The pain in my chest and lungs was not excruciating but it was very bothersome because of the anxiety it was causing me. Earlier in the day I had taken my first run since what I thought was recovering fully from COVID-19. I had felt this tightness before while in the throes of COVID and I was wondering if I had pushed myself to fast. Even worse, I was wondering if a permanent effect of the virus would be that I could not run anymore. There were reports that people who suffered from COVID were having long-term effects. “What if I couldn’t run anymore?” I thought to myself. The thought terrified me. My life has been a whirl of physical activity and if that was taken away from me I would also lose part of my identity.
Luckily, that was not the case and slowly yet steadily I got
back to normal and even to the point where I logging more miles than
normal. In fact running was the one
thing that has really helped me get through the pandemic so far. With this pandemic, almost every normal
activity is different and things I did without a second thought now seem
complicated. My regular life routine,
literally changed overnight. I no longer
commuted every day to work. My work
became completely remote and the time I spent in person with people vanished
and became virtual. Large family and
other social gatherings disappeared. The
holidays came and went with very little fanfare. I have not hugged, kissed, or even extended a
hand for a handshake to family and friends with the exception of my wife.
Even shopping is complicated. I feel like such a rebel walking the wrong
way down the cereal aisle in the supermarket.
However, my running routines have not changed with the
exception that they are more consistent and a little longer courtesy of working
from home and eliminating my 90 minute commute to work. I was always a solo runner so my runs were
always practices of social distancing. The
morning run that clears my head and gets my body ready for the day has not
changed except that I appreciate it much more now. In a world in which I have
very little control, if any, on the events that surround my life I still have
control over my running routine. It is nice to have that little bit of control
in a world that seems out of control.
I am not sure how other runners feel at this time. I look at various running websites and social
media sites and I know that the one thing that they all miss are the various
races that we sign up for every year.
Sometimes those races give us motivations to train and push
ourselves. Maybe some runners have cut
back because they have no race in front of them but not me. I am training harder than ever before. That is because I no longer taking running,
fitness or good health for granted. I am
not training for a race but for life with activity. I also know that at age sixty-one being able
to run long distances is a blessing that I do not want to waste.
That is not to say I don’t miss my trail races, I do, and in fact when we had a short opening for larger outdoor events I did five races in three months. These were no 5ks either, the first I did was a 50k ultramarathon, followed by a series of half marathons and one ten miler. I could not truly say I was back until I finished a long race. I love the race scene and find it so addictive that I seemed to do at least one a month. Yet if the world of racing stopped (Which it has at times) I would still run.
When the pandemic first started, I ran a little extra to
hopefully prevent COVID-19 or at least make me asymptomatic. That obviously did
not work but I do believe my fitness helped me recover more fully. I run now
not just to prove I am back but with a new purpose. I am training for a life
after the pandemic. Yet we are still in a pandemic and that new life will have
to wait. It’s funny that as I run during this pandemic the only time it really
does not feel like a pandemic is when I put one foot in another. For that reason and that reason alone, I need
running to get through this pandemic. I wonder if other runners feel the same?
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