This is not about Covid19 that has grounded over half this planet's population in their homes and brought the global economy to a staggering halt. In fact one blessing of the current situation could have been to be able to go outside early morning and run or cycle in the empty roads and enjoy the fresh air(though a voilation of the quarantine rules , it could not really have harmed anyone or me to be outdoors alone between 5:45 and 6:45am in rural Bangalore). Unfortunately, even before the national lockdown I had to stop running due to pain in the right ankle and swelling around it. A slow 8Km(47min) in the weed strewn 'track' of Malhar on 17th March was my last run. I also cut down on the strengthening and stretching regimen to a bare minimum sustenance level- to those those did not impact the ankle or calf. Subsequently, due to the persistence of intermittent ankle pain, I stopped ALL excercise from April 1. The hope is that 10-15 days of complete rest will help overcome the issue. This has added to the challenges of staying sane and managing weight while being home bound 24 x 7.
The irony is that I stopped all cardio excercises barely ten days after putting down some tentative goals for the 2020-21 season. Depending on how the suppression of the virus proceeds over the next few weeks many of these events are likely to be rescheduled or cancelled. So this is probably not a bad season to focus on first recovering from the current ankle issue and then building strength from glutes upwards (all the way till the upper shoulder). In any case as of now all bets are off for participating in events this season. The plan now is to get a MRI done as soon as normalcy returns and then go from there. If the injury does get managed by the August/September timeframe then one can look at targeting a reasonable FM finish at TMM in January 2021 and then race for a sub 3:47 in Delhi in February 2021. Dream on!!!
