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What has changed most about the world since the pandemic began?

Traveling and Keeping Fit During a Time of Social Distancing The heightened consciousness the world has towards what we now call “social distancing” (people keeping physically 6+ feet away from each other) did not exist prior to the coronavirus pandemic but is a global concept that is here to stay. This awareness is especially true in relation to people’s willingness to be in large crowds among strangers. Travel and fitness have been two areas largely affected by this concept. Prior to March 2020, the world bustled with domestic and international travel. We all had business meetings to conquer, people to see and places to experience. I had at least two trips already planned that I had been looking forward to taking. One trip was to Maine for my daughter’s college graduation and the other was to Seattle where my extended family planned to embark on a cruise to Alaska for my dad’s 80th birthday celebration. Both got cancelled, along with the collapse of the entire cruise industry. Likely, I would have taken additional trips in 2020 to places like Santa Fe (for my 26th wedding anniversary) and to Providence, RI where my son attends college. While inconvenient, I once thought nothing about spending considerable time waiting in crowded airports, standing in line at security or sitting at a busy bar close to my gate while sipping wine. Restrooms were always full of people from everywhere touching the same surfaces. Drinking fountains in airports were commonly used by everyone. As pictured, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder next to someone you did not know was an inevitable spacing reality on airplanes. All of this was just part of air travel. I believe that most of us lived with a certain level of acceptance that a few additional germs would always be present while traveling. While we used hygiene measures like washing hands after visiting the restroom, US Americans did not worry much about contracting any diseases while flying. Most of the time, travel was for good reasons and involved having quite a bit of fun. Now, many are hesitant to be in airports or to board airplanes at all where the same oxygen gets circulated repeatedly through a small, enclosed space. While I know people have flown and have remained safe, I am personally reluctant to fly again any time soon. Running races and other multi sport events used to be something that I and so many others within fitness communities were busy doing. In-person races are now nonexistent. Participating might include flying to destinations. Races always involved standing in corals at the starting line with up to 50,000 other people. Most of us felt only excitement and anticipation as we waited for the start gun to go off. A lot of us had trained for months beforehand to see this day come true, so this was our time to shine. We had few thoughts about keeping physically distant from other runners, which was impossible to do anyway. Instead, we would sometimes chat with each other, laugh to control our nerves and take a few last-minute pictures within this joyful, crammed area. “Body slide” with another person occasionally occurred while racing in hot, humid weather, especially during the first few miles of a longer distance. Your sweaty arm might slide across another person’s slippery skin while running in a crowd. “Excuse me,” we would say to one other and continue running with no further thoughts about the encounter. No one had any concept of keeping 6 feet apart back then. Crossing the finish line among crowds of cheering spectators was part of the “high” we got from races. Again, being packed together with other sweaty finishers at the bottleneck medal and swag collecting spots was just part of any race. Now, my runs begin at 4:30 am so I can avoid all other people and minimize physical spacing issues as much as possible. I have created new, zig zag running paths in the park in order to be able to swing wide of other runners and walkers that I do encounter. Keeping safe physical spacing while running has involved me having to jump low stone walls, run in ditches and stop entirely to wait for someone to finish crossing a narrow bridge. While new virtual races have cropped up during this peculiar time, all in-person large-scale races have been cancelled for 2020. That included the first marathon 26.2-mile race I had training for which was supposed to occur on May 17, 2020. Able to defer my entry to either May 2021 or May 2022, I remain unsure what to do. I simply do not know when racing will make sense again. 2021 may be too soon for me to feel safe being in a large crowd of people breathing hard and sweating on each other. Now, there are days during which I literally do not leave the house, let alone my city, state or country. Months later, I have not ventured more than one mile from home. Likely, many more will pass in the same manner. The few times where I have been out in public to a retail store, for example, I have worn a face mask to cover my nose and mouth. Everyone else was doing the same. Only one person from each party was allowed inside the store for safer physical spacing. That is certainly different from our pre-pandemic reality. The gym of which I am a member reopened this past week. People are required to use an app on their own phone to avoid the touch check-ins we used to do at the front desk. Gym users are required to make reservations in advance for a limited time slot. I have not yet returned to the gym, a place I used to frequent 6-days a week. I am in no rush to be sharing the same enclosed space with strangers, something I never thought about before. The indoor pool part is still closed anyway.