The Irony of Closing Athletics Tracks

The athletics tracks are closed because of COVID-19 social distancing measures. This is completely baffling, because they are outdoors and enormous, and so it is entirely possible and practical to be socially distanced. Meanwhile, people can mill and dither and horde to their heart’s content in the surrounding paths and parks.

As I said, baffling.

Within my running club, we’ve gotten creative with finding roads in North London that are quiet enough to run a speed session without pedestrians or cars, and also mimic the oval layout of a track. Bonus points if it’s actually 400m in circumference. It’s not ideal to be pounding 3:30 per kilometre into concrete roads with speed bumps, but it’s better than nothing. I guess.

And it feels good to still get the speed sessions done. Who knows when the track will reopen, after all? So that’s great. But what I’m really missing is the atmosphere of the track. There is a deep irony to the tracks being closed to stop people coming into contact with each other, when it is the very place I love being in order to get away from people. Hampstead Heath or Regent’s Park may be swarming with people, but at the track, I could be in my enclosed, special place for runners, with my own lane and my own session planned out.

I find track meditative. Maybe it’s simply due to the hypnotic act of running round and round in circles. But mainly, in focusing on my pace and form, and holding that consistently until the end of 400m, 800m or 1200m, I lock in to the rhythm, experience and inconsistencies of the way my body moves. I find its potential. Without getting too hippie about it, I find my potential. An athletics track is the right place to be for this activity: everyone else who is there is doing the same thing. I won't be in a pedestrian's way, or have to stop for a car or traffic lights. There are no distractions, besides the crows that taunt you as you pump your legs through the 10th rep at your dream 5k race pace. 

It’s my favourite place to run a no-fuss 3km. It’s faster than running on the road, which makes it more fun, of course. But it’s also an hour of nothing else. I think the same can be said for swimming pools. 

What I miss most of all is the Thursday track sessions with my running club, Mornington Chasers. The rest of the week, depending on what tier or lockdown we were in, we could only run in groups of six or two. But when it came to track, we could have fifteen people per time slot. I got to know other members of the club who I hadn’t met before and we could cheer each other on through gruelling 1 mile time trials from the sidelines. We stood and chatted in a big group before the start of the session, shaking our legs and rolling the working day out of our shoulders. Afterwards, we drifted homewards together, peeling off when it came to our turnings. 

I’d only joined the club in October 2020, so it’s fair to say I haven’t yet had the “full” experience of what being in a running club is normally like. But the track sessions are what I’m most looking forward to getting back to. I want that space in my head back. 

And, I really want to get my 400m below 1:24. I need some cheering on. 

Running Recovery

I have been training for my first 50km race. Over November and December, I was up to 80-90km a week. I was inching up my long runs and hitting personal milestones. It took me a few weeks of trying until I tipped over 30km, and then on 2nd January, hangover in tow, I made it to 36km.

The following week I was pretty tired. The aforementioned hangover, the announcement that the UK was heading into another lockdown, SAD symptoms along with just January fatigue were lingering. And surely, that long run would be enough to send anyone to the sofa for two naps a day. 

I was still managing to run, though. That was the main activity of the day, and the one I was more than happy to pour all my effort into. I hit personal records all over the pace, scaling up and down hills as if they were speed bumps. But the fatigue continued at home. I did a COVID test. Standing in the kitchen that cheerful, drunken Sunday evening with my boyfriend, I got the email to say that the test was positive. 

Whether it was psychological or coincidence, I felt horrendous the very next day, and for the following five. When I look at my running for that week when I had caught the virus, it’s so obvious now. I wasn’t myself. Yes, I was running well, but I was lazy with my routes, and my Strava descriptions are a series of shrug emojis. 

Friends at the running club called my isolation a bonus taper week, or a worthy recovery week for having completed so many miles lately. One friend said I

it must be killing me to not be able to run, but to be honest, I was just too tired. I couldn’t shower or wipe down a table without having to lie down for another sleep.

I didn’t have symptoms as badly as others have done. Not by a long shot. I am very lucky. But it's a scary virus to have, because it's still such an unknown.

By the end of that week - because I’d had COVID without knowing it - I could get back outside. In my defence, who runs a speed session while they’re suffering with coronavirus? Who does hill repeats in Tufnell Park? Fatigue has not been well established as a significant symptom, and clearly I was still managing to exert myself.

For my first run, I chose a route where I wouldn't pass anyone, and I stuck to a loop of local roads so that I could stop and easily return home if I needed to. This was a smart decision, because I couldn’t take a deep breath. There’s a pretty shallow incline up to a park nearby, usually barely worth pre-empting. That was a struggle. I had to stop and settle my breathing. It sometimes felt like I might suffocate, even when I was going slower than my normal easy pace. 

After a rest day, my lungs seemed to be a bit more normal. I headed for Hampstead Heath. It was a sunny morning, so the park was bursting with people. It was a surreal sight after my week at home reading just how contagious the virus is. I kept my distance. 

I scaled up Kentish Town Road to the Heath fair enough, but had a quick pause before the ponds so that I could confidently continue up to Kenwood House. It’s not an easy climb, but I made it! I stopped again to admire the view from the house, and again at a favourite tree after the Old Dairy Farm. I stopped at the path beneath Parliament Hill that has - in my opinion - a better view of the city scape. 

In short, I was having a lovely time. These forced stops were allowing me to see my usual route in a way I rarely permit myself to do. Or, it’s not that: it’s that I do this route so often, and I’m usually most concerned with getting out of people’s way, or not getting cold, or completing a Strava segment. 

I have never thought about my lungs and how my body feels quite so intently.

By the third run, I was pumping up the steep incline to Primrose Hill. I ran the canal and Regent’s Park before scaling it, and taking in the view was my only stop of the 12km. An achievement already! I took a selfie. I ran home.

My pace is still not what it was. I don’t know why I can’t just move as quickly as I used to, while I feel fine. As I said, my lungs seem to be back to normal. Another running friend had COVID a few weeks before me, and she’s back up to speed. She’s still fatigued though, so I really don’t know what’s in store for me. Will I bounce back easily? Will it be a struggle like this for weeks?

I have to keep reminding myself that it’s clearly not a struggle. 22km in two days at less than 5:35 per kilometre is still good going.

And of course, there’s the 50km race to think about. I need to get my distance back up, even though 10k feels like about enough at the moment. My heart and head ask for more, but I really need to be sensible. I’ve heard of people with long COVID who think they’re better, and go for a proper workout, and it wipes them out back to where they started. I can’t let that happen. 

The race has - thankfully - been delayed until 1st May. To be honest, I had always been hoping for a delay. I wasn’t climbing up those weeks of big mileage fast enough. And May will be lovely at the North Downs - spring time. I hope to be feeling and performing better, brighter and with a renewed joy in the simple movement of running.