The Mental Game of COVID-19

(May 1, 2020) 

I will admit that I am a little extreme in my thoughts about staying healthy and battling illness.  I firmly believe that your “mind” is the most essential antidote to illness.  I had an eccentric uncle who believed in this and at a young age of twelve or thirteen, I tried it and whenever I started to feel sick, I would think positive and healthy thoughts and recovery was only a day away.  That was until COVID-19.

I attacked my COVID-19 infection like any other illness.  I would stay positive, rest a bit, but not completely give in or feel sorry for myself.  Then in a few days while I will not be completely healed I know I will be quickly back on the road to being healthy again.  I was relying on past experience to battle my current illness.  That was my first mistake.

COVID-19 likes to linger (At least in my case) and for over a week, while I did not get worse I did not get better either.  The fever and the cough persisted. 

My second mistake and one that caught me even more off guard was that the mental aspect of dealing with COVID-19 was much tougher than I had anticipated.  As I stated earlier I believe a positive and healthy mindset is vital to a recovery.  Yet during my battle with COVID-19 I found it much harder than usual to maintain that positive mindset.  Why?

First the isolation.  Even before I was ill the whole family was in quarantine and since my wife had shown signs early on of COVID-19 we had begun isolating ourselves from each other so our meals were not something we shared, neither was watching TV, or even long conversations.

After I was infected the isolation became even firmer I was regulated to one room.  It is hard to stay upbeat when you are staring at the same things 24/7.  We have a nice plant in our family room that I grew to hate, because it reminded me of my captivity.

I continued to work from home which did several positive things.  First, it made me move to the other end of the room.  This changed my view so I did not have to stare at that plant again.  It also forced me to sit up straight, which was good for my lungs.  It also made the day go faster.   Though, that first week I did not have the energy to work all day.  I remember one time I decided to rest about 15 minutes before a Webex meeting and before I knew it, I was asleep and missed the first 15 minutes of the meeting.  Working however distracted me from being sick for the most part and it forced me to think of the future positively.

Despite those positives, I was not energized by work because I was missing the interaction with other people which is a large part of my work and the part I enjoy the most.

Even my meals had become boring.  It is not that they tasted bad or anything, my wife and son did cook some great meals.  It was just that I was eating alone on a tray table.  It was like eating in a hospital.  The meals were dropped off and picked up and I ate because I was hungry and needed sustenance.  I was not however dining having conversation while I ate.   There is a huge difference between eating and dining.

I tried to go outside but there was really only one really nice day.  Most of the days were cold and damp.  I would walk around the yard but the cold really hit me.  Normally I love the cold but with COVID-19 I really felt the cold and did not stay outside long.

Finally having COVID-19 somehow made me feel bad about myself.  There was somehow something wrong with me.  It was like I was the character Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter.  Instead of the letter “A” it was “C-19”.  I don’t have a logical reason I should feel this way except that maybe I knew I was contagious and needed to stay away from people.  Which outside of my trips to the grocery store I had done.

With all these negative feelings swirling around, it was harder to focus on the mental game of beating COVID-19.  I could not imagine being hospitalized with COVID-19 and being surrounded by strangers, obviously caring strangers, but strangers nonetheless.  It would be easy to lose the mental game.

For me to win this mental game I did what I had done in ultramarathons I broke it down to legs and in this case I took it day by day.  Until I realized that after four days the aches were gone then the fatigue.  Each symptom that dropped lifted my spirits.

I also received positive energy from outside the house.  I had decided to go public about the struggles with COVID-19 my wife and I were having, for a couple of reasons I won’t get into here, but it was surprising one of the more positive things I did in helping my health.  The outpouring of support from my friends on Facebook and the people I work for and with was genuine and touched me.  I will admit while I don’t have a large social media presence almost 100% of them are people I have met in person they are not just someone I friended. 

While at the moment, I feel that I am on the road to complete recovery I realized one final lesson in the mind game of health.  Sending positive energy to someone has an impact.  It changes their mindset or at least keeps them positive and while it was an eccentric uncle who first introduced me to the importance of a positive mindset in one’s health.  It was an eclectic group of people of people on Facebook who affirmed it.

COVID-19 Hits Home

(April 15, 2020)

In the ten years I have been running I have become better attuned to my body as every year passes.  My fitness has made me aware of when even something slight seems off and if it really nothing at all or something that I should be adapting to or something I need to persevere through.  It has really paid off with many benefits not the least being that I rarely get sick with a cold or flu.

As we were awaiting my wife’s COVID-19 test results which we were certain was positive I started to sense things were wrong in my body.  I wasn’t sure if they were real or my imagination running wild with COVID-19.  First, it seemed I was coughing more after my workouts and my chest felt funny.  But after I finished every workout there was no physical traces that made me feel unhealthy.  I was excited to get to Good Friday because I didn’t have to work, so I could take my time before I ran.  It would be more relaxing that way.  Unfortunately, the county parks had been closed due to the outbreak, so I would have to do a road route I have established over time around two local lakes and it totaled about 6.6 miles a moderate workout for me. I felt pretty good at the end of the run when I checked my Garmin to see my run results and everything seemed in line until I took a double take at my heart rate.  It had soared to numbers I had never even come close to before.  My average heart rate was 196 BPM spiking to 213.  I had never even spiked to that average on runs that were much more strenuous or even faster.  While I normally don’t put that much stock in the accuracy of these numbers on watches these were too high to ignore.  I was also nervous because I had heard that one of the signs of coronavirus was that you were not getting enough oxygen through your blood.

The next morning a Saturday is traditionally my long run day but was a little scared to try a long run.  Those heart rate readings had scared me.  Yet I wanted to log some miles so I decided on doing a long walk.  The same 6.6 mile course I did on Friday, I would walk instead.  While it felt great to be outside I definitely felt off. My chest felt funny and I even considered just going back home about halfway yet I am always focused on getting my miles in, so I continued on.  As I scaled the last uphill portion of my walk I started coughing.  I was obviously struggling a bit. 

I got home, made something for my wife for lunch and then took a shower and then – I pretty much collapsed. All of a sudden I was extremely tired and couldn’t stay awake and fell asleep for a couple of hours.  When I awoke I had a fever and was achy.

It was obvious to my wife, who got her results this same day that she was positive for COVID-19, that I too had COVID-19. 

It hit me hard because one of the reasons I work out is to build up my immune system.  I said to myself that I am healthy and am in much better shape than most men my age I mean I can do ultra-marathons!  

I will beat this in a couple of days I thought to myself.  I haven’t been laid up for more than two days in the entire thirty years my wife and I have known each other.

Fortunately, my wife was now feeling much better so we switched roles and she took care of my meals.  (It should be noted that while she just got her test results that day she took the test over a week ago and we had tried getting her tested two weeks before that.  So she probably had had it for some time.) I was isolated to our family room so as to not infect our son.  Before this, I pretty much had the entire downstairs including the kitchen to myself and my son (Who also had his bedroom) and my wife had the bedroom and office on the 2^nd floor.  In my mind, now that both have tested positive pretty much the whole house was infected.  Even so, I was isolated and she cleaned the rest of the house and hoped for the best when my son ventured out of his room for a meal.

Usually when I get sick I rest one day and while I may not be 100% I am ready to function the next day.  This was different I took two days to rest up and listen to my body but it made no difference.  In fact I was in a battle between my head and my body.  All my body wanted to do was sleep but my head knew lying down was dangerous with COVID-19 because it liked to attack the lungs.

I knew it was going to be a battle and I knew that it would be a battle that my head would win and COVID-19 would lose.  What I didn’t know however was that it was going to be a long battle.  I had written earlier that during ultra-marathons there are times when you are in pain and want to give up.  That it was a mental game to keep going.  After a few days of a high fever, fatigue, and a persistent cough I realized that this was now a mental game I was having with COVID-19.

COVID-19 Footsteps

(April 5, 2020)

I have run many long trail races and on a single track trail in an extremely forested area and there is a peaceful feeling when running through a forest but it is still a race.  While I have no delusions that I will win anything not the total race, not even my age group, I still am a competitive person.  So, when I am running in a race and hear footsteps behind me I instinctively pick up my pace, no one likes to be passed.  Three things can happen at that point; first, they are running stronger then you and pass you and you never see them again. Second, they come close but never pass you and if you never look back, you may never know who it was.  Third, they pass you but never get too far and you end up having better endurance and passing them again.

I have been thinking of these various scenarios as I have been continuing my running during this COVID-19 pandemic.  Because while often I have been practicing “social distancing” while I run on single track trails in my local county park I have also been hearing footsteps. I have even turned my head around on my solo runs to see who is behind me.  While I see no one, I know who it is.  It is COVID-19.  I live in the epicenter of the outbreak in the United States and for weeks I have felt its presence creeping closer and closer.  It is as if the walls are closing in around me.  The people testing positive are closer connections

I pick up my pace to out run the outbreak, but I am not delusional.  I know that it is not a physical race at this point but a mental challenge.  I am training even harder to not let the virus over take me.  COVID-19 is coming for me but I am ready for the challenge.  I have trained to be fit and while that is no guarantee against the disease, I believe a fit person has a better chance of surviving a COVID-19 infection then one compromised.  Yes, I say to those footsteps behind me “give me your best shot! I am ready!”

I turn around on my trail run to see who is behind me feel victorious and defiant because no one is there.  I think that I have scared COVID-19 away.  He realizes that he is no match for me.  I finished my ten-mile run and feel great! I am energized, healthy and ready for anything this new virus can throw at me.  At least I think I am.

When I get home and go to talk to my wife, I immediately can sense a little worry in her voice as well as on her face.  Her coworker, who she just was with, fell sick and was being tested for COVID-19.  We both remain positive however until the next morning when she wakes up sick.  Now we are both a bit worried.  We are able to make some calls and it seems that she meets the criteria to get one of the limited slots for the COVID-19 test.  Now we wait.  We learn a couple of days later that her coworker tested positive.  Obviously, our nervousness dramatically increases but while she is sick, she is functioning.  We are also delegating her to one section of the house.

While I am confident that I can survive a COVID-19 attack I was not ready for it to attack someone I love.  On long trail races sometimes when you see someone in distress you have to stop and help, you become a trail angel.  My race was not now about me but about her and I must be her trail angel.

While I was prepared for physical duties of taking care of her I was not as prepared for the psychological aspects.  First of all, we have for the most part, been homebound for weeks with a sense of boredom permeating the household.  In addition, I could only talk to her from a distance so our normal conversations in the living room were also gone.  The one’s in which we talk about our days and the issues of the world.  Now I would talk to her from the hallway.  We couldn’t even watch a movie together.

In the morning, I continued my regular exercise routine.  I was up early on the treadmill running when something happened that never happened to me in all my years of running.  Tears started to well up in my eyes.  Usually for me running is almost meditative but COVID-19 had disrupted that pattern.  I was worried for my wife and the tears were tears of fear.

Yes, the footsteps were real that I was sensing.  Yes, maybe COVID-19 had caught up to me.  That however does not mean that COVID-19 had won.  No, it just means that the battle had just begun.  

What COVID-19 did not know about me is that I had never dropped out of a race despite being cold, wet, and even one time - lost.  I had finished every race and this would be no different.

Quarantine Time

(April 4, 2020)

As I got out of my car and hit the trail for my Saturday trail run I was excited to be out of my house and into the forest.  Since I have been in quarantine, the Saturday and Sunday runs are important because they mark another week and it is the one time outside of grocery shopping that I get out of the house and I feel free from my worries.

About four miles into my ten mile run, my brain was searching for today’s date, which recently has been something that takes longer than it used to.  Since the quarantine, remembering the date and the day of the week has become increasingly hard and when things happened in the past even harder.

I can’t for the life of me understand why I am having such a hard time with remembering the day of the week, the date, and when I did something in the recent past.  After all my life is pretty much documented by time and date.  As a runner I diligently log every mile I run, how long it took me, and the time of the day I started my run.

Even though I am working from home, my work is centered around dates and time, I have meetings scheduled at certain times and podcasts at other times.  In fact, we are all more punctual then when we had meetings in a conference room and it seemed it took fifteen or twenty minutes to settle in to business. Now it is a few minutes and onto the discussion.  If there is any informal chitchat, it happens at the end of the web-based meeting.  As if we are all desperately holding on to that social connection we didn’t realize was so important until we don’t have it.

I have very quickly settled into a quarantined routine.  I wake up about the same time every morning get on the treadmill for about the same amount of time every day.  Though I do vary my workouts from steady runs, to interval runs, to steady incline hikes not only for fitness purposes but so the routine is well, not so routine.  I head to my office aka my dining room table, and go to work Monday through Friday.

The big decision of the day is what will we have for dinner?  This is the one question that sparks the most interest in an otherwise monotonous day.

It seems like life is such a blur like there is a fog hanging over me and I am waiting to live again.  Even my conversations with those on the phone are becoming slightly more difficult because my standard opening line is to ask “What’s new?” Obviously nothing is.

What concerns me also is that I know that others are starting to feel the same way.  We are patiently biding our time waiting go back to our lives again. 

It is as if time has stood still and we are in an endless time loop.  Things that happened just before the pandemic do not seem like a month ago but years ago.  It is as if the pandemic changed the timeline of history and everything that happened before it occurred, is ancient history.

As I continue my run with the tumblers of my brain desperately searching for the date it comes to me April 4^th.  “Ah yes” I thought to myself.  I was supposed to be doing a race today.  It was a trail half marathon that I done the last few years and I was really looking forward to it.  I always enjoyed that challenging run. I was going to use it as tune up for a 50k in Utah in the middle of April.  That however was it seems in another life those races are canceled.  I will so look forward doing a race again. Runners are always anticipating the next race. 

That anticipation is not just for runners we all have events that occur that mark our life and of course time.  We look forward and backward on those events, whether they are family parties, a night out for dinner, a sporting event, the opening of a new movie, or a vacation. 

Without these events, time is just numbers on a calendar.  They hold almost no meaning.

As I continue down the trail, a bit down about the canceled race.  I see time moving forward and changing.  It is slight but it is unmistakable that time is moving forward.  The path I am running down is greener then it was when I last ran on it.  The difference was subtle but enough for me to document with a photo.  Spring is coming and will not being held back by COVID-19.  It is only a small hint now but I know that soon this same run, will be filled with bright colors.  Mother Nature’s calendar is not measured by numbers artificially created by man, she has her own cycles that she has followed for eons.  She is oblivious to our quarantine of time.

No season symbolizes hope like spring.  It is the season of rebirth. I am now more positive.  We will once again have the events that we use to mark time.  We however are like the flora and fauna in winter.  They have to bide their time and wait for the days to get longer and warmer.  They cannot rush Mother Nature.  We cannot rush this quarantine either it is not on our schedule.  We will get out of time warp and live our lives again.

Is it Social Distancing or Nature Nearing?

I was on my regular route for my trail run and while spring was officially a week away, there were already signs that Mother Nature was sending spring our way in Northern New Jersey.  Hints of green was starting to appear and daffodils were almost ready to burst into bloom. The birds surrounding me were louder and more numerous (I reminded myself that I needed to take a birding class because I hear all these different bird calls, but have no idea which birds they are). I also spotted a fox near my house, and had seen the handiwork of a black bear that had destroyed my bird feeder.

I love living in an area that truly experiences all four seasons.  It is this transitional time I enjoy the most because as I run along the trail every week, there are slight changes in the sights and sounds and even in the smells of the forest.  It means that my normal trail run will change every week.

While I was still in cold weather gear, I know that in a short time, like many mammals I will be shedding my winter coat for a spring coat, which for a runner is basically a t-shirt and shorts.

Yet in all this wonder, I had a thought I never had before on any trail, let alone “my trail.”  The question popped in my head “Should I be running now?”  With the COVID-19 outbreak, the obvious solution—and really only preventative measure (beyond hand washing)—to coronavirus was “social distancing”!  It is the act of staying away from large crowds and limiting personal contact. 

I won’t lie “social distancing” is an abhorrent notion to me. I have spent my life trying to bring people together. In fact, it is my job, and I am very good at it.  Yet now on this trail when I came upon another person, I took measures to keep my distance.

The contradictory reality of my life is that while I love social interaction and believe it is an essential part of a successful life, my beloved runs are the definition of “social distancing” in that they are completely solo acts.  I train and run alone, rarely interacting with other humans except for my races and even in those events, the human interaction is limited.   

Yet in my most “social distancing” act I felt that I may be violating the “social distancing” tenets.  That is I left the confines of my home and went to a public space.  As I continued on my run those seeds of doubt dissipated and I was truly enjoying my run. At the end of a good run or work out there is almost a high that you feel.  I had that high until I got to my front door I realized that my brief reprieve from the coronavirus was over and back to reality.

The following weekend, I once again go out for my trail run and the COVID-19 restrictions on venturing outside have tightened. I question whether I should do this run, but also wonder how many people will be walking and biking the trails.  It is a glorious sunny day –a bit cool, but perfect for running. There are no other cars in the small lot that I usually park, in which I took as an ominous sign.

Despite the pandemic world, seemingly falling apart around me, when I enter the forest, the air is fresher and it seems with each breath the air feels healthier.  However, there is a clear sign that things are different – the playground that is in one small part of the park is taped up and closed.  I do notice a few cars in this parking lot, so I am not alone here .

As I continue on, I feel more joy and to my surprise, I find more people –many more than I normally encounter on the trail.  It seems that with most things closed, the one thing safe to do in life is walk in the woods.  I have noticed the same in my neighborhood –more people going out for a stroll. 

I watch the families out for a hike in the woods and I can tell that some are not accustomed to walking in nature by how they walk, with steps that seem unsure of where to place their feet.  They are used to walking on man made surfaces or manicured lawns, not rocky, slightly muddy and uneven trails.

They have come to the forest and nature because it may seem like the only healthy option they have left.  I hope they stay even after all this is over. 

I think back to why I started going to the parks and forests for hikes before I ran in them.  It was from a negative place. I was young, lonely and poor, and not sure where my life was going.  Basically the only thing I could afford to do was go for walks in the woods.  While it was originally a financial decision, it also became a mindful decision.  I found the stress of life reduced by the beauty of Mother Nature.

As I continue my joyful run on the heavily wooded trails I think that more than practicing “social distancing,” what I and others in the park have been practicing is “nature nearing”.

You may argue that it is just semantics, but there is a big difference.  One is a much more positive connotation while the other one connotes dangerous times.  The other major difference is that “nature nearing” is a much healthier long-term practice. “Social distancing” while needed for this health crisis, would be a sad way to live our lives over any extended period of time.

As I end my run, I feel great.  I take a long inhale of the forest air and know that I have to go back to the pandemic world but I am very positive because “nature nearing” always does that for me.

The Celebration Toll of COVID-19

(March 2020)

When I saw the posting on the Vacation Races Facebook page, I was still saddened, even though I expected it and knew that it was the right decision.  I had signed up to participate in a 50K race near Zion National Park this summer and my wife, who views my races with about as much excitement as a dental visit, was also excited for this race. We were going to make a vacation out of it. The race was one of the last to be canceled due to social distancing policies being put in place across the country.

One of the reasons I was so excited about this race is because the trail looked beautiful. We would be running on the top of a mesa looking over the southwestern landscape.  I had studied the course and researched what was different about desert running and had trained for the race.  My wife even bought me a Zion National Park calendar for my office to inspire me.  Now for the rest of the year, it will be a reminder of what could have been.  I was looking forward to adding the finisher medal to my collection.

In addition to the Zion Ultra Race, a short 5K was also cancelled and I was disappointed for that one because I was going to do it with my niece.  She had just taken up running and this was going to be her first race.  I was excited to be part of her journey.

While I was disappointed, I only had to look at the world around me to realize that my disappointments were tiny compared to what was going in the world.  COVID-19 was literally a matter of life and death.  People were dying and others were seriously ill. I could sign up for another 5k with my niece at another time and do the Zion race next year, so it was easy to move on, plus, as I told a friend, I don’t need a race to motivate me to run.

While I could reschedule my races and defer the celebration of crossing the finishing line, others were not so fortunate.  I thought of all our students, particularly our high school seniors, who will not be able to enjoy the celebrations of their senior year.  They will miss things like taking a bow at the end of the school play; hitting a home run at a baseball game; having a solo in the band concert; going to the prom; or marching in the graduation ceremony.  Looking back at my time in school, it is the friendships and relationships that I remember best.  While virtual learning may be effective for geometry and history, it is not as good at making those other moments in school as special.

With social distancing in full effect, it was not just one self-absorbed runner and our students missing their celebrations. I had a friend who was going to be honored for her work in the arts at a gala, which was canceled. Wedding receptions have been canceled, as have dinners out for anniversaries and birthdays.  And for families that have suffered a loss, not being able to gather to mourn and celebrate the life of a loved one together must be devastating. 

My family, like others, loves to celebrate the holidays. We missed celebrating Easter, and in fact, the  days blend together so much that I have a hard time remembering the day of the week.  A few weeks ago, I was halfway through my day when I realized it was St. Patrick’s Day.

As I said earlier I don’t need a race to run.  Students don’t need a graduation ceremony to get a degree.  Couples don’t need a reception to get married. Yet we do these ceremonies.

Memories are built when we celebrate the milestones in life with others. Humans are by nature social creators.  We need social contact.  It is no accident that every culture has various annual celebrations and marks life’s milestones such as weddings and births with joyous celebrations.

The need for this is so ingrained that we are already seeing virtual proms, concerts, and weddings. While such celebratory programs must suffice for now, we know this is not enough in the long run.

Throughout this crisis, we have heard grim statistics about the number of people infected, and the number of people who have died. We have also heard of awful economic indicators, such as the unemployment numbers.  But there won’t be a tally for the number of celebrations canceled or the number of laughs and smiles that are lost.  That is a hidden toll of COVID-19. Even those who do not contract the virus are negatively affected.  

For myself, I am eagerly looking forward to signing up for a race, organizing a large family party, and playing volleyball with my friends.  You can sense it among everyone –they are getting by and that is great, but “getting by” is not living and we want to live.

Maybe that is what we need to remind ourselves in order to get through this: The key is to dwell not on the celebrations we have missed, but on the celebrations to come!

Lessons Learned from Ultra-Marathons that will Help During this Pandemic

(March 2020)

One of the most valuable lessons I have learned from completing ultra-marathons and grueling trail races is that while I always feel excited and enthusiastic in the beginning, I know that some pain and despair will come my way. But I have learned mental games which I play to overcome those tough times when quitting seems like the best option.

Technically ultra-marathons are anything longer than a marathon –26.2 miles – but typically they are 50 or 100 miles. I have participated in 50-mile ultra-marathons.

I have seen runners approach ultra-marathons as if they were doing a long half-marathon. They don’t have the right gear or they didn’t really train for the length of the race. They start fast and strong, then suddenly are they completely overwhelmed. They are in pain, extremely tired and they realize they still have another twenty miles to go, and perhaps it is raining or colder than expected. Their biggest problem is that they are mentally drained; they are not prepared for the mental aspect of the race and how long and tough it will be.

We are only about 12 days into the COVID-19 shutdown as I write this and I hope people realize that we are all running an ultra-marathon, not a 5k or even a marathon.  My fear is that many of us are not.  We feel good because we have enough food, drinks and toilet paper .  We feel healthy and we have the ability to work from home, so we are confident. 

If we are working from home, we should pause and think of the people we know who are out of work because of this pandemic.  Those individuals and those close to them have already taken a surprise hit and, believe me, it takes a toll on you mentally when you don’t know if you can pay your bills.  While my wife and I are okay for now, my daughter’s employer had to close, so she is temporarily unemployed, which affects my wife and I.

I am in the field of public education and our state’s schools went to virtual classes almost overnight.  While this system is not perfect, for now it looks as if it is working well enough. Where I work, we did the same thing –most of us transferred to working from home, and we are rightfully proud that we can continue to serve our members. But I would caution all of us that we are only a few miles into a 50-mile run and there are many other obstacles to overcome. It is likely we have not had to face the toughest ones yet. 

As with ultra-marathons, the mental obstacles may well be the steepest ones.  It is one thing to be hunkered down for a week or two it is quite another for it to be doing this for several months—or longer. We are working on adrenaline now, but when that wears off the mental game starts.  People who live alone may find the lack of direct human contact more difficult sooner than people who are cloistered with other family members. After 12 days I know I already miss the human interaction that I had not only at work, but with people at the coffee shop I stop at every morning; or at the various pizzerias and delis where I regularly get lunch.  I am a bit worried that these businesses may not even be there when this is over.

I am sure a lot of kids are already missing the social aspects of school.  They can’t even participate in playdates.  If the adults in the house start to falter under the stress then so will the kids.

I keep praying that all the reports I read of 40%-50% of the population being infected are wrong but if it is even half that, the implications are terrifying.  If that is true then we all know someone close to us who will be directly affected whether that be a work colleague, friend, or family member.  That will add to our collective stress.

I have painted a pretty grim picture, but we can and will get through this.  Here are some of the things I have learned from completing ultra-marathons that may help right now:

·         Know it is going to be very difficult  The basic premise here is that you must have a realistic idea of the difficulties in order to prepare for them.  I know there will be times on an ultra-marathon that the hills will sap my energy, that I may be in some pain, and I may feel down.  I also know that it is temporary and it is not a surprise, which means that I persevere.  The people who falter are the ones who are surprised by the difficulties, which makes them harder to manage. During this time, we will all feel down and detached, but this is not a surprise and it is temporary, so we will persevere.

·         Have the right gear During a race I always need to make sure I have the right gear especially if the weather is bad.  Luckily, most of us have the right gear at home, which includes the technology to get through this.  We have also had the ability to stock our cabinets, so our trips to the grocery store are less frequent. Social media and technology at this time is such a godsend since it allows us to stay in touch with friends and family.  It also allows many of us to continue working.

·         Reach out to those who are struggling In one of my first ultra-marathons, I noticed a woman on the trail who was having extreme difficulty. I shared some water with her, and ran with her, urging her on. She told me later how much this helped her. But it also helped me.  I felt part of a larger effort. During this pandemic, not everyone has the right gear or provisions at home.  Many people have lost their jobs and are running low on money.  Children may be at home in a very dysfunctional family.  These are the people we need to reach out to – for their sake and for ours.

·         Take time to reflect and smile  When I am on an ultra, which is almost always held in beautiful natural areas, I always have my phone on me and take pictures to document the beauty of nature.  I also joke with other runners and volunteers at aid stations.  The same applies here—you have to be appreciative of the people you are sequestered with.  Humor makes it easier to deal with the day.  One positive about Facebook during this crisis is that people have not lost their sense of humor. Call a friend, particularly someone who is alone.  It will make you both feel better.

·         Trick your brain When running an ultra-marathon, being cold and sore can wear on you mentally.  You think “I can’t do another 30 miles!”  Yet what I have found is I don’t think of the whole race distance.  I think of going ten miles to the next aid station.  I break the race up into legs.  I am doing the same thing with this quarantine. I’m taking it week by week.  When I think of the end date it scares me, but if I think of doing it for a week, I’m ok.   

·         Get by with a little help from your friends—and strangers  While I like to think of myself as a badass for running fifty miles, I know I couldn’t do it by myself.  There are numerous aid stations along the way that supply me with food and water, which are manned by total strangers.  We all are in the same boat and the strangers who work in grocery stores, hospitals, pharmacies, and liquor stores –not to mention friends and neighbors—are all helping us too.  At those ultra-marathon aid stations I always make it a point to thank the volunteers.  Maybe we should do the same with the workers we encounter.

·         At the end, you will be stronger  It is difficult to describe the feeling of finishing an ultra-marathon. But I can tell you this from my own experience and that of others I have talked with. When you finish, even though you are sore and exhausted, you also feel like you can do almost anything in your life.  At the end of this pandemic ultra, I believe we will all be feeling a bit stronger because we overcame what may be one of the biggest challenges we will ever face.