A few silver linings have arisen from 2020’s middle finger to Earth’s denizens, especially those of us who live in the country leading the charge in failing to adapt to mitigate COVID-19’s assault on our civilization. Go USA! Anyhow… So, specifically, the biggest gain has been the recapturing of segments of lost time.
Not needing to be in the office, I don’t squander time commuting or navigating related trappings. I can also make better use of the occasional flickers of workday downtime (e.g., it’s not like I necessarily made great use of five-minute gaps in-between meetings). These minutes stitched together provide ample swaths of freedom to focus on various hobbies and increase my cardio and general fitness training. For example, I have workouts that take a couple of minutes fit nicely into the various gaps throughout a workday – farewell tennis elbow, at least that’s the plan. What was once a thirty-to-forty-five-minute process, lunch has become retrieving food from the fridge that’s eaten as I work. Or, put another way, lunchtime involves a run, and then the sustenance bit need not overtake the day, unless that’s the plan.
Time spent at the climbing gym has taken a serious hit since hanging out in an enclosed space with other people, all of us breathing heavily as we exert ourselves, is no longer a wise way to spend three or four days a week. Visits typically lasted about three hours, which means a minimum of ten hours repopulate each week, mostly during weeknights. One or two nights can still see some form of exercise, such as HIIT, and then solo gaming, catching up with friends, reading, writing, or dabbling in some other pursuit (e.g., learning to cobble together videos) occupies the hours.
All in all, 2020 has become a year of learning, relaxing, exercising, and focusing on leisure alongside supporting friends and delighting in life. Staying fit has become a forefront goal; I want to retain my shape for climbing as well as keep myself as healthy as feasible so that the odds of surviving a possible COVID-19 infection remain as favorable as feasible. Asthma and allergies along with not being in my twenties or thirties aren’t going to aid me in battling the disease. Given that nebulizer treatments aren’t unknown events maintaining pulmonary health is key. Thus, I’m the lightest I’ve been during the past twenty years and am keen to keep this outcome alive.
I wouldn’t desire this fate, and this entire pandemic situation is terrible, but at least good can be wrung from it. Were someone offer me the opportunity to arise from a coma to discover Hillary Clinton is president and no novel coronavirus had overtaken our world, then, sure, let’s get the rehab going. But, outside of such an unlikely twisting of reality, whenever anything happens options arise and trying to squeeze out positive outcomes goal forever worth chasing.