Running in Lockdown
Running has been somewhat of a saviour for me during lockdown, and I’m certain it has been for many others as well. Going for a daily jog has wonderful for combating the stress and monotony of working from home, not to mention the challenges and anxieties of just living through such a global crisis. For me, transitioning to working from home brought its own challenges, and a morning run was a great way to set myself up the day and clear my head before working, and is definitely something I’ll keep doing.
The importance of running during lockdown was reflected in the numbers, with apps such as Asics Runkeeper and Couch to 5K reporting around a doubling of usage over various parts of the lockdown in comparison to last year1,2, despite the cancellation of races as well as the ever-popular Parkrun. It’s great to see such a boom in running, hopefully it will continue long after we’re through the worst of the pandemic, and form lifelong habits to improve peoples physical and mental health.
The cancellation of races, especially big ones such as the London Marathon, has been hugely disappointing, not to mention a massive hit for charities in the way of loss of income. I’ve experienced this myself with the cancellation of two planned races: the Robin Hood Half (which would have been tomorrow!) and the Leicester Half, both of which I would’ve been running for Born Free Foundation. There seemed to be a glimmer of hope for the return of races in recent weeks, but the latest reinstatement of lockdown measures has put an end to that. I hope races can return safely soon, after completing my first half marathon a month before lockdown started I was looking forward to getting a few more under my belt this Autumn.
Birth of the Blog
This blog is definitely a product of the lockdown, with the increase in running alongside the need for a project and desire to gain some new skills; writing in a less formal way than scientific writing, as well as running a website, which I’m really enjoying so far (I was way too excited to learn how to add my Strava feed to the side bar).
Reading is one of my favourite hobbies, and lockdown gave me a lot of time to read. Many of the books I’ve read recently are about running, by authors such as Adharanand Finn as well as athletes like Scott Jurek, and I plan to do a brief review of my favourite running books in a future post (in time for Christmas, to get your gift ideas sorted!). Reading about other people’s experiences of running, as well as veganism in the case of Scott Jurek, is another big part of what inspired me to start writing about my own.
My plan for this is to have regular posts every Saturday, maybe a midweek one every now and then, so check back again next week!
Great post. I wholeheartedly agree that running was a saviour for a number of people throughout lockdown and whatever this ambiguous period is called currently. Instead of counting the days, miles were clocked and counted .