Blue Runnings

I haven’t posted anything since 2020 (until yesterday’s updated Races Under a Tenner 2024) – what gives? Did I suddenly fall out of love with running?

No. I was still running in 2020, but working on site through COVID lockdown and an assortment of other perfect storm scenarios meant I had time off work for stress in the summer of 2021, left my job with burnout after more than ten years in December of that year, and moved to a new type of work, a new industry and all that goes with that.

In 2022 I had COVID twice, and the second time I was soon after diagnosed with a vitamin D deficiency and post-viral fatigue – essentially, Long COVID (Post-COVID if you’re medical but I shall continue with the colloquialism from here!). I spent 18 months trying to manage my work to allow me to rest – working from home a lot, having short naps on the sofa with the cat as needed, and limiting my activity when I felt tired (which was a lot).

The work juggling wasn’t working for sustaining improvements, and in many ways my fatigue became more sensitive because I was losing fitness too. It felt like a perpetuating cycle where all my energy went into work as that’s what I felt a personal responsibility to attend to, and I compromised my own needs on a daily basis. The rest I was getting was enough only to allow me to work again.

I’d known a few people who’d had Long COVID more in the midst of the pandemic. They’d had a few months off work, completed gentle phased returns and duty modifications as needed and were, to an external perspective at least, back to enjoying their lives. I have now been off work since November 2023 in the hopes of the same outcome.