Month: March 2021

In the U.S. there have been 113 million covid-19 vaccinations to date, so after a slow start at the beginning of the year it’s really taken off. And based on projections from health officials and on the news, vaccination rates will accelerate even more so over the next couple of months. On social media lots of selfies or posts of arms and cards to show it. Everyone will have their own story to share. Here is mine in words. Selfie not included.

Phase 1 – Vaccinations for my age group opened up on March 5, but they said you could start applying over the week before that. So I set up an account on the second day that we were eligible and started doing searches for commercial pharmacies or mass sites right away.

For 2 weeks I saw nothing, and called the Hotline again last weekend. They suggested another provider, and said to just keep trying. I did that for a couple of days with no more success than before, so my son offered to assist as he’s on a break from his studies. Monday nothing. Tuesday morning nothing.

On Tuesday I saw on Facebook that friends here were getting in, so I asked one how he got in. Got a few tips and spend 90 minutes basically refreshing King Soopers and Safeway sites over and over. I got a hit! But as soon as I clicked a confirm button it disappeared. Then another. Same thing. Finally I got onto King Soopers and got a third chance! This time they gave me a 15 minute window to complete my form and to confirm a second appointment.

Stop!

No second appointments available at this time. Clock is ticking down. WTF? Talk about a catch-22. I called my son and showed him the screen. Nothing we could do, and time ran out. I spent another 10 or 15 minutes searching, but decided to give up for the morning and get back to work.

Bing! 15 minutes later a text. He got me an appointment in just a couple of hours. I did a quick workout showered, had a bite to eat and headed down for the appointment.

How did he do it??!! He said he got onto Twitter and Reddit which had posts that said you should have as many screens as you can and as many sites open and to just keep clicking and refreshing until something comes up. So he had two screens and 25 sites open for a couple of hours that morning. That’s what it takes.

Phase 2 – Once I got to the Safeway it all went fairly smoothly. Arrived at 1:50, 10 minutes ahead. There were already 4 waiting in line. We each checked in a few minutes before 2 and lined up again. By 2:15 I was in and out, instructed to hang around the store for 15 minutes–so what are you going to do? Shop of course (and my cynical side lets me think that’s why the system is so chaotic, that they are going the commercial route with most vaccinations so you’ll go into the store pharmacy and buy stuff). Good plan, I guess, but a centralized appointment system sure seems a lot better. This was the Wild West, or maybe digital Darwinism.

Phase 3 – What was my reaction? The shot stung a bit more than your average flu shot, and my arm was immediately sore, like if my wife had punched me a good one after I had been teasing her. By evening I was a little achey so I took a couple of Tylenol at about 8. I woke up at 2 feeling stiff and some aches in my joints and muscles. Tried to go back to sleep and barely did before our alarm went off at 5. So I was tired all day, and the aches persisted.

I did 30 minutes on the bike trainer in the morning and felt, decent at that. At 3:30 went for a run, and really felt it there. Legs were like lead the entire way. Starting out feeling stiff is normal now, and my first mile is often 9:00 or 9:30 before I can get rolling at low or sub 8s. On Wednesday I could go no faster than about 8:20, and that took some effort. I ran an hour (maybe should have stopped at 30 minutes)–so actually a pretty good day considering.

Still ached last night and took 2 Tylenol before bed. Again woke up at 2, and this time almost fell over, feeling woozy and off balance. I took 1 Tylenol and went back to bed, sleeping lightly until the alarm went off at 5, maybe getting another 10-15 minutes after that.

Otherwise, feel good today. No aches and I think my body is adjusting. Plan on a 1:30 to 1:45 run today, but will cut that short if I’m not feeling right.

Looking Ahead

Phase 4 in 3 weeks, appointment at 2 PM at the same Safeway. By the time I’m fully vaccinated and antibodies have had time to build immunity (April 20), I figure there will be at least 120 million fully vaccinated and more than 200 million with at least one dose. And by middle or end of May? Hopefully reaching herd immunity, despite some 30 million to 50 million refusing to get a vaccination.

In the year of the pandemic I have had no breakthroughs but no break downs. And while I haven’t set or approached any mileage/volume personal bests either, it has been a decent year for holding steady. I’m in better shape, and maybe even better physical health than this time last year. Mental health? Maybe let’s talk about that later.

Summary for a Year of Shutdowns

Here are the numbers. I have run nearly 2,600 miles since the pandemic was officially announced in March 2020. Add another 300 miles of cross country skiing and a few hours of cycling, which I just started picking up on early this year. Getting close to the 400 hours I would like to be at. Workouts have gone fairly well, and while not spectacular with the aid of the “super shoes” (Saucony Endorphin Pro and Endorphin Speed), for the past several months have come close to matching what I was doing in 2018-19, with tempo paces at 6:20s and CV in the low 6s (although for the past three months the weather has not often exactly been conducive to faster running on workout days).

Nevertheless, due to the lack of racing over the past 4-5 months I’m not sure where my race fitness is. In fact, practically no clue. My last real race was in November. I attempted a hilly 10K in January, but either that course was tougher (some 350′ of hills) or I just had an off day. Result was a very slow time. My scheduled race in February was canceled/postponed due to cold weather (sub zero) and wind chill (sub teens) at race time. So I missed that opportunity.

And this weekend a planned 7K is doubtful because we are expecting 2 feet of snow in Denver (up to 4 feet where I live). So foiled again. Hope this one is rescheduled to next week.

So I’m encouraged by some aspects (consistency and getting in some decent workouts) but very disappointed not to have some racing, which I do for fun and to test where I’m at. Won’t even go into no sea level racing over the past year, as I’m not traveling until I get a vaccination.

But while those parts might be somewhat in question, if not sources of frustration, I’m glad to have had a relatively decent an consistent season of weekly cross country ski outings, going back to late November. Had some weather issues there, but the highlight was doing an unofficial virtual Birkebeiner 43K in 3:09, at Snow Mountain Ranch, near Granby just skiing casually but steady.

One more addition to the compilation part of this update. We purchased an exercise bike last month. I started adding a couple sessions of week on our old bike trainer, to beat the weather and as a slight supplement to running to add in some extra cardio workouts. However, that system was creaky, with a 35 year old bike and 20 year old training mount. The new bike has none of the fancy electronic elements like Peleton or Zwift, just a standard Schwinn (made by Nautilus) with a digital timer/speedometer. So I’ve been putting in a few 25-30 minute sessions a week. Combined, been hitting 9 to 10.5 hours a week of training since early February. It will add up.

Now what am I throwing out?

Second half relates to what I have jettisoned. I think it’s largely related to the pandemic, and being isolated. I have had social media presence for decades really, going back to the late 1990s, but the ever-shifting sands have made it less palatable. Having less fun with it.

Facebook has been hit and miss, I kind of got into it, say 2009-2o14. But I shut it down for a good 5 years, opening up some although cautiously at the end of 2020. It’s good to have to get some updates (necessary sometimes, e.g., some race directors communicate and manage through Facebook), I just don’t like posting there a lot. Instagram is definitely a Millenials thing, especially the Stories line. Even though my dear son said I post quite well for a Boomer I’d rather do some nature and natural resources-type posts than selfies and stories about running. So I check in, post judiciously.

Strava. Strava is simply Facebook for runners and cyclists. And I think it’s actually destructive and counter-productive. Segment chasing, gathering kudos, and stalking your competitors, it is all really for the birds. I stopped the auto-feed last year following all the histrionics with their shutdowns, ransom, and “upgrades” which were really downgrades for non-fee paying customers. Now I just post a couple workouts a week, when I feel like it. If Strava goes under, or entirely behind a paywall I’d be perfectly fine with just letting it go to the trash bin.

Our masters club. We had a series of Zoom calls, but also a bad email chain of covid denial last summer, with several club member saying that thousands of deaths a day is just overblown media hype. Bad juju. I haven’t quit the team, but haven’t gone out of my way to make those monthly calls. I think I may be off the correspondence list, because haven’t heard anything from them since late January or so. Not sure when things open up how much or if I’ll be traveling with the Boulder Road Runners “elite” senior team. Still have some good friends there, some I’m less sure about.

Forums and message boards. I was in some of the very early versions of online communities, going back to the mid-1990s when we had Track and Field List Serve. Similar formats. Got in on the earliest chatrooms by 1998, preceding the infamous Letsrun by a couple of years. It’s been good and bad. Nice way to make connections and friends, but that seems exceedingly difficult in this age as we are no longer meeting in real life. In addition, I think while cliques have always been a big part of these (like junior high and high school), if anything it’s more entrenched now. I don’t know if it’s me or just the cliques, but I’m tired of it, so in 2021 I have been shutting down my participation on some long-time message boards like CH Runners (spun off of old Cool Running, which was the rage in the early 2000s), said Letsrun, and Reddit. I have just felt more and more, that I have few friends in those venues and those number dwindle with each month. In fact, seem like a lot are just showing off and patting each other on the back, rather than actually interacting, exchanging ideas, or stories.

And of course Letsrun is more about trolling as a platform for the racist, misogynist, hate everything alt right. But I’ve been a participant in one of its long-running masters thread for a long time, and over the past 6-8 months practically no interaction with anyone. Just the same two or three old blowhards going on and on about themselves. Often talking the talk–oh I’m turning 50-60 next year and I’m going to break 3 hours and place to 5 in my age group at Boston. And then they over-reach. Get hurt. Disappear. Reappear a year or two later. Repeat.

And so it goes. I’d rather talk to myself here, in this venue than try to interact with those who barely acknowledge anyone outside their clique, or BPFF (best posting friend forever).