The New Normal

Monday, March 16th

Anxiety took a hold of me most of the night, and for the few moments that I slept, I was continuously bombarded by nightmares. As is always the case when I have a restless night, when my alarm goes off I'm finally deep asleep. I am tempted to go back to sleep but I know that gym closures can't be too far off so I push through it - my body is so accustomed to morning workouts that when I miss it I feel lethargic throughout the day. So much to the chagrin of Travis, who is perpetuated of being someplace so public, I go.

His fears have settled themselves on me though, and for the duration of the workout I avoid my fellow crossfitters to the best of my ability - which is easy to do. I'm glad I went though - later today all gyms in city are ordered to be shutdown. My last WOD (Workout Of the Day) for some time, at least in a formal setting.

Today was the first day that essentially everyone was told to start working remotely, so nearly everybody on work is getting adjusted to a remote work-life. By the very nature of my job, much of what I and my colleagues can do is accomplish-able remotely, so today was actually quite busy.

Otherwise an uneventful day... outside of Travis rearranging the furniture in the living room - twice. And of course his happy hour conference calls with his work colleagues...

Happy Hour Travis!

Tuesday, March 17th

So of course as soon as crossfit is closed I sleep in. Ugh. We were up late, watching television - getting started on a new show - WestWorld (let the binges begin!). I told myself that I would go for a run around lunch, but of course that didn't happen. Once my work day gets started it's difficult to hold it up.

In the early afternoon our neighbor, Rachel, knocked on our door to inform us that the building had announced that they were going to close our little gym down until the virus passes, per order of the governor. We immediately sprung into action, grabbing two sets of dumbbells and a barbell along with some weights to bring back to the apartment. We of course thoroughly wiped the equipment down and set it aside for future use. If we are gonna die, we better look damn good doing it!

On that related note, as the work day wound down I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and go for a run along in the Hudson River Park. Apparently everyone else in the city was thinking the same thing. As anyone who has been in this park before, it's a long 100 meter wide section of land running up most of the west side of the Manhattan, with a walking path along the waterfront, a bike path next to the West Side Highway and bits of lawn and garden separating the two, at least for the first 6 or 7 miles of it. Being a conscientious runner, I chose the walking path for most of my run, dodging families, lovers and errant kids all the way. On the return, halfway back, I said screw it, and jogged over the much less populous bike path, breaking my own rule of following the foot path vs wheeled path rules.

Generally speaking it seems as though the risk with an activity like running is low, it still made me nervous being around so many people. Is this the future of the world? Fear of crowds?