Running During the Pandemic - Duress or Joy
Mitron! Bhaiyo aur Behnon! Mere Pyare Desh Vasiyon!
Hey! These are not Chinese Apps! Nor is it Swami Vivekananda’s clarion call to the youth of the nation to Arise! Awake!! And snooze not till you finish your race!
This was the final ghanta (never mind if it means I couldn’t care less in colloquial Hindi, it still sounded as ominous as a first day @ school bell!) on all the marathon training sessions, all the ticket and hotel reservations for out of town race events, full stop to all social media postings of race day clicks, all the weekend studios going silent for an indeterminate period, the Race Directors’ and Sponsors’ nail biting moments matching the guest workers’ angst migrating back to their villages.
What a toe crushing yorker the 24th of March 2020 turned out to be for a whole community of recreational runners, whose passion propels them to run a even a full six hours with broken toes! Forget fighting some invisible foe lurking in the very oxygen that fuels their runs!
Now that the #Lockdown 1.0 was a relity like the onset of a MahaaaBhaaarat Katha of Ramanand Sagar fame- though few runners thought this will end like some of the English or Korean soaps which would end in a few weeks and not like the Indian soaps which will stretch like the ones on STAR and SUN always multiplied by a constant where k>=52 !
Now, having reconciled to the fact that the #Lockdown 1.0 will be followed by 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and so on followed by the Unlock versions with-a-never-seem-to-be-ending number, the runners decided to take charge of their restless feet and keep themselves engaged with their socially distanced souls…
Phase 1:
The Monks and the Old Monks!
Nothing could perturb them.. they went meditative.. strengthening their inner resolve,,building immunity, eating nutritious, sleeping well & long and purifying themselves with all kinds of sanitizers available over the counter and under the shelves!
Phase 2:
The Jooms (sorry Zoom!) and the Jios!
Wake up time- time to go virtual as the real world was as still as the economy.
All the coaching and coached fraternity took to virtual trainings, insta feeds, whatsapp challenges and facebook feeds!
The Race organizers were mulling how to keep the interest of the recreational runners and wannabe newbies alive- very creatively cranking up episodes after episodes of well-crafted structured trainings, instructions and yoga sessions- not to speak of webinars and meets chaired by experts in fitness, athletes of recognition to keep the pace n cadence of life high and Heart Rate in Zone 3!
Rajaram PV
Bessie Dreamers
