Social Distancing: Running Through Adversity

Plus, Social Distancing From Llama Spit

Do you ever get the feeling like fate is conspiring against you?
I know it can feel that way for me with all the different ways the pandemic can negatively impact our lives.
One big instance of that for me was the Fargo Marathon. I signed up for this year’s half-marathon last December. I’ve never run 13.1 miles before. I was gonna use this to get back in shape and accomplish something I never thought I could at one point.
Then COVID-19 forced organizers to push it back from it’s original May start date.
Then a few weeks ago I hurt my foot training to run the new date in August.
That put everything in doubt. Finally when I started training again after a few weeks off to heal, they just cancelled the race.
Welp…
It almost feels like fate is telling me to stop.
But my running group still does weekly training runs with social distancing measures in place, and they’re organizing some sort of run on the date the marathon would have been.
So I made this weekend my make-it-or-break-it run. If my dumb foot didn’t get hurt again, or simply fall off, I was gonna keep going.

And everything went wonderfully. I actually ran further than I ever had before, a little over 11 miles.
That’s me and another member of our running group who also set a new distance record with the distance high five.
My foot held up better than I could have hoped.
So I’m persevering, which you kinda gotta do during COVID-19.
It’s also my way of sticking it to the pandemic. It can’t keep us from doing everything.

Now for some comic relief to start your work week, courtesy of my poor, spit-soaked friend at Hawkes Homestead Animal Sanctuary.

This is Spittin’ Sal the llama in the video above. My friend Jess who owns the sanctuary says she had to pick grass out of her phone case and her eyebrows.
Also, apparently llama spit spells really bad.
She says this isn’t the first time Sal has spit on her. He’s a llama after all. But it is the first time he’s been courteous enough to do it on camera. Thanks for that, Sal.

I wonder how fast a llama can run a half marathon. It’s gonna take me nearly three hours, but I’m more tortoise speed.
Let us know how you’re keeping on during the era of social distancing.
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