Further

At 375 km, I have run further in May than in any previous month. Unlike in the midst of winter, it does not take much to head out around the lake so the kilometres have been adding up fast enough for me to now be 112 km ahead of pace with regard to my annual goal of running 3,700 km in 2020.

Last night, the Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Kennedy towards the International Space Station as a reminder of a future that is still within our reach. However, back on the ground, deep racial divides have again erupted in violence following yet another incident of extreme police brutality. For every such incident, it becomes harder and harder to see how America will be able to heal and what it will take to bring an end to the hyper-polarization of the Trumpocene. It is fascinating to think that 70 years ago, the American Political Science Association wrote about the need for more ideologically distinct parties as one third of Americans could not see any ideological differences between the two parties (for more on that, see this excellent review in The New Republic).

As for the Covid-19 situation, countries that have been through extended periods of lockdown are now opening up, only to find the number of new cases rise again. While I still believe that Sweden’s non-lockdown approach has been the better and more sustainable one, behavioural fatigue is clearly setting in even here as more and more people are travelling and moving around in society.

With both Boston and Berlin Marathon being cancelled, I am beginning to accept that Tallinn Marathon is probably not going to happen either (though there is nothing on the website as of yet). With this in mind, I just registered for Bergslagsleden Ultra 48k on the 19th of September, meaning that I may potentially end up with one 42k+ race every weekend for the first three weeks of September...