they rely. And then there are the healthcare workers who are working overtime, putting their own lives at risk to provide care to the people who have contracted this new and very serious illness.
As the crisis has unfolded within the United States, every race has been cancelled. From what I see on FaceBook, and sharing my own thoughts with absorbing this news, runners have quickly progressed through the five stages: denial - anger - bargaining - depression - and many, including me, are reaching the stage of acceptance. On March 11, I received an e-mail from DDD Foundation (Dentistry for the Developmentally Disabled), announcing that they decided to cancel their annual Dental Dash at Dawn 5K event, scheduled for today, March 21. Their letter was very nice, even offering a refund upon request, or alternatively converting the registration fee into a fully tax-deductible donation.
Remarkably, walking and running outdoors are among some of the safer activities available to people that are healthy and asymptomatic. Viruses do not survive as long on surfaces that are bombarded with sunlight. Moreover, viruses require an animal host to survive and to replicate. It is safer to exercise outdoors if we're not touching common pieces of equipment, unlike what we encounter in an indoor gym. It's primarily a matter of finding a location where it's not too crowded, where we can maintain the recommended minimum 6-foot distance from others. But it's also really important not to take any chances with falls or over-exertion or collisions with automobiles (not that there is much traffic), or heatstroke as it gets warmer. No one wants to add to the current stresses on the health care system.
With those thoughts in mind, I decided yesterday that I would run the 5K as a virtual race, at Lucky Shoals Park, a Gwinnett County park within a few blocks of my home. Lucky Shoals Park has a 1.1 mile asphalt loop, on a very hilly route. When I first met Bonnie, we walked a lap of the trail together back in 2009, and I remember how difficult it was. After we joined Weight Watchers in 2013, I completed my first Couch-to-5K workout with a lap on this trail. After 20+ years of sedentary lifestyle, it was really difficult to run those first 60 second intervals seven years ago. But it didn't take too long before I was able to run a continuous lap. And then two consecutive laps, and then three laps, and ... today I'm a proud finisher of six marathons.
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Our precinct voting center, at the Lucky Shoals gym.
I voted early in the presidential primary on March 9.
The election has since been suspended from March 24 to May 19,
when it will be combined with the general primary elections. |
I've undoubtably run more than a thousand laps at Lucky Shoals Park over the past 7 years. One day when I don't have anything better to do, I might try to add them up. But I knew exactly what route I would create. There is one road that crosses the trail, at the north entrance to the park, so a 5K (3.11 mile) route on a 1.1 mile trail needs to cross the road only twice. I also decided to run in the clockwise direction, because the uphill section is longer but not quite as steep as in the counter-clockwise direction.
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The only road crossing the race route.
See all the people that aren't gathering at the start line, in the distance? |
When I awoke on race day, it was drizzling. Not ideal, but if there had been a race, we would have run under those conditions. Fortunately the drizzle stopped by the time I had finished my usual pre-race breakfast of oatmeal, blueberries, and a cup of cappucino. I set my watch to metric units, so that I would get an alert every 1 kilometer, and most importantly at the 5 kilometer point marking my race finish. Thoroughly washing my hands before I left the house, I warmed up with an easy jog to the "somewhat secret south entrance" into the park, and through the park to the road at the north entrance. Arriving about 5 minutes before the 8:00 am start time, I loosened up with some butt kicks, and a few strides. I'm glad that I did those strides: the damp asphalt felt a little slippery when running fast. I immediately decided that I wasn't going for a speed workout. I couldn't afford to fall, but would simply enjoy the experience.
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Above: Standing near the start line
Below: My competitors lining up behind me |
7:59 am: I toed the starting line, took one last photo, and put the phone away. Activated the watch, acquired signal, and quietly said out loud, "Go!"
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| Ready, set, go! |
And just like in too many other races, I started out a little too fast. Fortunately I quickly reined in my pace, aiming to run between 5 and 6 minutes per kilometer. The first lap was gently rolling hills at first, not too difficult to run. I had the first part of the path to myself at the beginning, although I had seen a couple walking elsewhere on the path during my warmup. About 2-1/2 minutes in, I approached the start of the big hill dominating the south half of the park. Careful, I told myself, I have to do this three times today. But because I was familiar with the hill, I ran it pretty well. The hill overlooks a couple of soccer fields. This morning no one was playing, although that might have been the case at 8 am on any given Saturday. This is a hill that progresses for 20 feet, then seems to level off ever so briefly, then gradually continues to rise all the way to the extreme south end of the park, with about 60 feet net elevation. Near the top, I passed the couple on a walk that I had seen earlier. I tried to stay as far to the other side of the path from them. I also turned my head away from them as I passed, to avoid exhaling on them (especially if I was infected and did not yet know it) as well as avoiding breathing in their vapor. I was already winded by the time that I had reached the top, about 5 minutes elapsed.
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| Race route, in kilometers |
Now for a gentle downhill. Before I had gone too far, the 1 kilometer alert sounded, at 5:34 elapsed. Whew, that first kilometer was all uphill, I thought. I was able to relax a little for about 90 seconds, before getting into a winding part of the trail. According to Garmin, this switchback drops only about 20 feet in elevation (it seems like a lot more), and I slowed down to be safe. After the switchback, I came upon another couple running in the opposite direction, the woman wearing an Atlanta Track Club cap. I gave a small wave and a smile as I kept going, winding around the empty basketball court, then back into the forest. Crossing the road (no traffic), I soon reached the line marking the first lap, finished in about 9:30 elapsed. The remainder of kilometer 2 was the gently rolling hills. In this section, I passed a walker, a younger man, who asked me "How many laps are you running?" I replied, "Three." "Nice!" he said. I thought to myself, three laps is a pretty short workout for me these days. How far I've come! The alert sounded for kilometer 2, 5:22. That was mostly downhill! 10:56 elapsed.
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The basketball court is painted in Atlanta Hawks colors.
Hopefully the courts will remain empty until this crisis is over.
Passing a ball from hand to hand sounds like a very bad idea right now. |
Now it was time to climb the hill for a second time. I tried to maintain a fast pace at first. Then I thought of the words and heard in my mind the tune to the Billy Joel song, "Movin' Out" (1977):
"But working too hard can give you a heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack
You ought to know by now."
I backed off with my effort. Just get in a good run, that was the goal for today. Continuing up the hill to the south end of the park, then going back down, and kilometer 3 alert sounded in the midst of the switchback. 5:56, 16:52 elapsed, although I didn't notice at the time, I was just focused on running.
In the fourth kilometer, I crossed the entrance road again, and passed the line marking the second lap, although I didn't think to check my watch at that moment. Garmin indicated it was around 19:35 elapsed, so unfortunately my second lap was about 35 minutes slower than the first. It wasn't gonna be a negative split day .... Just then a new pedestrian walking a couple of dogs was about to join the path. He let me pass before I got onto the path. I'm glad that I started at 8 am and not any later.
Somewhere in the early part of the uphill section, the kilometer 4 alert sounded: 5:47, 22:39 elapsed. I was heartened to think, only 5 or maybe 6 minutes more to the finish line. Get up this hill one last time, and then it's net downhill to the end. At the same time, I let my pace drop off going uphill, more than I had in the first or second laps. When I started going downhill again, and saw on my watch that I had poked along in the first part of the fifth kilometer at a 6:35 min / km pace, I regained some focus, and picked up the pace again, trying to make up some time on the gently downhill section, until I had driven down the pace number below 6 min / km. Carefully making the turns on the downhill switchback, I saw that about 27 minutes had elapsed. Not much further! I picked up a little speed, imagining some other competitors hot on my tail, you're not gonna pass me if I can help it! Run, run, run, and then the kilometer 5 alert sounded, 5:54 for the last klick, and 28:33 total elapsed. I threw my arms up in the air in a small celebration!
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| The finish line was close to the crack in the asphalt in this photo. |
I kept running for a few more seconds before I turned off my watch. Why? Because every Strava user knows that the program shaves off about 0.01 miles from every run.
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| Garmin vs. Strava |
Although my official time was relatively slow for me for a 5K, the hilly course may have added a few minutes to what I might have run on a flatter course. In any case, it was a fun experience to run this virtual race, especially dealing with the mental side of dealing with everything that everyone on the planet is anxious about.
Look for a few more virtual races to come, hopefully every few weeks, assuming that I remain healthy, and that restrictions on outdoor activities don't become stricter. Who knows, I might run a 10K on this route to commemorate Independence Day, if we can't run the Peachtree Road Race on July 4. But six trips up that hill, trying to run fast? I shudder at the thought ...
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| This was not an Orange Theory run. |
Look for a few more virtual races to come, hopefully every few weeks, assuming that I remain healthy, and that restrictions on outdoor activities don't become stricter. Who knows, I might run a 10K on this route to commemorate Independence Day, if we can't run the Peachtree Road Race on July 4. But six trips up that hill, trying to run fast? I shudder at the thought ...
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