110 days.

That’s how long we’ve been in the thick of this pandemic. Well, a bit longer than that, but I began a run streak the week after life shut down in March and that’s where my time marker seems to begin. Being alone on the road with the sound of my feet hitting the pavement and my breath falling in rhythm was the only place I felt safe, felt normal, felt free from all the chaos that was erupting. I decided on one particular run that I needed this reprieve, every day, because scheduled rest days left me anxious and unable to deal with what was ahead. Thus began my #quaRUNtinestreak

After a traumatic event, life simultaneously slows down and rapidly speeds up. Stuck on what life was before, yet catapulting without consent into all that lies ahead. I experienced this sensation after Rob died, and I wrote a blog about those first 100 days. It was utterly overwhelming. Then Covid happened, and I experienced many of those same emotions all over again. Actually, before Covid happened in Oklahoma, our lives actually turned upside down when Josiah was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. We were in the hospital the same day that the Oklahoma City Thunder game was suddenly canceled and a player tested positive for the virus. That’s the real marker for when everything changed overnight.

Fortunately I could put a name to all the whirlwind I was feeling, and it helped in some ways with dealing with some of it. But I still succumbed at times to the overwhelming amount of rapid change; one day having a life changing diagnosis, the next day the world shutting down - it was a lot. There were days I’d lay on the couch for an hour staring at the wall, unable to function and feeling utterly hopeless. I don’t handle well not having some sort of end goal in sight. Why do you think I love racing so much? I have a solid date on the calendar that gives me purpose day in and day out. When people began saying in MARCH that this shutdown would last through the fall, maybe longer, I couldn’t fathom it, couldn’t handle it.

The other thing I’ve had a hard time handling? How this virus has truly uncovered the hearts of people. What once was hidden behind carefully curated lives and false facades has been glaringly revealed in the most heartbreaking ways online and through social media. And so, I continue to run. I’ll continue this streak so long as there is a pandemic, and likely it won’t stop there. Heck, it may be 30 years from now, I’ll be coming in from a run on a family vacation and the grandkids ask me why I’m still doing it, and suddenly this piece of me is really a piece of history. It’s a story of how the world changed, and how I fought to keep my heart from becoming jagged in the process.

I’ll leave you with some pictures, many pre-pandemic, because we need glimpses of joy and reminders of hope.