I think most of us got caught flat-footed on this one. Some public health officials and epidemiologists saw this coming back in January but that was far away for most us. I remember the SARs and MERs epidemics in the early 2000s, and those were in distant lands. Probably contracted H1N1 in 2009 (doctors just said stay at home and ride it out), and was in bed for 3 days with that one.
The closure of the world indoor championships in China was the the first sign for runners and track fans this winter, but that made sense because the venue in Nanjing was just a few hours from Wuhan, the epicenter. Like the virus itself, the events just seemed to unravel gradually at first with outbreaks in far away lands. I thought this would be like SARs, severe, but regionally limited.
Back home, I think the US Olympic Trials on Leap Day was the highlight of the running world for the USA in 2020, and who knows maybe one of the worldwide highlights for the entire year. While everyone was talking about a possibly canceled or postponed Olympics, it was just speculation. The Olympics are just too big to shut down. Right? That now seems like a year ago, not just six weeks!
Within the first two weeks of March the reality became apparent. However, looking back now, mid-March was probably several weeks too late to implement widespread social distancing measures. All politics aside, most of us did not comprehend the gravity of the situation until the virus was on our doorsteps and into our homes and hospitals.
For those who are ill, I just wish a swift and safe recovery, although I know that will not be the case for many thousands. For those deeply economically affected, let’s just hope that this a blip for a couple of months and by summer we can start putting everything back together, while developing a vaccine or treatment in time before another wave hits.
Training
The last time I talked about training was back in February, and I was just making inroads on the build-up, getting to four or five days of running a week at 4-5 miles a pop. On my birthday in late February, I did a 5K to test baseline fitness. Up to that point I had only run three 20+ mile weeks, and had not done any real workouts. I eked out a sub 20 (believe a personal worst by 45 seconds or so) and felt gassed but otherwise pretty decent. No pain. Huge gain!
Since then I’ve managed to build gradually, adding just a couple miles a week. Now with four consecutive 40+ mile weeks it feels like I’m starting to establish a base, and now feel ready to bump that up to 50 miles.
In March I also started adding in some light workouts, starting out with short sets of hill reps (like 5X 30 seconds was my first effort) and adding a little each week (did 4X 2 minutes during the last week of the month). I also have done a bit of tempo running and fartlek to build some endurance and speed. Like the weekly mileage, long runs have increased only incrementally, with 1:04 on the morning of the Olympic Trials marathon, to 1:33 yesterday. Saturday’s run was pretty solid, averaging under 7:50 over the last 8.5 miles while covering some moderately hilly terrain at 5,600′ elevation.
So to tell the truth, while still lacking a full “base” I do have a solid foundation and can build on that.
Stepping Forward: Running Strong in a Pandemic
Each of us will have our own approach over the next few months. I have seen some friends cut their work by 50% because they want to make sure their immunity is up. Others are setting weekly mileage PRs, while chasing Strava segments, and running weekly time trials or virtual challenges.
Most of us are somewhere in-between. In those early days (less than a month ago) there were a bunch of online articles and podcasts advising that training hard can lead to lowered immunity, not something you want to incur during a pandemic. Some of this is theoretical and the science is not conclusive, but for 25 or 30 years (with XC skiing in particular), coaches and physiologists have been saying that your immune system drops for several hours after a hard effort of longer duration (say 2-3 hours). In addition, stacking several consecutive weeks of high-level training can also undermine your immunity.
So I think some common sense should prevail and for most of us this can be a good time to get back to basics with maintenance training that includes some quality and endurance but not so much that we are pushing our physiological limits. Plus with health care systems potentially stressed (especially in those parts of the country with high infection rates), this is not a good time to court an injury.
So for the meantime, I’m planning to stick to under 80% of my maximum and average levels of training, compared to recent years (these were at about 75 miles a week maximum, 60 miles a week on average). When things open up–and they will–I should be able to jump back into a full training load within a month or month and a half.
Now is a good time to run for health and joy–and maybe work on a few things that are weak spots. For me I just like getting out on the trails and open space (often early before things get crowded with runners, cyclists, and walkers) is the highlight of my day. However, I have really lost my sprint/middle distance gears over the past decade. A 20 second 100 m feels quite fast now, and holding that for 800 m or a full mile seems exceptionally daunting. So this summer I’m going to work on that 400 m to mile speed, maybe for 6-8 weeks depending on when or if things open up for racing. In runner-speak, for health and ‘economy’ just like the rest of the world.
rrunnin234 