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We live in a brave new world, don’t we just though. The ground constantly shifting under our dancing feet. Like sands through the hourglass, these are the pronouns of our time. The World Surf League, ever bold, has not been daunted by the landscape, however, and has leaned full in to inclusion, challenging norms, being best. From various social media allying to dizzying greenwashing to slapping LGBTQ+ flags on jerseys, it has been at the forefront of enlightened sporting.

And it was in this spirit, this morning, that I decided to transition into a biathlete.

I had wanted to go on a run, you see, a three mile lap at 7:30ish a mile. That is not a fast speed, oh I know, but I am still in recovery after suffering a ballet injury in Copenhagen earlier this summer. In any case, I had wanted to go on a run and had surfed yesterday but the wife wanted to surf today too. There has been an almost fun run of swell, here, or almost fun compared to the weeks of flatness that I couldn’t surf anyway because of the aforementioned ballet injury.

After a brief moment’s thought, I agreed that we should surf so suited up and did. The water is chilly, even though it is midsummer southern Southern California so I wore a short-armed, in black. Wife a short-leg, long-arm, also in black. We paddled out the front, into a throng, and each managed to pick off a few runners.

I almost did a floater.

Afterwards, exhilarated, I still felt the urge to run and, World Surf League inspiring, did. I changed into my running shorts, slipped on my Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Next% and was off, headphones playing a mix of German house.

Officially a biathlete.

My mile times were slower than hoped for but my spirit was buoyed by doing the right thing.

Are you, too, inspired?

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Brace yourself for a worldview change.

The early days of the Coronavirus pandemic are now, officially, in the rearview which gives scientists and academics the necessary space to examine data from a cooly impersonal angle. And one of the more shocking discoveries was revealed in a study just published out of Old Dominion University which just so happens to be in Norfolk, Virginia.

For it is there that Lindsay Usher, associate professor of park, recreation and tourism studies wondered how we were feeling when our beaches were shuttered for our own protection.

Usher, a surfer herself, conducted in-depth interviews with almost 30 surfer, 15 men, 14 women from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, scattered all over the globe.

Stupefyingly she found:

Participants who could not surf for multiple weeks or had difficulty accessing surf due to stay-at-home orders reported feeling restless, depressed and bored. Usher noted: “An important thing to understand is that for many people, surfing is a way of life and even a part of their identity. Taking that away was devastating for many during such a stressful time.” Despite these feelings, most expressed understanding for the situation since so little was known about the novel coronavirus at the time.

Conversely, and equally unanticipated, was the reaction of who were allowed to surf, especially those who lived in heavily touristed surf destinations:

Several participants said it was nice not having tourists, but recognized it was also bad for the local economy. In Latin America, one participant described how a surf community had gone back to fishing to make it through the pandemic, but another nearby community had relied on surfing for so long it did not have a back-up means of income. When the access bridges to the Outer Banks were closed for two months and surfing was restricted to locals only, a participant noted the “vibe” in the water was friendly because everyone knew one another.

In conclusion:

“This will likely not be the last pandemic we have to deal with. Hopefully, we can take the lessons learned and apply them in the future, achieving a better balance between safety and access to recreation, given the importance of it in people’s lives.”

Back to the beach shuttering, though. Did you live in a place where that happened?

It felt dumb in real time.

It feels dumber now.