27 April 2020 - Salomon Hydration Belt, 3D Bottle Included

I’d started running while working at Penguin Books, occasionally dodging tourists in lunchtime jogs to Westminster and back along the Embankment. The ad world lifestyle wasn’t so conducive to running but after being let go from BBH I’d laced up my trainers again, running two or three mornings every week as much for the semblance of discipline as for any physical benefits. Running had become a habit and on 11 March, the day Rishi Sunak promised to do ‘whatever it takes to support households and businesses through the worst of the coronavirus’, I discovered that I’d got a place to run the Oxford Half Marathon, a race I’d chosen because of its lack of hills.

With the half-marathon a good six months away there was no need to start a hardcore training regime just yet but as soon as lockdown was announced I immediately ramped up the miles, running further and more often as the months went on. Part of this was about staying fit, strengthening my heart and lungs to give me the best chance of survival when Covid struck me down, as it inevitably would. But it was more about escape - getting out of the house, getting away from the news and Twitter, seeing something other than my family, our screens and Waitrose. Exercise was one of the few exceptions to the stay-at-home regulations and there were no restrictions to how close to home you had to stay, as long as you kept moving. Every other day, all through spring and into summer I ran, short runs around local parks and longer runs through eerily empty 28 Days Later streets into the City, around St Paul's Cathedral or down to and along the Thames.

Of course the hydration belt was just the start of my running related Amazon purchases that year - a buff, another water bottle, screen protectors for a new Garmin running watch (‘Look at me, I’m a serious runner!’) and many, many pairs of running socks followed in the coming weeks. And even when the Oxford half marathon was cancelled in August, two months before it was meant to take place, I continued to train and shop with grim determination, every mile lifting the weight of lockdown from my shoulders.

My wife would say that it was running that stopped me going completely mad and she is probably right. But I think she was also grateful that for a few minutes or more every other day my pessimistic, anxious psyche was out of the house, leaving everyone to just get on with their own lockdowns without hearing my running commentary on the end being nigh and which supermarket shelves were empty that morning. Just as running let me detach, so I think that hearing the door slam as I left signalled an opportunity for everyone else to take a breath, sighs of relief sounding round the house as the ogre departed.