I attempted to coach runners this year and bonked out. Worse than last year. I feel terrible about it, primarily because I talked my aforementioned running friend into coaching with me and here I am, not coaching. I felt mostly good when I went out there, some old reserve of fitness still available to me. The "shuffle," as some of the women I coached into being coaches themselves called the steady slow jog I slip into on longer intervals, was still there.
But the stress: rearranging my (admittedly smaller, now) life around three group runs, making sure the timing is in my Garmin, can't take walking breaks because I'm the Coach. Throw in: Stephen's work hours are now later than mine, so is it too hot for the toddler to come with me? I'd've worried about getting hills in while pushing a stroller but one of the other coaches said she wasn't doing hills on weekdays, it was too damn hot. And add: covid cases go up when it gets too hot to be outside for any length of time, and you can't mask on a run in this weather.
There were only ever 2 or 3 runners in my assigned pace this year. Most of the usual suspects in that pace group dropped back into the run/walk pace. People are shifting into different seasons of life, moving away (or trying to), or are changed permanently by covid. Nothing feels the same, because it isn't.
I still feel bad, though. I feel like I left my buddy hanging: talked him into coaching, didn't coach. Referred him to my last job, and as of last week am no longer there.
I am 3 for 3 on starting a job and the tech stack changes to one I've never worked with. It's becoming my specialty and I'm not mad about it.
Onboarding into a fully-remote situation after 2.5 years working from home has been interesting. I'm so accustomed to one coworker living in 12 South and the rest of the scrum team being on the east side. Now the nearest colleague is in Atlanta.
Another big change is being shown a slide on day one during an onboarding presentation and that slide is a map of every state where there's already a nexus, so if you're looking to move, here's where you can.
I've been thinking about moving north for years, even though now we know there's really not anywhere in the lower 48 that isn't going to be an oven in summer. In 2020 I'd idly look at real estate in Duluth, a place I've never been but seemed to be a good place to ride out the heat death of the holocene. Then last summer, in the wild stumbled-upon genealogy story I hope to actually share about here soon, I learned both of my grandmothers' maternal grandmothers had lived near the Duluth-adjacent Leech Lake reservation, so maybe it was something epigenetic.
At any rate, we've had extremely good fortune thus far on the childcare front and we're not planning to go anywhere until the toddler is old enough for public school. Even then, I'd be a little wistful about leaving a house within a short walk of said school.
I also needed a root canal, 23 months after having a crown put on the same tooth postpartum. Fun times! Thankfully, the dulled thinking, clock-watching for the next dose of ibuprofen, and extra attempts to sleep coincided with an engineering-wide hackweek when I'd already self-selected into a Python project. I have thoughts about the whole experience too, but this has run long enough.
(PS: I almost ported this blog from AstroJS to Hugo in frustration with breaking changes, but then I would have had to theme it, so I dug in and fixed the issues. Software is terrible.)