Items

• 
  2020-12-01

  Carpark Run

  To return to New Zealand in late 2020 I had to complete 14 days of hotel quarantine. Luckily, my hotel had a fenced off area of the carpark that we were able to use for exercise for an hour each day. This strava activity shows a run I did around the very small carpark (one of six during the two weeks), which involved running in my mask and staying a few meters from the other people in the space. Without these bursts of activity, two weeks in a hotel room would have been much less bearable.
• 2020-07-13

  Running to Have a Feeling of Escaping Pandemic

  With no long commute time to and from school, running became something I did often. I would go to the park and look at the lake after my run to see the sunset. I got to appreciate being outside more and getting fresh air. To feel the breeze by my sides as I ran. was relieving.
• 
  2021-10-18

  Looking Back to Look Forward and Adapting to Overcome

  This screenshot shows an Instagram post from St. Mary's University. The screenshot is in regards to the University's annual marathon for the neighborhood, depicting an in-person event with evidence of masks and other restrictions/changes due to COVID-19. Seeing as the event is back to being held in person, it has both clear similarities and clear differences in respect to the years before, further proving the fact that the pandemic is ongoing and continued adaptation is necessary before we will be able to overcome.
• 
  2020-03-01

  Increase of Outdoor Participants since the Pandemic's Onset

  Since the start of the pandemic, I've begun to both run and hike when I get the chance. After talking with people who have done the same since before the pandemic, they've noted how there is absolutely an increase of people outdoors. For me, it's a great way to escape and improve mental health, and I think it's worth noting how many are trying to find ways to improve themselves and keep going through various ways during such a tough time.
• 
  2021-07-23

  First Race in a Pandemic World

  Terrified, I put on my shoes and walked over to the canyon. I’m always nervous before a race - where will I place? What if I can’t finish? It’s adrenaline talking. This time, it was different. For the first time since early 2020, I was competing in a race, outside, with other people. When I signed up, the case count was the lowest it had been since the original shut down. I was nervous, but excited. Then Delta exploded. As the numbers climbed, I tried running with a mask that week. Two days before the race, I made it 3 miles and had to take it off. This was the Hot and Hilly 10K I was prepping for. It’s over 90 degrees and the course is all hills. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do the mask the whole time. I also knew the course had narrow parts, wide enough for only one runner. What happened if I got in a group? Was being outside enough to dissipate the virus, like current advice suggests? Or is Delta more potent? And is there a difference between standing outside unmasked and running full speed unmasked in a group of other people roughly and heavily drawing air in and out? As I waited for the gun, I wore my mask. I was the only one and that didn’t bother me. In fact, I was a little self conscious that I would be judged but I think everyone was just focused on the trail. When the race began, there was a natural small bottleneck. I left my mask on. About a mile in, I had to take it off. Luckily, the crowd had thinned. Since I am not an elite runner, I wasn’t doing the 7 minute miles of the head of the pack. On the flip, I also am not slow. I was able to find a sweet spot where I could see the front of the pack in the distance, but was far enough ahead of the average runners that I was not in a crowd. Overall, it was amazing to be racing again. I love competition. For over a year, I ran only on the treadmill. There was part of me that wondered if my ability have disappeared during the quarantine. I came in 4th place in my division and am beyond excited with that placement. I also was relieved knowing I was done with the crowds for the day. I spent two weeks secretly nervous I contracted COVID and am happy to report that the vaccine seems to have worked for me. I have another race scheduled for October and am already feeling nervous. Our hospitalization rate has shot to nearly 500 and the ICU is two away from 100. Will my next race being outdoors be enough to protect my family, especially my two unvaccinated kids at home? Will my vaccine even still be effective by October? My second shot will have been administered seven months prior at that point.
• 
  2021-03-22

  #JOTPYLesson from wanderlust_wilsons

  wanderlust_wilsons With all this extra time...I pushed myself to get back into running and biking 🚲🏃🏼 #JOTPYlesson
• 
  2021-01-22

  Night Sprints

  We have a balance beam upstairs. Since quarantine, we’ve added a trampoline and a tumble trak. All the years of vowing to have my daughter only due gymnastics at the gym has ended because she hasn’t set foot in the gym since March 2020. Even a few months ago, we were talking about having her return in the fall, but with the spike that started in October, there was no way. I want to support her the best I can, because she is passionate about her sport. Even though she is never going to be an Olympian or collegiate gymnast, she does well at our local and state meets and continuing to practice everyday (even on the days she complains) gives her that light she needs at the end of the tunnel. The knowledge that when this ends, she can return to the world of competitive gymnastics and all her friends on her team is one of the things that keeps her going. But I’m not a gymnastics coach. Until quarantine, I didn’t know what half the skills were. And we have no bars, and no vault. But there is one thing I can do - run. I figure the practice videos, (thanks Paul Hamm and Amanda Borden), the twice a week live zoom practices (thank you Kazio Acrobatics & Gymnastics, who, though not being my daughter’s gym and being 400 miles away, graciously extended their online classes to anyone in the country when this all began), and the at home training schedule of conditioning and skills her gym sent in March takes care of the floor and the beam. Bars is a lost cause, I hope some muscle memory remains for her. But the vault, which is her highest scoring event, is powered by running. I love running, and her coach used to tell me that gymnasts notoriously hate running, but it is a skill that really helps with vaulting. I figured I may not be able to do a back handspring, but I can teach my kid to run. So three times a week, I make her run. She is NOT a fan of the mile on the treadmill, but she seems to genuinely enjoy sprinting. On Friday, she was bummed because it got dark before she could make it out to sprint. So to make it fun, we figured we’d just sprint in the dark with lights. Was I secretly trying to train her to hold a baton? Maybe. Or maybe I’m just trying to keep hope alive for the kid. She’s 10, and before Covid, the longest stretches she has had from the gym is two weeks, and that is only when we go on vacation. So she basically has lived at that gym since the summer before she was 3. If she wants to continue competing, I will do anything I can to keep those muscles in shape so she can return. And if I end up training a new running partner in the process, what a win.
• 2021-01-19

  Procedures

  The worst procedure is social distancing. Social distancing at the start of the pandemic was a pain not ever being able to see my friends sucked. The other procedure is masked nobody like wearing mask especially for sports, when your running and panting and have that feeling of will they yell at me if I take the mask off. In conclusions these procedures hit hard.
• 
  2020-03-19

  Facing Quarantine, Canadians Want to Exercise

  This article shares one running businesses's increase in sales during lockdown as many Canadians returned or started running. People needed a way to still exercise for not only their physical but mental health, and running became the most popular workout for its socially distanced nature.
• 
  2020

  COVID-19 and its Effect on Physical Activity

  Before the outbreak began I was a three season athlete, training for Cross Country and Track. I ran every day and pushed myself on every workout as a distance runner. Then COVID-19 hit and the country went on lockdown. It was the end of my senior year, and I would be missing my final spring tack season. When it first started I tried to continue to train and do track workouts, but it wasn't the same doing them alone. I didn't have my teammates and friends to motivate and push me through the difficult parts of runs. It became extremely hard to train on my own, and I started to feel myself losing fitness. When the spring season was officially canceled I lost all of my motivation to continue. I started running recreationally, and not every day anymore. Before, I was considering trying out for my college team, but with events canceled and the increased difficulty of running alone, I couldn't keep myself in top racing condition. It is now towards the end of my first semester in college, and while I am still running, I still wonder if i will ever find the motivation to train hard and compete again.
• 
  09/18/2020

  Annie Schaller Oral History, 2020/09/18

  Annie, a university student in Boston, shares her perspective about how the COVID-19 pandemic was handled both when it began to take hold in March and now, as a student who returned to campus with hybrid classes. She also discusses how it affected her living situations, her experience with the Canadian response to COVID-19, and compares her situation to that of her brother's, who also attends university.
• 
  2020-02-14

  The End to my High School Track Career

  It was Valentines Day this year and I just got out of school and was prepped for my last race for my high school track season indoors. I was shocked that my coach gave my teammates and I the opportunity to run at Reggie one last time as we were barely qualified to run the 4x800. Distance running wasn’t something that I could describe as being experienced in however I was deeply invested in the sport as my diet, my routine and how I functioned daily was a mere resultant of it being in my life. At the time I knew a little about COVID seeing how it began to affect New York the most and how Massachusetts has seen a couple sightings of it as well starting to see some cases arise in the Boston area and throughout the state in general. Once my team got to Boston, the meet shortly started and I knew that I had a couple hours to chill around and get myself into the mindset of running well and quickly in my event. I finished my homework and I proceeded to look around the center with my friends just chatting and laughing like normal teenagers would do to pass the time. I got to see one of my best friends beat his personal best in the 1000 meter by large chunks of seconds and I knew that this would be the start of a positive day in the realm of Tewksbury running. My other best friend was able to run under 10 minutes in the 2 mile as he was qualified to get a medal for beating out the last Billerica kid that was in his way(in Track, there was some tension between my town and Billerica due to the proximity of the towns and the competition that they had). After bolstering enough energy to yell at them, I got my opportunity to run. Even though my race was short lived and I was put in a negative mindset for how poor I ran the race and wasn’t happy with my time, I was able to goof off and hype up my other teammates who absolutely killed it in their races. The sad part of it all was how I told myself that in spring I would be able to crush my current personal best in the 800 meter with ease by training. Too bad I wasn’t informed then that my highschool career for track ended there. In April, I reached out to the coach of Suffolk University to talk about my passion for the sport and how I wanted to continue my journey in improving my ability to race hard. Once I heard back from him and got the “ok”, I was pumped and excited because now I know that I can train my heart out for a sport that I love and see myself grow slowly over time. Some of the positives though were short lived as it hit me like a truck when I found out that I had posterior tibial tendonitis in my left ankle. At first glance, an injury such as this seems measly small and could be healed with proper assistance due to icing and stretching but this is my second time getting this type of tendonitis in the same ankle and it took me a little over two months to heal before running again. An added wound to this scar was the fact that I couldn’t cross train in some sort of practice area where I normally can be injured with having the comfort of other individuals surrounding me to forget that I ever got injured in the first place. Running by yourself is a mental obstacle for runners during the pandemic as they need to adapt to now mainly listening to their own footsteps. Being injured at home left me with the image that my teammates are progressing through the summer making the best of this situation and improving as distance runners while I had to chill at home and maybe substitute my daily run for a little more strength. A constant seventy days of that took a toll out of me as that was really the one excuse I can tell my parents to let me get out of the house for a bit. During quarantine and my time off, all I wanted was to goof off again with my friends as we question certain people who may be looking at us funny when we run or decide to run in the trails with nearly getting ourselves hurt. The copious amount of games of spikeball after a practice and the dinners right after runs were drilling right through my mind as the months of May through early July hit. Running is a great stress reliever for me and with the addition of being around people who adore the sport as much as myself, it feels like a second home that I could be myself and be able to progress well in. It made me look back on this Valentines Day and repeat to myself that I took some things for granted which were my passion for the sport in the atmosphere of having other people who love it as much as me and the time spent in general.
• 2020-04-03

  My running journey

  A month or so into quarantine, when the restlessness of isolation really began to set in, my friends and I decided to begin a challenge-- we would all run for at least 30 minutes every day for eight weeks, increasing our times every week and trying to beat our own and each other's paces. We were all looking for ways to keep ourselves busy and figured it'd be a good opportunity to stay healthy and sane in quarantine. Our running challenge also ended up being a nice way for us all to remain close, which was difficult without seeing each other every day.
• 
  2020-04-17

  Life In Isolation: The Coronavirus... Katlin Robinson

  A virtual exhibition by the Evansville Museum of Art, History and Science
• 
  05/13/2020

  Sam Hauke Oral History, 2020/05/13

  Sam Hauke, a high school senior, initially learned about covid 19 from online memes and jokes, then saw it come to the US and started to take it more seriously. Sam then talks about online school experience and how there is almost no live interaction with the teachers and that they just watch videos and this isn’t the best way to learn. Sam stays connected with friends via online games and zoom meetups. He also describes the challenge of having to seek another job as his usual summer jobs were pool related and the pools are all closed. Sam describes that a positive of the pandemic for him has been that it has brought his family closer and that other people have been spending more time in nature. Sam then talks about how he gets most of his information about covid from one of his friends and from advertisements and commercials on social media. Lastly, Sam describes how he feels he took for granted hanging out with friends and will spend lots of time with them when the pandemic is over.
• 
  2020-04-21

  Plague Journal, Day 39: Dreaming in CoronaWorld

  I'm keeping a Covid-19 journal. Here's the latest entry, describing our family's new routines; weird dreams; my laundromat reopening; presidential flailing; and the death of a friend's mother.
• 
  2020-06-29

  Virtual Racing

  As a runner, a personal loss for me was my racing season. Though I’m not an elite runner, competitive running is a very important part of my life. In April, I discovered a virtual 19K, which I entered and completed, and thought the coronavirus medal was an interesting artifact of this experience. In May, as racially motivated murders became part of the public consciousness, I was happy to see one of the organizations I race with (Rock It Racing) was hosting a virtual “Rock it for Justice” race. No awards were given, participants were asked to wear black while running and all donations (including from purchasing shirts) were given to the Equal Justice Initiative. I signed myself and my 3rd grader up, and it was a great conversation starter for talking about issues of race inequity and incarceration with my daughter. On a lighter note, the AP Read (for scoring AP exams) was done entirely virtually this year. A “lazy marathon” was held for Readers who ran, biked, or swam certain distances during the 9 day read. It took me 2 days to hit 26.2 miles!
• 
  2020-05-28

  Social Distancing Marathon

  Now that all races have been canceled, I have been participating in social distance marathons. I have completed one so far. Virtual Marathons such as this are helping people like me stay active.
• 
  2020-05-26

  Social Distancing Half Marathon

  I was supposed to attend the Bend Half Marathon last April in Oregon, until the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the event. The Bend Half Marathon decided to host a virtual half marathon. It sent me a Social Distance Edition Half Marathon run bib. After I submitted my run results, the marathon mailed me a wooden medal.
• 
  2020-05-01

  Staying Active During the Pandemic

  Ever since quarantine begins, I’m sure that each of us has developed a new hobby, doing something that we never thought we would enjoy doing. For me it’s running. I never enjoyed running but I decided to give it a try since I had nothing better to do. I’ve noticed a lot of people in my neighborhood who I rarely saw leaving the comfort of their homes started walking and running. I never thought I would love running/jogging this much but now I do, it’s not only a good exercise to stay in shape but it also helps with mental clarity, taking my mind off of all the crazy things that are going on in the world right now.
• 2020-05-11

  Top10 Running Club

  Who among us would be directly touched by the virus? We had met regularly to support each other on our fitness journeys prior to the outbreak, providing encouragement and congratulations on minor achievements such as a 5K or 10K race, sprint training, a session of hills. Every member of the Top 10 Running Club is is over 40 and the oldest member is 56. Most are nursing physical injuries. Naturally, virus fatigue also took a toll on members' emotions. Now, separately but together through a group chat, we send the same encouraging messages, but the encouragement has a tint of urgency, more warnings to take care, and I imagine that behind the congratulatory notes for miles accomplished is an other-worldly voice whispering "It could be your last training session." The voice worms into my mind, between my running play list songs, saying "stay away from the walkers, bikers, other runners, steer clear! Pull on your mask! Warning! A child on a bike! Run ..." Where once I ran, I now feel the urge to run away. The group continues to provide encouragement, nonetheless. I am fighting the fear, so I suggested a 100 mile group run for the month of May. May is the month that signals the start of warmer weather in Northern Indiana and solidarity for ordinary working people in some countries around the world. Safety in numbers, even when apart, feels better, I reasoned. I got a great response from the group working on their goals, and almost every one of the 10 or so members participated. We accomplished the goal by May 11 despite record cold temperatures. I plan to extend the challenge and add others to give us all the will to run past this challenge in our lives.
• 
  2020-03-16

  Into the Wild Competitive Trail Run Cancellation

  Into the WIld OC Trail runs was planning to hold their first race of season as late as March 14. However, with the closure of public parking lots and trails on March 16 by OC Parks, and inability to social distance on narrow trails, the race was postponed indefinitely.
• 
  2020-04-12

  Almost Daily Outdoor Runs

  Really the only time I leave my apartment lately. My daily runs. Oh, and walking the dog.