Lisa Jackson goes racing, virtually
This has been the Year of Living with Loss. As Covid-19 raged across the world, snatching away lives and livelihoods, it took so many things we used to take for granted, but still hold incredibly dear, such as being able to hug an elderly parent and share a bottle of wine with friends. Having been fortunate enough not to lose anyone I loved to the virus, I nonetheless felt a private sorrow as Covid-19 stripped me of two of the activities I enjoy most: travel and racing. It forced me to cancel the trip to Belarus and Ukraine that I’d spent weeks putting together, and then it necessitated the postponement of the Brighton Marathon, followed by the Inflatable 15K I’d entered with a dear friend to celebrate her recovery from breast cancer.
Every email I sent to friends around the world during lockdown, enquiring after their wellbeing, inevitably included the line ‘…but at least we’re allowed to go outside and run; can you imagine what it’s like when you can’t even do that?’ For most people, this idea was purely theoretical, but for me it was all too real. My thrice-weekly Skype calls with my dad, who lives in South Africa, kept me informed of the draconian lockdown imposed by the government there: not only were cigarette and alcohol sales banned, but also people weren’t allowed to leave their homes except to buy food or visit a doctor. Running was out of the question. Undaunted, my dad told me proudly that he’d kept up his running routine and, aged 81, was doing a daily 5K inside his house! ‘I’ve worked out a little indoor route for myself that includes my corridor and patio,’ he told me cheerfully. ‘It’s a bit boring, as I don’t get to chat to the people I usually bump into on my runs, but I’d go stir-crazy if I couldn’t do it.’
I also started to miss the sense of connection running brings – Zoom is no substitute for hugs and handshakes – which is why I was so thrilled when a friend alerted me to a virtual run hosted by South Africa’s Comrades Marathon, the world’s largest ultra. Not only could you do it anywhere in the world, but also you’d get a prized Comrades medal even if you only did 5km, 10km, a half marathon or 45km, and not the 90km the race usually requires. So I invited my dad and three of my neighbours to enter with me, along with my Canadian running buddy, Bridget, and my friend Kathrine Switzer, who’d had the race on her ‘wanna do’ list since 1968, the year after she became the first woman to run the Boston Marathon.
Race day was unusually hot, but my neighbour John worked out a route around a local country park that was both shaded and scenic. To fit us all in the frame for the start-line photo, my husband had to go halfway across our street – we couldn’t hang our arms like scarves around each other’s shoulders like we usually would; we had to stand two metres apart. And then we were off, our home-printed race numbers pinned to our chests, my flamingo-hat’s wings once again flapping away. Racing again felt glorious – and when a dog-walker who admired my hat asked if I’d pose for a photo, it felt just like a real race.
Afterwards, we retired to my garden for post-race pizza and to celebrate my neighbour Dragana’s PB. And then the ‘race reports’ came flooding in: my
Dad had completed the 5K, Bridget ran eight miles in Winnipeg, having transferred her number to a friend after not feeling well, and Kathrine, who suffered an injury in 2019, posted this from New Zealand: ‘I used this once-in-a-lifetime moment to very carefully and slowly run my first 5K in eight months...hey! I clocked in at 42:37, a personal slowest time, and let me tell you, I’ll take it with joy!’
Virtual racing enabled me to join 40,000 runners from 86 countries – and a few from my neighbourhood – in a day of celebration. Like Kathrine, I’ll take it with joy.