Today I did a Thing. A Thing to Celebrate.
I put my money where my (blogging) mouth is: I signed up for the 2024 Pittsburgh Half Marathon. Anyone who knows me knows I am enough of a thrify lady (ok, cheapskate) that once I plunk my credit card down, there is no going back.
See, the fine folks at the Pittsburgh Marathon decided to celebrate Global Running Day with a 24-hour sale on 2024 entry. And, my thrifty vibes aren't going to turn down a discount, not when I already committed to running the race anyway!
So, I'm in -- YAYYYY!!!
What I am NOT doing to celebrate, however, is running.
Not because I don't want to -- I really do! -- but because it's not so safe. I'm currently in Toronto, and the air quality from the wildfires raging across the country in Nova Scotia, in Ontario, in Quebec has made the air quality so bad that schoolkids can't go to recess outside. I'm here right now because Tiny Overlord and I decided to join Mr. Every-Body-Run on one of his conferences, just to check out the city. Overall, it's been a cool place, and even though the air was hazy yesterday, I still felt OK taking a ferry jaunt to the city's islands with Tiny Overlord.
But that's no artfully blurring filter: that's just the hazy view one gets of the iconic skyline. Today, I'd planned on a quick walk-run there, as its boardwalk means it is a place my light travel stroller could manage for a few speed bursts -- but when I stepped outside, I could actually smell the smoke.
Nope. No run.
Out came the serious masks, previously only thought of as indoor due to COVID. Tiny Overlord fought being limited in her park time, and I felt a sinking awfulness: what world are we leaving this kiddo and her peers? This is going to be our new normal.
Even if I had been at home, I couldn't risk running outside; the smoky haze has drifted well into the DMV, even home to my beloved Pittsburgh.
I remember how many critics panned the climate-change disaster satire Don't Look Up when it came out, often calling it "heavy-handed." But today while the sky makes my eyes and throat burn, while millions won't be able to have the simple joy of a run to protect their lungs, I still see clogged streets of traffic, the veggies and cheese I bought for lunch were wrapped in multiple sheaths of plastic, and every A/C unit seems pumped up high enough to call for a sweater inside.
And, when I want to get to that race in Pittsburgh? I won't have a reliable public transport option to make it between two reasonably close major cities.
Does not seem very "heavy-handed" to me at all. Just realistic. Like the scientist characters in the film being upstaged by a celebrity romance, while the skies in major cities in the U.S. are smoggy, smoky ruins, too many front pages are still showing the distractions of a wannabe president fighting Mickey Mouse or a fued between wealthy golf tournaments ... or the like.
I do not know exactly where I go from here. I just know that as humans who run, when we see so very visibly how our actions as humans are making it unsafe for us to stay humans who run, we all better start doing something.
