I personally have been through a roller-coaster, both emotionally and in my running, over the last few months.  

As many of you know, I injured my knee at the end of the Autumn season last year, and so hobbled through much of the winter.  By February I was starting to log a few miles and was just getting to the point where 3 miles was conceivable, which meant that the Shamrock Shuffle was plausible. Then we all met COVID-19 and life took an abrupt turn.

The Upper Valley Running Club is the core of my social life, and from the beginning of the pandemic it was clear to me we were talking six months or more before life returned to "normal".  I was not certain a club could survive such a long hibernation. I was quite convinced I would go stare crazy.  Just when the world was opening up for spring it was like somebody announced that due to a clerical error Winter, and cabin fever, was going to be extended into the foreseeable future. Spring and Summer were on hold.

But it is up again, down again. Out with the shuffle, in with . . . a new challenge.

Okay, it was March, life goes on and we will adapt.  I will post Tuesday Night Track work outs, even if I have no idea if anyone is doing them.   And we will add the Lone Runner Challenge and post something on Strava for every weekend.  And I don't really know anything about Zoom, but we will create "Zoom Pub Night", and "UVRC Zoom Cafe".  

Things even got better in that funny way the world works. My son has been working for an NGO in Africa and was evacuated, so came to live with us for a few months.  When he arrived at the end of March I was doing 4-5 miles a day, but he was starting from scratch.  For a few days I could outrun a twenty-something!

April settled in as it does in New England.  Rainy days with brief sun showers, and clear days with a bit of rainshine. My mileage grew and my pace settled down, and maybe a race-less season would be good for my knee's recovery. My son's condition improved faster than mine, and we were soon logging 10+ mile runs through the hills and dales of the upper valley.

In May I discovered that "Virtual Races" are not really races at all.  They are activities, without being events.  And without competition are they really races?  This is where my project "Remote Racer" started.  In a virtual race people run and then compare their times afterwards.  But if you could compare running in real time - that could be interesting.  

I am a physicist who has always worked the data and computer side of a problem, and so was able to cobble together an app in a short time which did the most basic task required for a remote racer as I envisioned it.  But this is how we get sucked down a rabbit hole. With two weeks of work the app was 80% successful. Can the rest be that hard?

As a data task it has been challenging.  What do you do if your GPS has a large uncertainty?  Was that a bad data point, or did the racer just go around a sharp corner?  And in the Upper Valley there are many cellular network dead spots.  What if some one drops out of a race?  Or closes the app too early?  Personally it has helped my running.  Not only do I race (or at least do an up-tempo run) every Thursday, but I have also log a lot of miles just testing new algorithms. Also I have connected with people who are far away. (People who have raced will recognized some of these names). 

One of the most consistent remote runners is Lillian Rose, who is my niece and lives in Texas where she will start High School and cross country in the fall. She has cut over a minute off her mile time since her first race.  Brendan is someone I raced against in High School, and was on my team in College.  He still lives in Upstate New York and when I look at his Strava runs I see he is in a neighborhood where I trained in 1982-3! Robin is now in Brooklyn and running in Prospect Park.  There is another niece near Boston who runs. And there is a nephew in Texas, who had to stop mid race to carry his exhausted dog home.

And now? Am I ready to run with other people?  I know the virus is as deadly as ever, but this Winter of our Discontent has gone on far too long.  

And anyways, in August I jump to a new age group and then  .  .  . life moves forward.