When a Sprint Becomes a Marathon
When this COVID pandemic started, few of us suspected how long and extensive the impact would be. How many of you expected in February that we would still be facing this virus in August? Instead of a sprint, we found ourselves running a marathon. So, I thought I would look into the secrets of successful marathon runners to see what we might learn as we slog through this epidemic. Here’s what I learned:
Start slow
For many of us, the pandemic arrived in our lives with a crash, either jobs ending suddenly, school children home, illness or loss if someone you love was affected. For those in medical hot spots, overwhelm and exhaustion became your new normal.
Now that it's clear we are running a marathon instead of a sprint, we can learn how to pace ourselves, to rest whenever an opportunity presents itself. Invest in good shoes
In this time of lost jobs and financial stress, buying new shoes doesn’t sound too practical! So, let’s consider what this advice is really about. Where ever you find yourself, working from home, for instance, or home schooling, knowing that this is a marathon, not a sprint, what do you really need to make that work for you? If you look around and engage your family members, you can often re-arrange the furniture or get a new smaller item and use what you already have to make your situation work better. Remember this is a long run.
Create structure
For so many of us, the external structures we counted on to shape our days evaporated overnight. Take a moment and think through the days you used to have. Go through the day and write out what you did when, noting when you shifted from one activity to another. Each time you move from one activity to another, that creates the texture of your days. Of the shifts in your day, which did you enjoy most? You can recreate these at home. Rather than rush out to grab a coffee, once the kids are settled, take the time to brew yourself a nice cup of coffee. Schedule an online meeting at the same time each morning to get yourself into work mode. You may discover ways of shifting between activities that work even better for you and that you can take back to work, once this marathon reaches a finish line.
Set reasonable goals
Create small successes you can build on. Take big projects and chunk them down into small, single task pieces. Focus on the step at hand. Make yourself a check list and plan a little way to celebrate for each item you check off the list.
Find friends
The isolation in this pandemic is wearing. Just like a marathon, with friends cheering you on and pit stops at strategic points on the route, it’s important to have scheduled visits with friends to pull you along the route. Schedule times to meet with friends in what ever way you can, share chores like grocery shopping, take hikes (with masks), watch a movie together on zoom with one of you sharing the movie on her screen so you can see each other on the side and enjoy it together.
Learn when to push forward and when to pull back
Experienced marathoners know when it is essential to sprint, even when their legs are burning, and when to draft the runner in front of them to catch their breath. In the face of so much change so quickly, you may have panicked and started sprinting without realizing it. Save those high energy bursts for truly critical moments when holding back would result in a serious consequence. Reset your baseline and settle in for the long run.
Enjoy the scenery
Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. Have a look around. When you look for small beautiful moments in your day, you are much more likely to find them. It could be simply hearing a bird sing on your window sill. These small moments enrich a long journey and can lift your mood in an instant if you let them.
Wishing you good health and courage!
