One of my now very occasional
contributions to this blog.
The beginning
On 20th March I ran up Latrigg before
dinner, an exercise that I've indulged in dozens if not hundreds of times over
the past five years or so. I lingered on the top and looked at the view over
Keswick and towards the hills beyond and wondered how long it would be before I
was here again. Although we had quite a major job on at our place in Keswick we
had already decided to move back to Chester for the duration of what was going
to come. Two days later we were home and a day after that the "lockdown"
began.
Living
I'm sure it's different for everyone
but I think Jan and I don't have anything to complain about. We've been retired
well over a decade now and are used to spending time with each other. I went to
the supermarket for the first couple of weeks but as we are in a notional
"vulnerable" group we were able to get a more or less weekly delivery
after that so shopping is reduced to very occasional visits to the village shop
for anything we forget or run out of. I haven't driven a car for over three
weeks now except to run an engine up to temperature and move tyres to a
different place on the perimeter; I'm not sure that's really necessary these
days but the engineer in me still won't let go. We've slipped into an easy
existence, enjoying the simple things and getting round to a lot of jobs we
should have done years ago. The beautiful weather has helped of course, the
somewhat dreaded clearing of over thirty years worth of accumulated junk from
the loft will have to wait for the rainy times which will inevitably come
eventually. Plenty of activity on line in the evenings with friends or family.
The weeks seem to have flown by so far.
I've cut down the amount of both
mainstream news and social media that I absorb. Though there are inspiring
stories in both, I just got a bit fed up with the continual search for blame
and the number of press experts and armchair critics telling everyone what has
been done wrong and how exactly we should be living our lives. It seems to me
that we are where we are, everyone is doing their best, some heroically so,
very few have anything other than the best motives. More encouragement and less
criticism would be good.
I wasn't sure what to do about
exercise. Jan has never cared for going out alone so I resolved that we would
go for a walk four times a week. The footpaths around our village are all on
agricultural land with gates and stiles and occasional narrow chicane sections,
and our canal towpath is also narrow, so we have resorted in general to the
lanes, now almost completely free from traffic except the odd tractor or
delivery van. We haven't got bored with them yet and our outings normally cover
three or four miles. We meet people in the village and within maybe a half mile
perimeter but once beyond it's remarkably quiet. I feel for the city dwellers
forced to pick their way carefully through crowded parks. Folk around us all
seem well tuned in and some sort of local etiquette is evolving on
generally who crosses to the other side of the road and when in most
situations. We thought about driving the twenty minutes in either direction
which would get us to the countryside we are more used to exercising in but so
far have chosen not to. We're far from bored yet, and the word is that most of
the car parks that access places such as the Sandstone Trail and the Clwyds are
closed anyway.
Running
For my three days running I have
again stuck to the local lanes. Not a new experience but one I haven't really
engaged in for some years now, dealing with (a) asphalt, and (b) flat (a local
run round here rarely adds up to more that two or three hundred feet of ascent,
even if you work at it). But I'm conscious that unless I keep up some sort of
diligent activity, when we do get to some degree of release from the current
situation there is a real chance that I may not be able to pick up running
meaningfully again at all. Easy to start again from scratch when you're fifty,
less likely when heading towards the mid seventies.
The outings I have settled on and
pursued for the last three or four weeks now are two steady runs on Monday and
Friday at just within aerobic pace (MAF if you like but not as strictly
controlled). Monday is normally twelve miles and Friday gradually inching up
depending how I feel, last week's was something over fifteen, but I'll peg this
one back a bit every fourth week for recovery. For the past two or three years
I haven't done any faster stuff other than a fairly regular Saturday morning
Parkrun, so on Wednesday's I've gone back to a session that I used to do in the
past, a six mile loop into which I build a gradually increasing pyramid of
intervals at a bit faster than 5k pace. So far I'm up to 3,4,4,3 (all in
minutes, with a 3 minute jog between each); plenty of scope for improvement
here!
I pondered about how to deal with the
lack of hills. I admire those who have the patience and bloody-mindedness to
make continuous repetitive ascents of their house staircase, but it's not for
me, I have too low a boredom threshold. In the end I went back to a device that
I last used when I lived in the flatness of the Netherlands nearly twenty years
ago. I had thrown it away, so I built another - an 8" high
step. There are still some step videos around on the net if you look around a
bit, I settled on one that I had used in the past which gives a 45 minute
mostly aerobic workout with 620 feet of climb (I had to watch it through with
counter in hand to establish that figure!). So I do that on two of my
"non-running" days. On a third, I set a quiet metronome to establish
a rhythm, find a good TV programme to watch and simply step up and down for a
while. At current pace I can generate a thousand feet an hour, so last week's
session was an hour and a half for fifteen hundred feet.
So with three running days totalling
30-35 miles and three step days which added to the modest height gains on the
runs get into the 3000-3500ft area, I'm hoping that's enough to keep me
somewhere near in shape. I do miss the hills though, and I've had to buy a new
pair of road shoes - the first shoes I've bought that weren't on a substantial
discount for many years, justified on the grounds that no cash is currently
going on petrol!
What happens next?
There is a lot of speculation now
about "when the lockdown is released" but looked at logically I can't
see that we are in any different place now in terms of actually combatting the
Corona virus than when this all began. We have bought time and prevented the
fatalities from being higher, but risk of infection spread are exactly the
same. The game won't change until
(a) Sufficient numbers of the
population have had the virus to significantly lower the risk of others
catching it. This isn't going to happen anytime soon; the current measures, for
all the right reasons, are actually preventing this.
(b) A vaccine becomes available,
effective and in large quantities. Consensus of informed opinion seems to be
that this won't happen this year.
(c) Drugs are discovered that can
reduce the fatalities arising from serious infection to "acceptable"
levels. Information on this one is sparse, but the fact that no-one seems to be
championing it at present suggests that even if feasible it is some way
off.
Without one one of these, it seems to
me that any form of easing of restrictions will still involve social distancing
rules, maybe in addition to use of masks, etc when the various knowledgeable
authorities can agree on effectiveness and in what situations.
So I'm afraid a return to the world
as we knew it is some way off.
The future of events.
I'm sure any active runner will by
now have had their plans for this year completely disrupted. I was fortunate to
complete two races, the Brecon to Cardiff and the Millenium Way, and am
prepared to believe that they may be the only ones I will be able to look back
on for the year.
Events I was due to run already
confirmed as cancelled or postponed are Hardmoors 55 (March), Highland Fling
(April) and Lakeland 100 (July). I have several others up to the end of
August which I think will inevitably go the same way.
I'm going to stray into the area of
prediction now which is of course dangerous, but sometimes our own ideas are
all we have to work on to allow us to plan what we will do until whatever
happens happens. Here is how I think things MAY shake out:
1. In a few weeks time I think the
restrictions on what we can do will be eased. The economy will have to get back
into some sort of increased activity, but there will be rigid social distancing
attached. So I think our license to travel to and enjoy the outdoors will be
returned. But it will be policed and if abused will be removed again.
2. It is a real step up from allowing
people to enjoy an area while distancing themselves from others, to staging
events whose purpose is to bring people together to achieve a common goal.
3. However, the style of event and
overall numbers involved may have some bearing. Events like the Lakeland 50/100
which involves many hundreds of people camping in close proximity, travelling
on packed buses to a mass start then occupying trails which will be crowded for
several hours afterwards will not be feasible until social distancing measures
are finished, next year at the earliest. But you could maybe see lower-key
races involving much lower numbers in low population areas being more possible.
4. Even if some styles of event are
deemed possible, they will face the following difficulties:
(i) Sorting out what measures are
necessary to make them acceptably safe, and getting those agreed with
stakeholders will take some time, so I can't see anything going ahead until the
autumn at the very earliest.
(ii) Insurance for the organisers may
be impossible. They will not be able to guarantee that the duty of care
measures they put in place will prevent infection. Whether this will be got
round by some sort of specific disclaimer I wouldn't speculate.
(iii) Organisers will face two
competing lobbies of opinion. One group will argue that such events are
beneficial to the health of the competitors and the economy of the local area,
the other group that it is irresponsible to risk increased infection rates
("putting lives at risk") by staging events that bring people
together. You can see this debate becoming more public than is normal in
ultra-running circles.
Faced with these, it would be understandable
for potential organisers to stay out of the game until things become more
certain (if they can survive that long, remember that while some organisations
are competent and committed groups of amateurs, for others it is their
livelihood at stake).
Personally, I have mentally written
off the rest of 2020, and if anything does happen later in the year it will be
a welcome bonus.
Until then I think we just have to
stay as fit as we can and recognise that at times there are more important
things than going out to play in the hills.
Keep safe while you're running in
circles.
