What good is a running club in a time of pandemic?

This is the Serpie Mental Health weekly blog - reaching out with words during COVID-19

The whole country is currently in lockdown, but everyone’s individual lockdown looks different. Our self-isolation started three weeks ago and for us it means that we only leave the house at 6am for a walk and stay indoors for the rest of the day. You see in my household there is someone who suffers from asthma and that makes us extra vigilant, we avoid all human contact. 

The advantage of early morning walks is that the streets are empty. We can roam the streets of London without seeing another human being for a while. It is also the time when the air seems to be fresher, the birds louder, and you can see the morning light change. And for the last two weeks there has been this distinctive smell of spring in the air, which smells so wonderfully fresh and sweet at the same time. The disadvantage of getting up early is that I feel too tired to go for a run. And so my runs have been sadly not as many as I was hoping them to be. This might change.  

These early morning walks keep me sane and give me enough energy to stay indoors for the rest of the day. And despite our avoidance of any human contact on the walks, we were able to establish a connection. An elderly lady and a man who have seen us walking the same route for the last three weeks, now waive at us from their apartment window. We waive back.

The self-isolation is not easy for anyone, old or young. Just last week a friend texted me saying how hard she finds it. My friend is currently in full self-isolation due to her respiratory issues. She is someone who went from spending almost no time at home due to her busy work schedule to not leaving the house for the last three weeks. “I crave human contact” she said to me when she called me later. “Not Skype, or Zoom or WhatsApp, I just want to be able to say hello to someone in the morning, or someone I can have lunch with. I want to speak to someone without an electronic interface between us”.  

And she is not the only one who finds this new situation difficult. I hear of people who lost their jobs and businesses. Some whose tenants cannot pay their full agreed rent anymore, a problem for both the tenants and the landlords. There are some people whose companies put them on furlough. A word I will forever associate with the outbreak. For many work provided them with a sense of purpose. It also was a welcome distraction from the daily news of pandemic. People now will have to rework their routines, reorganise their lives. It is a big change that makes most of us feel very uncomfortable. 

And yet I hear that some people consider the forced changes positive. Some see working from home as a new gained freedom that allows them to spend more time with their family. Yet again for others, it feels more like a confinement, a restriction they did not want. 

We all differ in the way we deal with the outbreak. But there is something common between all of us that helps us to stay sane. For most of us it is the interaction with other people and the knowledge that we are all in it together. For me, this human interaction that keeps me sane and reminds me that I am not alone is the weekly chat via Zoom with my running group that consists of Serpies runners.

It is the same running group that took me for my very first long run,16km, just last year. I still remember it. I felt so nervous and the thought of running 16km along the canal from Paddington to Limehouse made me feel slightly nauseous. It felt unachievable, beyond what I could do! And it was these people who listened to me moaning and wanting to quit, who laughed at me (in a good and supportive way) and told me that I would be fine. They also told me that the reward will be worth it. And boy, were they right!

In fact there were two rewards for me. The first was the realisation that I could actually run 16km! And my second biggest reward was that I got to have coffee and brunch at the yurt cafe in Limehouse. You see, I grew up in Kazakhstan and seeing a yurt in London filled me with pure happiness and brought up some wonderful memories.

Within the three weeks since the beginning of our weekly zoom chats our conversation topics shifted from running technique, current speed, breathing, distance to more current topics such as: What are the good food delivery services?  Or where to get flour, eggs or yeast?  How long was the queue at Tescos? 

The self-isolation changed us. We started cooking more and even progressed to the point that we now experiment with the limited amount of ingredients we were able to get. It even gave rise to a collection of recipes we call “The Pandemic Cookbook”. Among successful recipes we had “Garlic Only Curry”, if you have too much garlic that needs to be eaten, “Kedgeree”, “Hot Cross Buns”, a stunning “Sponge Cake”, “Polish Potato Pancakes” and my absolute favourite - “Sauerkraut”. It turned out that sauerkraut is much easier to make than I thought and it is full of good probiotic bacteria so important for our gut health. Three weeks on and the name of our group was changed from the “Social Run” group to the “Sauerkraut” group to reflect the current trends of our conversations. Note: If you want to make your own sauerkraut, it is quick and easy. Let me know and I can include my mum’s recipe in the next blog post. 

What truly made me smile last week was the exchange of “difficult to procure” goods with one of the serpies. The exchange took place early in the morning and followed all safety standards, safe distance of 2 meters, followed by the short quarantine and disinfection of all goods. I scored sprouting seeds, sauerkraut and a knitting book. In return I traded three of my favourite books: “A Manual For Cleaning Women” by Lucia Berlin - a collection of the best ever written short stories, in my opinion, “My Soul To Take” by Yrsa Sigurdottir, an Icelandic murder mystery best read on a cold and dark day and “The Girl With All The Gifts” by M. R. Carey about post apocalyptic Great Britain.

On the chat this week I asked if there are any positive sides to the self-isolation and surprisingly there were quite a few:

 - More quality time with the family. 

 - Don’t have to commute.

 - Self-isolation prevented complete breakdown as was forced to slow down

 - Neighbours showed kindness in times of need that was unexpected. 

 - Cooking and baking more.

 - Exercising more at home.

 - Better quality of air and birds chirping louder.

While I don’t want to distract from the seriousness of the situation. I wanted to point out the little acts of kindness and beauty all around us. The human interactions are the ones that keep us happy and functioning. Pick up the phone and call someone or send them a card reminding them that you are thinking of them.

Saying that, a friend’s mother who is in her nineties recently complained to her daughter about the high number of calls she started receiving. She started getting shoulder pain from holding the phone for longer periods of time than usual. “People should get on with their lives”, she said. “I am fine, thank you!” 

I would like to finish with the same words I used to tell myself when I started running: Keep on going! Don’t give up! It will get better! And don’t forget to smile.

Useful links for food delivery: 

 - Sheringhams - https://www.sheringhams.com

 - Little Farm London - https://www.littlefarm.london

 - Stay At Home Food - https://www.stayathomefood.co.uk

 - New Covent Garden Market - https://www.newcoventgardenmarket.com

 - Buy Whole Foods Online - https://www.buywholefoodsonline.co.uk/

 - ECC Electric Coffee -  https://www.electriccoffee.co.uk

from Lena Wolf and the Serpie Mental Health Champions

If you would like to talk to a Mental Health Champion, and/or if you would like to write a post, please email wellbeing@serpentine.org.uk

Please share across Serpie land and foward to anyone you think might like this

Serpies survive Covid-19 blog: https://serpies.blogspot.com/2020/03/day-3.html

Views in this blog are the author’s own, it does not constitute advice, neither Serpentine nor the Serpentine Mental Health Champions and Ambassadors recommend or endorse this post and it has not been independently verified