Gone viral

Thank you to concerned blog followers who have reached out to wonder what was going on with Covid at our house since last week’s post. In short? Not much. And, a lot. At the same time. If that makes any sense. I’m learning a lot about contact tracing, quarantines, isolations and all that stuff. Without going into great detail? Let’s just say it’s an “inexact science” and leave it at that. OK. So. Where are we at? Heidi (my wife) and James (our youngest son), Covid veterans both, have been released from quarantine/isolation, as of today. This doesn’t exactly mean they’re gonna plan a kegger anytime soon, you know? Heidi went to Rite Aid. That was quite an outing. For her next trick, she might venture to the grocery store. Wow! Such excitement! But seriously, folks …

Heidi’s symptoms have abated to simple, yet profound, fatigue. This will probably linger for a while. She sleeps a lot, gets tired easily. For a soon-to-be 53-year-old woman … in the continuum of Covid … we’ll take it. James’ symptoms were mild all along and he seems to be doing fine. Also sleeping a lot, and not exactly looking to do a lot outside of strumming his guitar mindlessly, planning his next woodworking projects and attempting to do his homework. We still have a lot of snow on the ground here; not a lot we can be doing outside. Again, we’ll take it. Our daughter Natalie? On Sunday morning, she announced that she woke up to a “scratchy throat.” Uh-oh. Scratchy throat became sore throat became I can’t sleep my throat hurts a lot became headache became tired and lethargic. Off we go to urgent care for their drive-thru testing on Monday morning. The ladies there? They know me! Oh. You again? Yup. Me again. Rapid test = negative. This is good news. Until it’s not. Two days later, yesterday, still with symptoms … PCR test = positive. That makes three active Covid cases in one house in a little more than one week. This virus is impressive!

The Old Man typing this post? As of this writing, I am not presenting with symptoms – unless you count worrying about my family and fretting over the dogs – and I have not tested positive. I visited my friends at urgent care again – we had another pleasant reunion this morning – and the rapid test today was negative. Based on earlier this week, we know that this information is about as valuable as a twice-used paper coffee cup from Stewart’s. We await the PCR results, and we have another expedited, 24-hour-turnaround PCR test scheduled for Monday morning at the Hospital Formerly Known As St. Francis, across from Marist.

Which leads us to the next topic, a bit more relevant to the title of this blog (Marist Running). Alert readers might recall that next Friday, March 5 (eight days from now, #yikes), in Atlantic City, we (Marist women’s and men’s XC) will be participating in the MAAC Winter XC Championships at Seaview golf course down there. The bus departure for both teams is Thursday morning, March 4, approximately 9:30 a.m. If all goes well with the Old Man typing this post – all goes well = no symptoms and two negative PCR test results – the first time I will see our team in about four months will be … on the bus, on the way to Atlantic City, for a conference championship like no other. My latest, endless quarantine ends on midnight on Wednesday, March 3. If I feel OK and the test results back that up, I could be free to go play coach, in person, for a few days. Hopefully, I'll remember how to operate a stopwatch. Hopefully, I'll be able to FIND a stopwatch.

Think about the bizarre uniqueness of this possible confluence of random occurrences. We have been the only team in the MAAC that is not practicing and/or competing actively in the sport of cross country for the month of February, in preparation for this March 5 championship. To emphasize: All other teams in the MAAC have been practicing, and in most cases even racing, for the past several weeks. Your Running Red Foxes have not. In fact! For those keeping score at home (and I know you are!), our last official practice on campus, as a team, was Sunday, November 1. Again, for you math majors out there, that’s two days before Election Day. That’s a long time ago. Getting back to the present: When we are permitted to return for team activities, next Monday, March 1, I will still be in what seems like an endless patch of quarantine, as noted above. So, the few practices we will have as a team, leading up to the championship, will be in a coach-less atmosphere, at least on the men’s side. No pun-spewing, coffee-swilling wiseass in desperate need of grooming will be in the vicinity of practice next week. Fortunately for the women and any other practices which he can get to, Coach Chuck will be around to run the show. Thank goodness for that!

On Friday, March 5, the women’s championship race goes off at 11 a.m. The men’s race goes off at 12 noon. The course consists of a 2km loop on the golf course down there – women do three laps, men do four laps. The Running Red Foxes will be there, God willing, with pretty much no formal team preparation and definitely no in-person, formal guidance from the director of the program. To paraphrase the title of one of my favorite books, this whole deal is a drunkard’s walk of randomness (check out the book “The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives,” by Leonard Mlodinow). Virus restrictions. Virus cases. Q-tips stuck up our noses. Zoom calls. Texts. More Zooms. More texts. Calls and texts from contact tracers. More Zooms. More texts. More Q-tips. Hey man. We’re Marist Running. This is what we do. If we can Be There? We’ll Be Better.