Here we go Pennsylvania, it’s been 11 full months of Covid-19 restrictions.
My workouts have gone from a pre-Covid world of very structured and focused on muscle groups with heavy days vs. cardio days, trips to the Olympia pool and reffing soccer repeated weekly and monthly at Gold’s, BodyTech or Planet Fitness before Covid-19. Then once the first round of restrictions and shut-downs occured, I moved to mostly cardio and compound movements with dumbbells, the bike or the app. No need for a bench or a wrack, the bosu ball was put to full use along with the existing weights. Summer was full of paddling on the Allegheny and fall led to running on the soccer field. Whenever Tom or RJ was around we took to the links. I still cannot hit the driver straight, consistently. It may be time to visit the sports psychologist and start using a 1-iron from the tee box or as Ryan says take a few lessons. The Covid stress–eating and drinking–have definitely impacted my overall fitness, but mentally I know I can get back on track before outdoor soccer fires up this spring.
The whole world is onto variants of the original Covid-19 and the United States is not even close to getting the vaccine to our highest risk people. Air travel has been removed from my way of doing things. The winter getaway to Mexico will be pushed out. The whole battle between the federal government vs. states on handling the Covid-19 response is going to be documented in history books for public health students under the title, HOW NOT TO HANDLE A PANDEMIC for centuries.
I’ll continue to run over to the Valley to work on my existing projects and do lunch in with Stan. We’ve added a white board of local restaurants to support by ordering take-out. The world of Instacart is my go-to for groceries, just to minimize my people contacts. The technology that was created and made a part of our global lives since 1918 meant that we could do a lot of things while physically distanced from each other. We’ve done game night, happy hour, plays at home, exercise with the BodyBlade, birthday parties and Dave Matthews Band concerts all through Zoom. We’ve even started a little Arrigo connecting over coffee and potential stories of connections between Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Rochester. This has all been a great development thanks to the tech. However, I realize not everybody is doing that well.
There are a lot of natural people persons, that need to be in contact with their greater community. These people need to be out and about to keep their brains firing on all cylinders. These are the people that I write this article for since they are struggling with the developments of our current normal. Then there are those that have not adopted the technology that has been introduced since 2008. Even if you did adopt the tech, your connection to the world, still depends on where you live and who provides your power, phone, internet- not all states and towns are equal and you may only be globally connected if your local service provider is providing you with high speed access.
If you are wintering up north take a few minutes to appreciate what our friends in the Gulf of Mexico have this time of year.
I’m grateful for the great people in my life, a loving partner that eats my cooking, a dog that forces me to get out in nature everyday, a bike to get the interval training done, having a work schedule, navigating my unofficial job to the end, rest and rehab with the Theragun.
What are you doing to stay as OK as possible in this Covid-19 world?
One response to “Acknowledging the not ok part of Covid-19.”
Literally, to try and assure we survive this we are masked, socially distanced, washing hands, picking up our groceries and prescriptions “no contact”, and entertaining ourselves – sometimes more successfully than others. Sue, Tom and I are working on using my new Mahjongg set, I walk, Tom golfs, and occasionally we ride somewhere just to be someplace else. First vaccinations complete, and second ones are all scheduled. We will survive this, and perhaps come to terms with ourselves a little more clearly than was the case. Live in love and all will be well.