Re-quote this on June 1, 2022 - set a calendar invite/reminder.
Today is June 1, 2020. We will have learned a lot about how the virus transmits by 2022... which is the earliest you will be able to run the Chicago Marathon. Unfortunately for anybody trying to ruin a fast time, it was best for the marathon to be scheduled on a likely hot day. Additionally, you did not get picked in the new lottery system which has drastically reduced entries. It’s okay, you didn’t want to run an entire marathon in the mandatory mask which has been developed to reduce community spread.
By this time you’re probably sick of being told how close we’ve come over and over to getting a vaccine and various effective treatments. Politicians and their rhetoric have come and gone, but the virus still persists - maybe it’s endemic, in fact. Even those of us still in denial have fading hopes it will be eradicated and instead hope our containment methods are effective.
There has been so much propaganda war over the past two years that you’re not even sure what is e-reality anymore. Is this post even real or was it modified a day ago due to a foreign state breaching various forum servers to change recorded history? Either way, they’ve won because now you’re mentally exhausted with trying to discern truth from all of the information overload coming from state sponsored posts; you’re now having to rely on your memory to cross check this post, but honestly it all blurs together at this point. Wait, only state actors use bbcode bold tags, right? Whatever, it doesn’t matter. You just want the world IT superpowers to stop bickering, putting us simple forum-goers in the middle. At least you have given up on the large city marathon at this point and are crossing your fingers the war stays cold. Here in 2020, I’m crossing mine, and here’s to hoping the escalated information war is still cold (probably for now but tensions are flaring), the virus is at the least contained so that we can all race together (even if it is limited to 1000 participants ) (probably not), and that we have politicians across the world who have risen to the occasion to collaborate instead of just compete (probably pockets in some countries, others will have to learn the hard way). Let’s also hope bioinformation warfare hasn’t become a thing (governments across the world are probably already ramping up funding and building facilities, sorry), and let’s all pray that the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation continues doing good work (probably). Goodbye from a semi-pesimist/realist in 2020 and I hope you are enjoying your training.