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Just over two months ago I wrote a blog post talking about how my indoor season went and that I was looking forward to competing on my new blade set up in the summer. Covid 19 was on my radar at that point but not a massive worry. How mistaken my blasé attitude was. By the end of February, the UK only had 23 confirmed cases, as of writing this they have 133,495 confirmed cases and 18,100 deaths (and we know this to be inaccurate because of the thousands of unconfirmed cases and the fact that care-home deaths are not being counted). I am currently living in Canada where precautions (such as closing schools, universities and non-essential businesses) were taken much earlier than in the UK. We're not on total lockdown (yet?), but the running tracks and gyms are all shut so I might as well be.
Very sensibly the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics were postponed. They are now set to take place in 2021, personally, I think 2022 would have been a safer bet, maybe I'm a pessimist but I can't see it being safe enough in 2021 to hold that kind of mass sporting event. In addition, different countries will have different lockdown rules in place, meaning that some athletes will have access to facilities and others won't - thus making the games and qualification for events unfair.
Training with no facilities is difficult, no access to a running track is a big deal for a sprinter and an even bigger deal for an amputee sprinter. I can't use my blade on any surface other than a track because it has spikes in the bottom of it and is only designed for top speed, not jogging. This means I can't take to the streets and go for a run (my biological foot would fail to handle that anyway). My last sprint session was on Friday the 13th of March and I won't be able to sprint again until the tracks are re-opened which might not be for a few months.
So what am I doing instead? Luckily my coach has plenty of ways to keep me in shape and not bored, no two workouts are ever the same. It's actually more exhausting than normal training! On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays it depends on the weather. While it was cold and snowing my flatmate/training partner/friend and I would use an Exer-Genie, this is a machine that has a resistance dial, our sessions would involve walking from one end of the apartment to the other whilst attached to it on a high resistance, it's pretty fun and suitably tiring. We would also use a Compex machine, this uses electrodes to directly stimulate the muscles in a similar way that a high intensity work out would do, there are also a few massage settings. If it's warm enough, my housemate and I go to a car park (or 'parking lot' as they say over here), she runs up and down and I scoot. Once we get back home we will usually do a bit more Compexing. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we do circuits. They are hellish every time which is fitting because in normal life I would be doing a bike session in the gym - something I also despise. My coach has given me weekends off (usually it would be gym on Saturday and rest on Sunday) but I try to do at least some exercise so that I can get a few endorphins and be able to fall asleep. Saturday is usually a circuit which I make up myself (so I don't include the exercises I don't like) and on Sunday I've been doing 100 press-ups (not all in one go, I'm not that impressive! Sets of 20 are doable though). In addition to all this, I also try to get a few thousand steps in each day, this keeps my arthritis at bay and means I get a bit of air.
All in all, I am incredibly lucky - my life hasn't changed that much because of coronavirus, the only thing that's altered is training - instead of getting on a bus to the track I now go to the living room or scoot round a car park. My days are still filled with drawing, animating, listening to podcasts, watching TV and face-timing friends and family.
I'm so glad I got to compete indoors, those times gave an indication of what could've been possible this season, now I will just have to wait until next season to see what happens. I'm still motivated to train as hard as I can, my athletics career is far from over. Hopefully, my pessimism is misplaced and Tokyo 2021 will be safe and as amazing as I know it can be.