2020 has been a year…

I like to spend the time before New Years, looking back at the year and all the great things that happened. This year has definitely not been the best of years, and there isn’t a whole lot of great things that happened and I didn’t travel too far outside of my little one bedroom apartment.

I looked back at my 2019 post and it was full of so many fun travel memories and I ended the post saying “here’s to a travel filled 2020”. Well little did I know that travel would consist mostly of anywhere my feet could take me in Boston. Although I ended up having to cancel 9 of my trips for this year, I am grateful that I was able to get in two trips before March, one of which was to my happy place, Disney World.

It’s really hard to believe that on February 23rd, just a few short weeks before everything changed for the year, I was running with almost 20,000 other people in one of the busiest places in the world. The thought of being around 20,000 other people right now pretty much sends me into a panic attack and at the same time I’m longing for the day I can safely be around that many people again.

And just a month before that I had returned from a weekend trip to Baton Rouge, LA and came down with an awful sinus infection, probably one of the worst I have ever had. I was so sick, I was actually looking up the symptoms of coronavirus online since I had heard about it being pretty bad half the world away in China. The odd thing about that flight home from Baton Rouge is there was someone on the plane with a mask on and I was freaking out wondering if they had the flue and would I catch it even if they had the mask on, the mask pretty much sent me into “I’m probably going to get sick” mode. Here we are 11 months later and it’s the people without masks that send me into panic mode! I can literally see myself wearing a mask on a plane for years to come after this is all over.

Alot of my travels the past few years has been to run half marathons. I’ve been trying to run 5 different states a year in hopes of finishing all 50 states by the end of 2023 before I turn 50 in March 2024.

Coronavirus may have changed the timeline or the number of races I run each year the next few years, but I am happy that I was able to get states 31 (Louisiana in January, check out my blog post here) and 32 (socially distanced race in New Hampshire in October, check out my blog post here to read more on this race) done in 2020.

I started the year with a pretty bad case of hip bursitis and ended up hobbling my way thru that race in Louisiana and only ended up with 27 miles run in January. I didn’t think I would make my 2020 goal of running 800 miles. But one of the positives of 2020 was less going on in life and more time to run, so as of 12/27/20, I have surpassed my 800 miles for the year. And in addition to that goal while running a virtual race over zoom with my local running studio, I ran my fastest 5K ever, under 34 minutes. My running achievements were definitely the bright spot of 2020.

I’m very lucky to live in an area of the country where there are a lot of places to visit just a short drive away. All the other states in New England are about an hour drive from Boston and luckily this summer the cases were low in all these states so travel within New England was possible.

It was really nice to be able to get up to New Hampshire and check out some bucket list items that I may not have gotten to if not for the inability to travel in 2020. We always seem to overlook the things nearby figuring we will always have time to get there. If you are interested in reading more, check out the blogs below:

Omni Mount Washington Resort

Mount Washington

More to do in the White Mountains

Since being outside was the safest option this year, there was a lot of exploring in my city of Boston. Whether it was running or walking, my feet took me all over the city.

One of my favorite places in the city is the Public Garden, I spent a lot of post run mornings here enjoying my coffee and a bagel. You can learn more about the Boston Public Garden in my post here

I also did a couple of audio walking tours that helped me satisfy my need for doing something touristy. It was a great way to learn more about the things I have walked by for years. Check out my posts on the two audio tours I did below:

Freedom Trail

Beacon Hill

As hard as it was to miss out on travel this year, it wasn’t nearly as hard as missing time with loved ones. I have definitely been extra cautious and have spent most of my time alone. But all of my loved ones are alive and healthy and for that reason alone, I don’t for a minute regret my decision to stay alone to keep all of my family and friends safe. I am at the point that even though I’m an introvert at heart, I am really, really missing my family and friends and craving the in person interaction.

We certainly don’t know what 2021 will bring, 2020 definitely taught us that just about anything can happen. With the healthcare workers starting to get vaccines, it definitely looks more likely that we will be able to salvage some of this year. I for one will be in line to get that vaccine the minute they say the general public can get it after the essential workers and high risk individuals have already received their vaccines.

Here’s hoping my post at the end of 2021 is full of happy times with family and friends, travel adventures further from home and more normalcy than 2020. I wish you all a Healthy and Happy New Year, we will get through this and even if it doesn’t seem like it, it will eventually be better than 2020, I have all my fingers and toes crossed!