People are still running in Central Park but the thought of it now makes me nervous

(Editor’s note: I asked Larry Allen to give me his overview of the situation back east due to COVID-19. Larry is a lifetime runner and is a cancer survivor. Him and his wife live in New York City and has a weekend house in Connecticut.)

“Hi Bob, we are safe and glad you guys are too. Sorry to be so slow to respond. We are in Connecticut at our weekend place. We were without internet for 10 days, our cell service is nil and our phone only functions with working internet. It was a real catch22 to find a way to get a service appointment, certainly because we were untethered digitally but more so because the ISP was overwhelmed and.short staffed. We finally got through on Twitter and now with a new router & modem I think we’re back in the modern world, to the extent we can bear to be.

My oncologist and my internist essentially booted me out of the city in early March due to my still compromised immune system. I was due to have a CT scan and some other post-chemo exams a month ago, just to be certain all was still ok and that I had no reoccurrence of the cancer. Unfortunately the Doctors won’t let me near a hospital, they explained that the risk to go without followup exams for the near term was less than the risk of showing up at the hospital and possibly being infected with my immune system as it is.

We are safe here for now. Concerned about the food supply and basic services but there’s not much more to be done than hunkering down and hoping that the trends begin to turn.

I’ve been able to continue running six days, 25-35 miles a week. I try to go to the rail trail near our home which is usually my peaceful place. The odd hybrid bureaucratic nature of the shared federal/state/local responsibility for the trail has spared it from being closed as is the case for all other state and local parks with less complicated governance. The bad news is this: there are huge numbers of people suffering from “cabin fever” in lovely spring weather after a long winter and too few places for people to get out for some exercise. Naturally the rail trail has gotten too crowded for safety so other than going at dawn or dusk or during a rainstorm it’s not really an option. I guess it’s somewhat of a blessing that there are far fewer cars on the road so hitting the pavement is less treacherous than it might be. One has to assume the air quality is better too.

People are still running in Central Park. I don’t know how but the very thought of it makes me very nervous.

posted Sunday April 26th