Lockdown life. And Sweden

When the going gets tough, the tough get going! And the creative ones! Training (and life in general) isn’t what it used to be. We used to run for hours. Together. Now some of us are limited to a lap around the house. Alone. Here are some current situation stories from a few Team Envol members:

Sebastien Bzinkiewicz, Grasse, France
– What are the rules in your location?
I stay at home as much as possible. I have to justify if I go outside. I can only go out for “essential reasons”.
For sport, it is alone, once a day, an hour maximum, 1 km from your home. No parks (closed), no forests (except if you live near (1 km!!), no pool, no lake, no sea, no beach…
– How do you adapt your training to these new rules?
Except for swimming, I do most of my training (running, rollerskiing, duathlon,…) in the military zone where I live. We have a 500 m road track there. So no big changes for me. I try to include some dryland swimming exercises with elastic cords in my strength routines.
– Do you have any advice for people who cannot go out at all to train?
Look for new exercises on the web. A lot of people are giving advice. A swimrunner has a strong head, we will easily pass two months of house confinement!
– Are you in contact with your swimrun partner to keep the motivation up and plan the rest of the year?
No “official” partner this season and I usually train alone most of the time. Motivation is always there!

Ben Wolstencroft, Melbourne, Australia
We are in what they are calling Level 3 Lock Down here which means we can only leave the house for essential things like getting food, medical services, work (if you can’t work from home) and exercise. All pools and even most beaches have been closed. We are still able to run outside and in parks as long as it’s alone or with only one other person (and they are 1.5 meters away).

With virtually all racing now finished until at least September I’ve decided to just move into maintenance mode. Schools have closed (possibly for an extended period) and it’s not really encouraged to be out of the house even for exercise, so I’m making an effort to get on the treadmill for 30 minutes a day and a few push ups and just be happy with that. With work (very, very!!) slow I’m trying to enjoy an opportunity to spend a lot of time with my kids without work and training pressures to deal with. I’m also adding some good intensity to the 30-minute treadmill sessions to try to sharpen up a bit and maybe work on my 5k time or something once we can start training again.
There has been lots of discussion about how to train here and LOADS of social media about how you can crush your training in “lockdown”. I think it’s more important to maintain your fitness, sort out any little niggles you might have had, and get your strength and mobility sorted for when you hopefully step it up in a few months. I’m hoping to get out the other end having kept my base fitness, no injury concerns, and having spent some nice time with my family and fresh and ready to train the house down for some end of year racing.
My teammate Dave and I have been running together ‘virtually’. We’ve actually trained together more since the lock down than we usually do during the season!! Dave’s normally flying around the country and world a lot, but with the lockdown he’s home all the time, so we’ve been jumping onto Zwift with the treadmills and running together.