Keeping up the routine, and swimming against a current of pessimism

I got back in the boat yesterday morning after several days off, and it felt good to paddle.  The morning was partly sunny, and as the day went on it became completely sunny with a high in the low 70s Fahrenheit.  We're still having a lot of clouds and rain here--the extended forecast shows chances of rain pretty much every day--but I think the sunny-to-cloudy ratio is slowly ticking upward.

Today I started up a new strength routine.  I'd been doing the old one for some five weeks, so it was time for a change.  I've said for a long time that strength work is my least favorite part of training, but I've always done it because I think it does benefit my racing, and I also believe that it's good for later-life wellness to maintain some muscle tone.  With no races to do anytime soon I've been doing strength work two times a week rather than the customary three.

Will there be any races to do at all this year?  That's a very good question.  There's just one event left on my schedule between now and the end of summer: the Gorge Downwind Championships on the Columbia River in July.  Carter Johnson, the director of that event, has stated publicly that there are no plans at this time to cancel or postpone the event.  "Four months is a while; we are staying positive," he says.

He's right--mid-July is a while off, and there's no reason to make any drastic decisions right now.  Unfortunately, I have a feeling it might not be a long enough while off.  A lot of things will have to fall neatly into place for the event to occur as scheduled.  With the airlines having grounded significant portions of their fleets and furloughed legions of employees, those who rely on air travel to get there, especially the international athletes, could face a major challenge.  Meanwhile, the event has grown to what it is through the cooperation and camaraderie of large groups of people, and that very concept has now fallen decidedly out of favor.  Even if the situation has turned around by mid-July, will people really feel comfortable piling into the shuttle vans together, or gathering together in the beer garden?

If the event does in fact go forward, I have a feeling the field of participants will be quite a bit smaller.  The air travel concerns cited above are one reason, but an even more compelling reason is the simple fact that a lot of people's lives have been turned upside down over the last several weeks.  Many athletes might lack the financial resources they'd counted on to make the trip.  Others might be working overtime to make up for the lost work time we've seen this spring.  And some might be preoccupied mourning loved ones who succumbed to COVID-19.

A drop in participation raises another concern: the issue of accommodations.  If I end up going, but the people I'm supposed to be sharing a rental house with don't make the trip, then I'll have to either bear a greater expense for the house or find some other lodging for myself.

Believe me, I hope this event happens--it's something I look forward to all year.  I apologize for the glass-half-empty outlook here, but I'm seeing some obstacles that simply can't be ignored.  The race organizers plan to meet on June 1 to re-evaluate the circumstances and make firmer decisions about what to do.  That's two months from now, and I can only hope that by then we've turned a major corner in this global pandemic.


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