This post cannot be avoided any longer, and the truth is that I have been avoiding writing about exercise during the lockdown because it is a very personal issue for me. Anyone who knows me, knows how integral exercise is to who I am. In many ways, I am defined by my exercise. I am an endurance athlete. I may not be a very good or fast one, but that's what I do. I run far distances and I ride multi-day stage races. Exercise is my go-to. When I'm stressed, I exercise. When I'm sad, I exercise. Feeling fat? Exercise. I exercise with my friends when I want to socialise (I've made most of my very best friends through sport) and alone if I need space. I often joke that if I could prescribe only one medication to my patients, it would be exercise. Except it's not really a joke- sorry for you if you're my patient! So naturally, when I heard mutterings about the lockdown, my first panic-stricken thoughts revolved around exercise.
We live in an estate and initially I had heard that we would be allowed to run alone around the estate, but this ruling was soon revoked to fall in line with the law of the country. At about which time my heart rate went up to 150 beats-per-minute and I developed sweaty palms. We don't have a treadmill or stationary bike at home so I literally had no means of exercising except for...running around my garden or body-weight training. I did manage to dash to Sportsman's Warehouse just before they closed the day before lockdown and buy a skipping rope.
The backyard marathons started a couple of days after lockdown. I saw someone had run 42 km in circles around their garden and then someone did 56km and then everyone seemed to get caught up in the hype and people started doing 100 milers around their gardens (which in many cases was literally thousands of loops). I tried. I really did, but I just couldn't bring myself to run much more than 3 km (3.3km to be exact). I just found absolutely no pleasure in it at all. It was about then that the negative commentary in my mind started. It went something like this (and I am hugely embarrassed to admit this in public):
- Seriously, what is wrong with these people? Why is exercise so important to them that they would run around their gardens thousands of times?
-These people are completely obsessed and quite obviously have nothing else important in their lives.
-Why are people obsessing about running around their gardens when I am stressing about REAL problems like how our ICU's are going to cope?
-They are all going to get injured from running unnaturally and then message me to try and sort out their injuries
I'm not usually a mean or vindictive type of person and these are not the type of thoughts that I would normally think, but I was so caught up in my self-righteous vitriol that it took me a while to realise that something else was going on. It was only after a good long session of self-reflection (luckily I'm not short of time at the moment) on my deck with a cup of tea that I managed to figure out why I was feeling this irrational anger towards all those very motivated and disciplined runners out there. The bottom line is that I'm not used to failing and the fact that I couldn't get my mind around running around my house hundreds of times while other people could, felt very much like a failure to me. The me of 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago, would probably have stopped right there and I would have forced myself to go and run 100 miles around my house just to prove..what? Nothing, really. I exercise because I enjoy it and I really didn't enjoy running in circles around my house. In fact, I hated it. Which is absolutely okay. What was really incredible was that as soon as I allowed myself that grace, all I felt for those people who had managed to find the discipline to run 10, 20, 30...160km around their houses, was huge admiration.
I think that what is important is that you exercise for the right reason FOR YOU. If it's about pushing yourself for 30 hours, well done. If it's about what you post on Strava, that's cool too. And if it's about letting go for a while and having some fun, that's also fine. Sometimes the lesson isn't what you expect it to be; sometimes it's not about pushing harder but about letting go.
Don't get me wrong, though. I will be going for a very, very long run the moment lockdown ends...
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