I’m lucky to have a lot of amazing people in my corner and so the first thing that was presented to me was to take this as a positive. Think of this as an uninterrupted marathon cycle. I went through basically all but four weeks of it and the race itself. Now I’ve got all that fitness under my belt and I won’t be as sharp and tuned but when you look at someone’s true running potential, it’s not what do you think that can do in 12 weeks or what I can do in six months. Rather, you start to look really big picture. Personally, the reason I’ve been able to run well like I am right now is because I’ve been fortunate to have four uninterrupted training cycles, where I haven’t gotten injured and I’ve been doing the right things. All that fitness is cumulative. You can do the same thing with your fitness. Sure, we all missed out on our key races and that is such a bummer but use this as a chance to be like ‘Cool. I peaked up there. I’m going to pull back a little bit now.’ Use this as a chance to refine your aerobic base. Easy running, which a lot of the times we skip, is a good idea…You can get in some amazing mileage at this point. You’ve got time to double – if you’re someone who responds well to that. You’ve got time to sleep, recover and prioritize that since all the other shit isn’t in the way. That’s always something I try to do: Whenever a challenge comes toward you, how do you reframe it as a positive. Everything that you’re too busy to do in normal training, well you’re in a brand new cycle right now where you get to essentially work like a professional athlete.

Kyle Merber put this great bit up on Twitter, where he wrote, “Never has my lifestyle been more exposed than having my wife work from home. Guess I will go pretend to stretch again?”

The fact that you get to really prioritize: getting in your run, eating right (from cooking at home), taking a nap (how often do we get to do that?).

Because of the fact that we’re all running alone, this is a chance to build your own mental fortitude. A lot of the time, we can lean on a group. I love training in a group and having people to work through hard stuff definitely makes it easier. So now, chin up, buttercup. It’s time to do this on your own for a little bit and that’s totally OK. You’re going to come out better for it on the other side.

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Chris Chavez and Matthew Luke Meyer get together over Skype to recap the biggest news of March + touch base on the state of their own life and running amid the pandemic.

As races are canceled or postponed, the Olympics were the last major domino to fall. On March 24, the decision was officially made by the International Olympic Committee and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe to move the Summer Games to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. We react to the news, explain why it was the best decision and break down what it means for the sport of track and field ahead. Plus, we share what’s the biggest thing that we were looking forward to in the lost 2020 outdoor track and field campaign.

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