Maintaining Discipline & Fitness While Adapting To The COVID-19 Lock down – A note from a Marathon Runner

As a marathon runner who wakes up every day at 4 am for a 10 km run every morning, the starting 3-4 days of the lock down was difficult. When you run every morning for the past 2 years, the Run becomes a part of not only your routine, but works to start the day with a sense of purpose.

So within a few days, while we were all trying to grapple with the lock down situation, our Marathon coach trainer told our Runners group, ‘Why don’t you think of this as an opportunity to strengthen your core. You can’t do strength training during your normal running days, so let’s use this time and focus on that.’ And so, with just one such line of motivation, began the start of us waking up at 5.30 am instead of the usual 4 am and spending 1 hour every morning on exercises which would help us maintain stamina and continue with our discipline. So we had our online sessions with our coach on Facebook for core exercises, and some days, I choose to brisk walk 10 kilo meters on our terrace, while some days I do 50 Surya-namaskars – but whatever exercise I choose, I make sure that every single day of the week, I spend that 1 hour in the morning working on myself.

Considering we are saving on the time of travel, which I usually have to rush through post my morning workout and chores, I now get the chance to relax every morning in my terrace garden, watering the plants, drinking a cup of coffee and just gazing at nature. In the past month, you would have started noticing cleaner bluer skies, and a lot of early morning bird chirping. It’s a beautiful sight – something we don’t really get to cherish while we rush to work on a normal day. So even if you have a very busy day because of the added responsibilities of cooking and cleaning, all of us can still easily manage to take out 1 hour for ourselves each morning if we wish to do so, and this hour can be for anything, either for your fitness, or to catch up on some reading, or just to relax and start your day right.

But if you are not able to find that time for yourself in spite of saving the time you would take to travel to office, then it’s very important to relook at your daily schedule and find where that time is going, and how can you manage your time better. Because as the world starts slowly moving towards the new normal, we have to find and fit a schedule that works best not only for our family and our organization, but most importantly, for us. The goal is to emerge from this situation stronger, more positive and healthier human being.

Ultimately, we all need peace, and in the midst of this highly challenging situation, we need to find the best way for us to keep ourselves happy. So that’s what the focus should be on – on you!

Regards,

Sujatha Sudheendra