Wait, what, you guys are going to do bleach injections?
Everyone knows Trump lies, what you should inject isn't bleach, but with some hydroalcoholic solution!
I mean, everyone knows chlorine will just react with the sodium in your body and create salt otherwise.

On a more serious note, good to know that some countries are already planning for a return to normalcy, that's really encouraging for us people in countries where the peak of the infection hasn't been reached yet.

There are a lot of politics and opinions here... unfortunately before COVID, the healthcare system was struggling, and politics and media opinions dominated the news. Since this is a healthcare crisis, please have some confidence in the professionals who are working diligently to treat the sick and understand the facts about a novel virus. We had no real warning, and we are doing pretty well, aided by a scientific fact... that all other Coronavirus variations are seasonal, COVID appears to be retreating and we are being given an opportunity. Personally, I believe that we will have races in late summer, and suspect that there will be a point in the fall where we will need to take a more defensive posture once again. Professional, college, and high school sports are part of the American way-of-life. On-line ain’t gonna cut it. Olympic athletes will need to train to race in 2021. This is human victory over a virus and could help us come together a bit more as a country. (OK, I’m not holding my breath, its unfortunate that this is occurring in an election year that was pretty ugly to begin with). Our health system has already made some changes that will likely make our patient-care and community health better (Stress/Rest) after COVID establishes a new normal with a new normal healthcare system. I am very familiar with the data and conditions on the front lines... that’s why I am expressing hope and not commenting on aspects of a scientific and medical challenge that we don’t no very much about yet. Encouraging news for the ST Community: Nitric Oxide appears to prevent a life-threatening complication of severe COVID infection... but before you start injecting Beet Elite, you may want to Google “Bioavailability.” (That was sarcasm). But seriously exercise is quite protective... Google “Superoxide Desmutase.” Look, we really don’t know, so why not stay positive. I’m getting tired of being addicted to Zwift. Ride on.

It boils down to mathematics and epidemiology. The nature of exponential growth is such that it doesn’t take more than a handful of cases before things get out of hand. We have intuitive familiarity with linear growth (i.e. there are 50 more cases per week than there were last week). What is less readily intuitively obvious is exponential growth. Yes, for the first two weeks, if you progress from 50->100 cases, the growth rate appears linear and easily controlled. Then you reach the inflection point where it all of a sudden isn’t. Opening up cities to mass participation events such as concerts, sporting events, races, is just plain foolish. I get it, we’re all tired of Zwift and Rouvy, and whatever online platform you like. Fine. It is the heigh of foolishness to start having mass groups of people congregating just as we are starting to see the fruits of social isolation instituted 4-8 weeks ago. All you do is rewind the clock.

As much as I would love to compete, I also am a physician and don’t want to have my hospital fill up with COVID patients, using up vents, ECMO circuits, exposing my nursing and physician colleagues to life threatening illness. It’s hard to remember, but THIS IS A HOBBY. IT IS ELECTIVE. Just because you aren’t sick, and are willing to take the risk yourself, does not give you the right to put yourself in a position to acquire a disease and potentially infect other people, just to sate your desire to run around in a large circle with other people.

Historical experience with similar disease outbreaks such as the 1918 influenza, 1957 influenza and others indicate that recurrent peaks of infection are the norm. What that means is we can anticipate another resurgence in the fall, and likely again once or twice after that, although to lesser degrees than the initial spike. So, although the infection rate (the derivative of the case v time curve) is slowing in the US, congregating hundreds or thousands of us together will only exacerbate what is inevitably going to happen.

We need to change the linguistics of how we discuss ‘need’ and ‘essential’ in these times. Athletes may ‘need’ to train and compete, but in the grand scheme of things, this is entertainment. We don’t actually ‘need’ them at all. In no sense of the word is athletic competition either professional or amateur essential. It is diversion. I agree, it sure sucks that my spring IM was cancelled. But, I’m alive, and I would like the good folks of St George and Santa Rosa and Lake Placid and everywhere to not view us as collective Typhoid Mary when their Covid numbers spike after an event. Realistically, we need to accept that it is exceedingly unlikely that any kind of amateur athletic competition will occur in 2020. I doubt there will be professional sports either. I think that France, Italy, and Spain are being ridiculously profligate with the health of their populations by having the Giro, Vuelta, and Tour. 2020 is an athletic write off, let’s accept it and move on. Mindless optimism is not particularly productive.

Excellent post. Bravo and thanks for what you do.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

It would be nice if you are right- but in AZ we are behind the curve, and the estimation of peak keeps getting pushed later and later because all we've really done here is a soft set of guidelines- no real complete shutdown at any point yet and probably ever. So, we keep increasing in cases, slowly, and I'm not sure we will be really ready to fully open up for mass gatherings by November even if we hope we will- our best bet is that the summer temperatures will keep people indoors enough that it will keep the numbers manageable- but I don't see IMAZ happening this year- I suspect the second wave of the virus will be rearing its ugly head at that point...

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"There are two ways to slide easily through life- to believe everything and to doubt everything- both ways save us from thinking "- Korzbyski

I'm training for IMAZ still, FWIW.

Are we? We had one of the first early confirmed cases and it was a Chinese student at ASU that had just been in Wuhan. Considering the diversity of ASU being a research university I wouldn't be surprised if the student population was exposed much earlier than January.


I'm still training for TC 70.3 and IMAZ.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I hope you are right. - I really do- but in Pinal County it is just getting going it seems, and for the size of Phoenix the confirmed cases seem pretty darn low for the population. Again, I do hope you are right though- I'll gladly admit I was wrong if I end up being so...

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"There are two ways to slide easily through life- to believe everything and to doubt everything- both ways save us from thinking "- Korzbyski

“We need to change the linguistics of how we discuss ‘need’ and ‘essential’ in these times. Athletes may ‘need’ to train and compete, but in the grand scheme of things, this is entertainment. We don’t actually ‘need’ them at all. In no sense of the word is athletic competition either professional or amateur essential. It is diversion.”

Agree with @eblackadder. My post digressed from hope to delusion... with more than a hint of selfishness. Headlines that “the number of assymptomatic infections is 50 times what is being reported” is NOT good news. That indicates that only about 15% of the population is immune (and we don’t even know what that means). Certainly ripe for geometric spread once the (likely seasonal) virus gets its tailwind in the fall. Improving numbers and carefully opening businesses is far more “essential” (most people’s lives are dependent on income) than a sporting event. The current “reopen” highlights case tracing and identifying “hot spots.” If a sporting event (small or large) is identified as the source of an outbreak, it will be a strong negative going forward. For individuals trying to make a living, it will be perceived as a threat. We will not get another chance to shut down the economy without devastating effects. My previous prediction that races will return by late summer is ominous. We will each need to decide if we will participate in what will amount to an “experiment” in which lives are at stake. How many lives? Not many? Just older sick people? (I’m >60) Risk/benefit? Benefit is athletes get to race? Not really a hard decision.

On a positive, the current situation will improve, and there will be opportunities to race in small local, and eventually, large international races... so hope remains. Or maybe I’ll just learn to enjoy running without a computer monitoring my training stress and progress toward a goal race. New normal is hard.

The next US Ironman isn’t going to be in California given Gov. Newsom’s Four Phase Reopening Plan. He said phase three was months away and an Ironman race would fall into phase four.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

Ironman also announced Santa Rosa was officially postponed today.

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KJ
Swim and Triathlon Coach
AllTerrainEndurance.com
KJ@allterrainendurance.com

I would say forget about 2020 races. Race directors are having a hard time figuring out how to do a race and keep social distance which is something we probably have for another year or so.

I don't see anything happening before Spring 2021. At least in a full scale. even thing turn back to normal, its a big unknown now, no body know what the turnaround will be and no body can guess if the hotels, restaurants etc. will be all available for the athletes. Most importantly, these races rely on volunteers big time, organizing volunteers gonna be a problem specially after all this social distancing and stay at home orders. Anyway, for get about the race for a while and enjoy running, biking or swimming while you can do it freely.

Hey Randy, as we watch the world around us, the biggest challenge of turning on events in every industry segment (I suppose also government, and academia too), will simply be people too afraid to interact with other humans like the interaction with the other humans will kill them.

This fear of death and mass feeling of other humans being a potential cause of one's own death will be a massive inertia for all of the business world to overcome. You can't run a trade show if no one wants to work reception, there can't be catering if no one wants to deliver the food, there can be no business interaction if people are too scared to go inside 6 feet to talk to another person in their personal space (most venues where you would run an event simply don't have the real estate for each person to be 6 ft away from all others).

So eventually the problem won't be governments lifting regulations, its people too scared to venture out in the wild and do exactly the same thing they were doing on say March 15th around lots of people infected by Covid19. Sweden won't have to overcome this mass fear buildup. Many US states will have to deal with it less, but in a lot of the world, this will be the biggest challenge to undo, and unfortunately as some experts have said the only way out is a vaccine, you won't get people out of their caves interacting with others without that easily.

Those who are less fearful or those who have no econmic choice but to worl will be the early ones to interact at businesses and once there are no mass deaths, others gradually rejoin. This may be a much longer process than the actual lifting of lockdowns. Fear is not something that is easily unwound. To do even a rolling start TT Ironman you need people at aid stations, registration and finish line. I think unsupported 10k's, sprint and Olympic tris are easily doable first as those who are not laden with fear can choose to enter with very minimal volunteer support.

The fear factor is going to be more in the way of any ironmans than the government regulations. If I get on a plane tomorrow to go and visit a customer, many customers won't even take outside visitors once they ramp up operations. When I open up my company my employees may be scared of each other first and then once they get over that, they will be scared of visitors. Remember in the 80's when you went to a bar and met a nice girl and she's trying to size you up to guess if you have AIDS or not and you're trying to size her up? And that was AIDS. You'd need to have sex to get it. Now you just think if you 5.99 feet from someone you're going to die just by being there. No issue like the 80's and worrying about the sex part.

Honestly, I’m not in a hurry to be getting on a plane anytime soon. Maybe if my company says they will fire me if I don’t go... buy I’d still think long and hard about it. I typically fly 40-45 weeks a year for reference.

The hygiene habits of the us traveling public have always been appalling and I’ve generally been pretty sensitive to it. People don’t even cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze on a plane. Don’t bother sanitizing their hands before they eat, etc etc. Of course this is a self-centered view— I am just as likely to be a vector passing through ATL or ORD on a Mon/Thrs evening as anyone else. But if the inertia is the collective action (or inaction) of millions, I’m sharing my N=1. I’d say mandatory masks would be a minimum condition to get me to consider flying again.

But I still can’t imagine what my anxiety would be like now on a flight, hyper-tuned into folks around me coughing and hacking. I could barely deal with it flying in February and March of this year, just knowing the hypothetical (now realized, in hindsight) potential for folks on board to be spreading the virus.

So I 100% agree on the inertia. And I can’t imagine my clients will be eager to host our teams back onsite again this year, if for no other reason that it’s cheaper remotely.

I bet you one of your biggest advantages IS that you fly 45 weeks per year, and are exposed to this high germ cross pollination. If you are flying 45 weeks per year, you're likely not getting sick during those 45 weeks (or you would not be able to do the flights) BECAUSE of the flying itself. It's training your immune system to survive it (I did 8 years or so of 20-32 weeks per year trans continent or across Oceans). Its like training your body for anything...the more you do, the more you can endure. Going on a plane after this lockdown for you will likely actually be far less risky than before. As you said, travellers behaved like idiots before, and we share germs constantly. Now we will be sharing less. It orders of magnitude less of a transmission environment today than on March 1st.

I'd say its low risk. I have 77 and 82 year old parents on a packed 777 as we speak on a 13 hrs long haul flight coming across the Atlantic as I type. I am less worried about them dying from that flight than I am when they come out of self isolation in 2 weeks and have to go to the grocery store or Costco and interact with local idiots (and even then, I am not really worried about them).

But I do agree that airline travel is inherently more of a transmisison environment than working from your basement, or even in your own office. But that's life. So is a subway, or a bus, or a train or a shopping mall or a gym more risky then our basements.

In any case, the inertia will take forever to overcome. That's going to be the biggest challenge before any Ironmans happen. Once schools and universities open and people are not dying, and then youth and pro sports start then this will gradually transform inertia. No one will turn back on instantly.

Seriously consider another career?

40 - 45 weeks a year of air traveling for a person who like air travel is probably great

But if not maybe now is a good time to seriously looking into a job/career change

Lots of old men left to look back and question why they did so much of what they didn’t want to for what?