Dear Virtual Buddies,
It’s been 13 days since my son and I went into self-isolation following his father contracting the virus - we think. Despite being a GP, he wasn’t tested. Go figure. He seems fine now, back at work, where he has been chomping at the bit to be. NHS workers are a breed apart in a crisis and are fully deserving of all the praise heaped on their shoulders. I sincerely hope we remember them when this has passed.
I am lucky enough to live on a private estate, surrounded by fields and rural lanes. I still have a job. And I have my son. Self-isolation is hardly hardship for us. I can only imagine the situation for those suffering from overcrowding, living in flats without outdoor space, homelessness, domestic abuse, poverty.
Despite knowing all this, perhaps because of it, I have been wobbling myself. My sister-in-law in America has been diagnosed with the virus. She and my brother have both been made redundant without severance packages from their companies or as yet, the US government and the job market in their fields (education, in her case, and something ridiculously hard to understand in his) has stagnated. Their health insurance runs out next week. Hopefully they can get a mortgage holiday but they are facing the very real possibility that they will lose their home. And now she is ill, with two daughters at home and a husband who is taking moments to cry behind closed doors.
I have been having a good cry at times myself. And that’s ok, actually.
There is lots of laughter, too, and things to be incredibly grateful for. My son is excellent company. So easy to be around, funny, good-humoured, relaxed, able to entertain himself. Sod the homework. At some point we will perhaps need some routines, but we don’t at the moment. Apart from Joe Wicks ‘The Body Coach’ at 9am every morning. We have bounced around being bunnies, been sumo wrestlers doing squats and Spider-Men zapping enemies as we lunge. We have collapsed onto the floor and compared our aching muscles the next day.
Our daily walk has been a wonderful thing. We sometimes hold hands, and chat about life. Or climb a tree - carefully. We were panthers lying on a branch the other day. We notice things and stop to look at them.
Not having been able to go to the shops, our neighbours have been kind enough to give us bits here and there. We were given a chicken the other day! On the same day our vegetable box order arrived. We were both dribbling by the time it was cooked and my son said it felt like Christmas. He had been dancing around the kitchen two days earlier when another neighbour had given us half a loaf of bread and said his chocolate spread sandwich was the best thing he had ever tasted. My previously food-fussy child also gobbled up the dahl and flatbreads we made together this week. I think we are both learning to be more thankful and thoughtful about food.
Running has taken a back step as on day 1 of self-isolation my left knee ‘went’. It looked swollen so I iced it night and day for several days and strapped it up. Walking in a straight line was kind of okay, but if I put any sort of twist into it whilst weight bearing, it was agony.
So my last ‘proper’ run was on 16 March. I tried to do my bit for the Vitality World Cup, doing a limping 3K on 21 March. The knee tweaked and twinged a bit, so it seemed best to rest a while longer.
So today dawned, Sunday 29. My son is at his father’s house for the weekend, as everyone is symptomless or appears to have recovered. I found myself scrolling through the HU posts, which as they do often do (thank you), kindled that little spark of motivation. At the same time, my eye was caught by a News article advising joggers to give dog-walkers more room in these contagious times. I found myself cheered by the descriptions of heavy-breathing joggers ‘bursting past unsuspecting walkers in an unhygienic flurry of panting and spitting... clearing the nasal passages with a so-called “snot rocket”.’ Now, I do hope I have never launched a ‘snot rocket’ at anything other than a tissue, and I am not a spitter... but I can certainly identify with the mental image of a jogger in an unhygienic flurry, panting, and heavy breathing. It actually felt quite reassuring to know that there is tribe of joggers I belong to. It was time to rejoin them - whilst giving the walkers an extremely wide berth, of course.
I left the house with no expectations. No route in mind, or distance, just a see-how-it-feels slow run. The wind was sharp and cold, and thankfully behind me - it felt as if I was being lifted, and pushed along. I plodded out of the gates, along a rural lane. At the end of the lane I turned right, then left, up a road I have never run along before. I was as far from home as I had ever run, and was still running away. I felt liberated. Blossom swirled and surrounded me... and then I realised it was snow, or the gentlest hail, quite magical. I plodded on, turning a corner toward home, still feeling wonderful... uphill, straight into the wind. It was pretty hard going. I kept my head down and thought about running as a metaphor for life, telling myself that this was one of the tough moments, it will pass, it was okay to stop, okay to keep going. I slowed down rather than stop but honestly, it felt like I was on a treadmill for a bit. If you had stuck a couple of poles on my hand they wouldn’t have looked amiss - this resembled hill-walking more than running. Eventually, I crested the hill... into a full-blown snowstorm. The gentle snow had turned into driving shards of ice, stinging my skin. In less than a minute, I was soaked through from head to toe. I couldn’t feel my legs and neck, they were frozen. I hadn’t dressed for this. I felt frightened for a moment - knocking on doors isn’t exactly in vogue at the moment - there was no option but to dig in and just keep going... and going... and going...
Stay safe out there, folks x
Post Xmas run
A “Thank goodness for running” run 🏃♀️ 😊
How do Canadians and Scandinavians manage?
