So I screwed up. I perhaps had snuck one too many visits to a NYC parks restroom, chatted one too many times with a neighbor in the grocery store. I ran 16 miles and felt flattened by a truck. The next morning I was a bit achy, decided I had better take the day off, and instead of running walked four miles and did some errands. Fortunately, I was with my wife, and she was the one who went into the various shops we needed to go to. I stayed outside because it did cross my mind I might be coming down with Covid 19. I was double masked, and I avoided strangers, especially when I had a quick pee against a tree in a park when the comfort station happened to be locked.
I put on my nicest pajamas that night, since I was now running the slightly high temperature of 99.7, and it occurred to me if things headed south I’d want to look my best in the hospital. It also felt like I had inhaled some sort of particulate matter into my nose, where it was now lodged in the back of my throat. I could smell and taste, though. My eyes, for some reason felt red and sore, and I had a bit of a cough.
The next morning my wife and I had another wonderful 4-mile walk, through crisp 20-degree weather, this time to an open-air Covid testing site in the Bronx, situated behind a row of autobody shops. You stepped up to a window, like buying a lift ticket at a ski resort, but here they stuck a Q-tip up your nose. That night my slight fever flopped to subnormal and I felt less achy—I had pushed back whatever it was. Phew – no way this could be Covid. In the morning I got an e-mail with a link to my positive result.
I checked the Economist website that breaks down Covid risk by age and comorbidity. It said I had a one in five chance to ending up in the hospital, and a one in fifty chance of dying.
Except I was already feeling better.
Then the city health department called, asked about my symptoms and living situation, and read me the riot act. I was to check in daily and isolate for ten days. If that was impossible they’d put me up in a hotel.
Both my wife and the adult son who lives at home had been vaccinated because of their work. By all appearances, these vaccines were working.
I was told not to leave my home except for a medical appointment or emergency.
Let’s just say for the next 10 days every morning at six o’clock, when the streets were empty, I had a medical emergency. My emergency was that if I didn’t go outside, I would lose my mind. Double-masked, I’d walk four or five miles as quickly as I could, swerving to avoid the few other pedestrians I encountered. One guy hit me up for change, and I did my best to shake him off without speaking.
It is an odd sense of power, knowing that in theory if I breathed on someone I could kill them. I imagine it was a bit like the feeling you have when packing a gun. I had a dirty little secret. Any old folks around you wanted me to drop in on and knock off?
I could have run, certainly towards the end of the ten days I could have done so, but in my mind that crossed the line into flaunting something and being reckless. I was having fun just walking and the empty mornings were beautiful. Running would be gilding the lily, I decided.
As soon as my isolation ended, though, I sprang out the door and quickly finished three miles.
Now, I do know having a mild case allowed me to exercise, and not the other way around, although undoubtedly fitness to begin with lowered my risk of severe illness. And I do not necessarily recommend running 16 miles just as you are coming down with symptoms. But if you are feeling up to it and you can do it with the absolute safeguards that allow you to take your isolation with you—a little fresh air and exercise probably helps.
So running made me a better Covid patient because I was in shape, but how did Covid make me a better runner? I re-learned that I can stay fit and have a good time just through a lot of walking. As I get older, I’ll probably be rediscovering that again and again.