Hi STers,
I think many of us try to live with the glass half full mentality, but during this time it can be really hard. From all angles we get bombarded with what is not possible, lots of people dying, business closing, people getting laid off, a constant stream of negative media, and to a large extent, while under stress, many of us spiraling into attack mode and unleashing a lot of negativity to those around us.
Amidst all of this, it is tough to hold our lives together. Many of us are goal oriented...in sport, in business, in academia, with our families, with our finances.
Suddenly we have a big void of concrete goals on all fronts. The world is uncertain, we have no concrete goals in many aspects of life, we're isolated from human contact, families are under stress, and you can't make heads or tails of life ahead.
So its easy to lose hope that it will get better.
I wanted to start a thread for those who want to hold out a positive outlook. Whether that's having an awesome workout on the trainer, taking an afternoon nap because you can, getting jacked up about shaving a second off an interval split on the treadmill, getting out in your yard and seeing the most blue skies in your life, or the kid in the grocery store on minimum wage risking Covid to check you out at the cash...whatever you want.
Just post positive things that happened to you, or positive things you are looking forward to, or things you are getting motivated by.
Please don't post anything about Covid19 infection rates, numbers, deaths or what politicians are doing or not that affect our sport. Let's keep it decoupled from the other 100 threads on that.
With that, I will start.
I think many of us try to live with the glass half full mentality, but during this time it can be really hard. From all angles we get bombarded with what is not possible, lots of people dying, business closing, people getting laid off, a constant stream of negative media, and to a large extent, while under stress, many of us spiraling into attack mode and unleashing a lot of negativity to those around us.
Amidst all of this, it is tough to hold our lives together. Many of us are goal oriented...in sport, in business, in academia, with our families, with our finances.
Suddenly we have a big void of concrete goals on all fronts. The world is uncertain, we have no concrete goals in many aspects of life, we're isolated from human contact, families are under stress, and you can't make heads or tails of life ahead.
So its easy to lose hope that it will get better.
I wanted to start a thread for those who want to hold out a positive outlook. Whether that's having an awesome workout on the trainer, taking an afternoon nap because you can, getting jacked up about shaving a second off an interval split on the treadmill, getting out in your yard and seeing the most blue skies in your life, or the kid in the grocery store on minimum wage risking Covid to check you out at the cash...whatever you want.
Just post positive things that happened to you, or positive things you are looking forward to, or things you are getting motivated by.
Please don't post anything about Covid19 infection rates, numbers, deaths or what politicians are doing or not that affect our sport. Let's keep it decoupled from the other 100 threads on that.
With that, I will start.
The trails in the small forest near my house are almost free of snow. I have a loop through there that I used to do intervals on for over 20 years. Today I ventured on there (we are allowed to run outside here in Canada). There was no one on there. Totally solo. There is a steep uphill and a steep downhill on part of it. In 1999 I used this loop to train for the toronto marathon. I finished top 25 there (OK OK, soft field, but what the heck). I am literally running 90 seconds slower per km today than back there, but on a trail alone, with a blue sky its almost nothing changed in 20 years. Same person, same trail, same sky, same sport.
For a moment it was like coming back to an old friend from 20 years ago. I can't see human friends, but that trail run, it was like an old friend. I went up to the local track from 20 years ago and did some 200m repeats. I did not time them (don't want to know how slow I am), but it was like going to visit another old friend since I can't see human friends.
I was hoping to dial back on running after 100/100 and launch into a big swim block for masters swimming nationals, but that got canned.....but as part of the stress relief I have been running daily and I logged the three biggest running weeks (for me) in my last 7 years. So that's the positive from all this.
