I’m fortunate that my number one hobby these days is mostly compatible with Covid restrictions.

(I’m also fortunate that I don’t live in, say, Ireland, where there has been a rule in place across the entire country that you may not venture more than FIVE KILOMETERS from your home for the last several months.  Insane, especially when you consider that Ireland, which bears many similarities to Western Washington, has a significantly higher death rate per capita.)

Mask guidelines are perhaps the biggest challenge.  Here in WA, you are supposed to wear a mask if you cannot maintain six feet of distance outdoors.  Normally, I barely even notice wearing a mask.  It doesn’t restrict my breathing in any way.  However, at an easy jog, it becomes annoying.  At a moderate effort, I feel decidedly oxygen-limited and uncomfortable, and at a hard effort or race pace, I feel like I’m suffocating.  I have always been a huffer and puffer, so I don’t know if I find it harder than some others, as I do see runners with masks fairly regularly.  In any case, I’ve mostly abandoned the scenic lakeside trail I used to run on, and have expanded my horizons and found less popular, wider trails to run on.   When it’s raining heavily and in the 30s, I return to my old favorite trail and enjoy it in solitude.

Races are interesting.  Currently, up to 600 people may race in a day.  However, the specifics of HOW the DOH guidelines are interpreted vary from race organizer to race organizer.

1.) Some race organizers say they must start the slowest people first.  Others start the fastest people first.  Others say they are supposed to purposefully spread people of similar speed across the start times.

2.) Some race organizers say you must wear a mask before and after the race – masks only, no gaiters allowed!  Another race organizer requires all runners to wear a gaiter around their neck throughout the race that they can pull up over their face as needed.  (I bought a gaiter so I could run races put on by this group.)

3.) Some race organizers say day of race packet pickup is not allowed due to Covid.  Others say ONLY day-of-race packet pickup is allowed due to Covid.

Most races here are run since Covid are run by outfits that run eight or more races a year.  Independent races have mostly disappeared.  This makes sense, because it’s become a lot more complicated to put on a race, and there’s a lot of up-front work that needs to be done only once, making it much harder to put on your FIRST race.  I’m planning to run a 5K this weekend put on by an independent group, and I’m a little nervous about how it’ll go as they don’t seem as organized as the professionals.

I’m grateful WA state is having races.  Many states aren’t.  I see runners on Instagram traveling to Florida and Texas and Arizona to race when they can’t race in their home states.  It seems to me to make more sense to set out guidelines for safe racing, as WA has done, than to have your runners getting on planes and racing in states that have lax guidelines.  (Mid-size races in TX and FL are nearly back to normal at this point, though very large races are still not happening.