Just when this "new normal" is starting to feel a little more like "normal" I am bombarded by reminders that it is anything except that. This week the Aldi cashier told me that (I'm pretty sure) not me, but my groceries were too close to the person's groceries in front of me, our downstairs neighbours are starting to loose some patience with increased noise from my children, and I was reminded that a year ago I ran a marathon WITH other people opposed to my current swerve at all expenses running strategy.
I read the articles and some of the online chatter that say people should stop running during this time, they should become more considerate like cyclists, and they need to stop pushing walkers aside while muttering profanities and flinging sweat on others around (I can guarantee you I'm not doing this nor have I witnessed this happen). Can't we all just show a little kindness and consideration for one another and do our best while we work together? I need to keep running for my sanity, I'm just hoping I don't need to resort to 4 am to avoid death stares while I seek out the least utilized routes.
Because after all, this was the year I was hoping to run my 20th marathon with, get this, other people. Silly me, 2020 sounded like a good year to do just that. So as likely options keep getting wiped from the calendar, I'll in the meantime relive what a great weekend away in Canberra we had last year when I ran #19.
We decided Canberra would be a good place to run a marathon and for a weekend away since we had done little more than use the city as a rest stop for other trips since we first moved here. It was also touted as a flat and fast race course, and while the flat part was pretty accurate, only the first half of the course was pretty fast for me. But I'm getting old, marathons seem like a lot more effort than they used to be, and well the end time isn't quite as important as it used to be. I actually don't even remember my exact time now a year later, which says that it's really not that important to me anymore, or it was really that bad that I just wiped it from my memory.
Aside from my 42.2 km run on Sunday, Emma got to run a 1 km kids dash during my run. There was gorgeous crisp autumn air the entire weekend, actual colour changing leaves, massive wide roads with plenty of parking and orderly streets. None of these things really exist in Sydney, but do in midwest America, which is why I realized I felt so at home in Canberra. After the couple hour drive Friday evening and late arrival we enjoyed a leisurely brunch Saturday morning outside of the National Library of Australia followed by an entire afternoon of fun for the kids at Questacon.
Emma was so excited to be at the National Library!
Brunch bliss
Her choice of face paint at the marathon expo gave me a fright!
So much fun for everyone at Questacon, reminded us so much of the Magic House back in St. Louis
Charley really had no hair a year ago!
Post marathon on Sunday we gorged ourselves at the incredible Patissez (while I was sadly reminded of my inability to consume much food after a run and let my kids enjoy the bulk of the sugar-loaded milkshakes). We also tried to Aussie-educate ourselves by visiting the Parliament House (aka The Capitol of Australia). Since they were not in session we could easily meander our way around most of the inside and outside of the building and even literally "roll down" the grassy lawns. It is known both for its interesting architecture and openness to the public. No required guided tour, booked appointment time, entry fee, and relatively minimal security.
I always love my "good-looking" running shots.
Yum!
Outside of Parliament House
The marble foyer
I don't think they were impressed in the House of Representatives Chamber
On the roof reminded me of the Louvre
Beautiful views all around of Canberra from the gardens
I think my husband needed a nap after his exhausting morning of solo parenting these three
I'm not sure if rolling down the lawn is a thing to do at the US Capitol... only in Australia.
There were so many more things we could have done with the kids in Canberra, its full of museums and history and could certainly warrant another trip in the future. However, it did feel like the most non-Australian city there could possibly be, no beach, no red dirt.
Looking back on our primary motivation for the trip to Canberra, I ran a great first half of the marathon, but would have loved to just have stopped and given up for the second half of the race. I'll give myself the excuse that I still had a baby not sleeping through the night, I had just walked a 60 km race with friends almost exactly a month earlier, so let's just say my training and prep was a little atypical. I swore off running another marathon a number of times while I was running, but now I'm sitting here anxiously wishing I could put another one on the calendar to train for. Hopefully one day, sooner rather than later, when this "new normal" becomes the "old normal," my body will still feel up for the challenge and I'll have my cheerleaders both to motivate me on race day and to keep me seeking this form of early morning me time training. And for now I'm going to keep holding out on finding some normal in 2020 and finding a way to run #20.
I don't have a dog, but I'll be walking my kids everyday.
We are down to 16 government allowed reasons to leave our home in the state of New South Wales. Evidently this is part of the Stage 3 restrictions and let's be honest, this is all starting to get pretty confusing (because as I'm writing I'm wondering was there a new announcement maybe today that I missed?). One thing I know for sure is I'm about to find every possible opportunity to exercise outside in the coming months (and if my kids are good I'll bring them too).
Thankfully we've been in this stage for around a week now and (I don't think) it has changed so I've had some time to get my head wrapped around what I'm probably allowed to do and what I might get fined for. And we should probably get used to it because it's looking like these restrictions are here to stay for around three months. Although every country seems to have a different model, a different approach, a slightly different experience playing out, only the test of time will tell us which way to contain and eliminate or slowly spread this virus was best. Maybe these restrictions will become more severe, maybe they will ease, we will wait and see.
So what are the 16 reasons we can leave home right now? Here you go...
Slowly the world is closing
Work (if you can't work remotely)
School
Shop for food or essentials
Seek medical care
Exercise
To avoid injury, illness or escape risk of harm
To deal with emergencies
Access childcare
Provide care or assistance to another
Attend a wedding (max 5 people) or funeral (max 10 people)
Move to a new residence
Donate blood
Undertake legal obligations
Access social services
Continue care arrangements for children who live between households
For ministers to provide pastoral care in a place of worship
And if we do leave home we are told, at most, we can meet with one other person from outside our family (socially distanced of course). So far, I don't think we've really broken the rules, at least not blatantly, but let's be honest I'm not entirely sure either, especially as the rules are slightly different from state to state, country to country.
So this past weekend, well knowing that such an outing might be restricted by next weekend, we went for a day outside to a beautiful spot 45 minutes north of Sydney called Bobbin Head in the Kui-ring-gai Chase National Park. We walked on some gorgeous trails, rode bikes in empty parking lots, threw a frisbee, and went fishing. We also set out the picnic rug for a few minutes to eat lunch, I don't think that was technically allowed, but aren't we allowed food outside while we exercise? Also, we were fishing for leisure, we weren't fishing to feed ourselves, so that too might have got us in trouble. And if we were in Queensland from the sounds of it we likely could have earned ourselves a fine by driving that far to exercise as it might have been deemed unnecessary. Evidently we can still golf here in New South Wales, but not in other states. See what I mean?
Over dinner recently we had a chat about how, just like the fires that Australia endured as we rang in the new decade, this pandemic is nothing new to the world. While still rare, frightening and overwhelming, the world has witnessed such things before. I started to say how every human has moments like this that they experience and remember forever either on a personal or greater shared community level. Emma you asked me about other big moments I remembered and my first thought was of course 9/11, then the Great Recession in the late 2000's, the Syrian refugee crisis, Gulf war, Oklahoma City Bombing, and the Challenger Explosion (but I was too young to actually remember).
But then it struck me that for the most part (aside from the recession really) these were moments in time events, and ones that I was largely removed from or relatively not impacted by. They still changed the world in ways that eventually trickled down to facets of my life, but I did not directly experience the actual events. So this pandemic is actually quite different. We are all impacted. We all either know someone who is sick, someone on the front lines, or we are trying to do our part by staying home. But in saying that, I also feel it important to acknowledge, that as for now, our family is not directly impacted. Our lives are changing and we are forced to abide by ever-evolving rules but currently we are just sitting in the wings as casual observers. We are waiting for the moment when we might get called in to play something more than the understudy (in whatever form that might take), and hoping we don't, but at the same time feeling completely useless if we don't. Our staying home still just doesn't compare to stories like Anne Frank.
Just a few months ago we started a brand new decade. That's big, not just a new year, but a new decade. Just like the start of every year for the past 7 or 8 I realized that many of my routines would be new and it would take time to adjust and make them my normal. We had just hit our stride in March. We made it through the record-breaking fire season and increased time indoors from the high levels of smoke pollution that lingered throughout Sydney for several months. Emma you started year 2, Morgan you started preschool, Charley you even started a day a week in childcare. I was looking forward to what this year would bring for me personally, hopeful I could strike a balance either with a new part time job, maybe starting my own business, or who knows what, but I was going to have time to actually think about it.
And now this, its only the beginning of April and I already don't know, will 2020 be cancelled? Is this socially isolated life all we will know? Will our vision decline from all this screen time, will zoom become the newest verb in our vocabulary, will all forms of travel be more or less banned for the rest of the year? We don't know how this will end or when it will end and that is no doubt the scariest part for most all of us. I'm not a sprinter, I'm a long distance girl, but even this is taking me a lot to wrap my head around. Run 42km, walk 100km, fine. Stay at home, don't travel, don't see your friends, don't go to work, school, anything if you can avoid it, for an indefinite period of time, I just don't know.
A friend passed along this beautiful song the other day called You Already Know and it gave me some peace. God knows and he has a plan, he sees us and he hears us, we can still call out to him and he will answer. While I see others going to incredible precautionary levels, I see the fear. No, I don't want to be sick, I want to be careful, I want to be smart, and I don't want to spread this disease like wildfire, but I don't want to live my life controlled by a virus that appears uncontrollable. Besides, I have three beautiful girls to spend all day every day with, and my life is pretty close to capacity just trying to break into this new normal routine that none of us saw coming when we started this year.
Simultaneous crafting, online exercising, video calling in one space minus one kid. This is our new normal.
Because after all, this was the year I was hoping to run my 20th marathon with, get this, other people. Silly me, 2020 sounded like a good year to do just that. So as likely options keep getting wiped from the calendar, I'll in the meantime relive what a great weekend away in Canberra we had last year when I ran #19.
We decided Canberra would be a good place to run a marathon and for a weekend away since we had done little more than use the city as a rest stop for other trips since we first moved here. It was also touted as a flat and fast race course, and while the flat part was pretty accurate, only the first half of the course was pretty fast for me. But I'm getting old, marathons seem like a lot more effort than they used to be, and well the end time isn't quite as important as it used to be. I actually don't even remember my exact time now a year later, which says that it's really not that important to me anymore, or it was really that bad that I just wiped it from my memory.
