New York State of Mind

Anxiety, fear, relief, joy. Four words that can sum up the emotions of marathon running. Also four words which pretty much sum up my life over the past few weeks.

Anxiety because I tested positive for Coronavirus.

Fear because, as an asthmatic, I was very concerned what this would mean for me.

Relief because, after a few days of fairly mild symptoms, I feel like I have made pretty much a full recovery (except for having no sense of smell or taste).

And joy, because after many times of trying, I finally got into a race via a ballot, so in March I am off to run in the New York Half Marathon. More on that later.

It almost felt like it was an inevitability I would get Coronavirus at some point, such is the prevalence of it in the UK at the moment, but it is still a jolt to the system when it happens, which I wrote about in this blog.

From a running perspective, I had no real idea what having Covid would mean for me. When I first got the diagnosis and the positive test, I feared the worst. However, right now, things feel good and this week I have been back out running once more after an enforced lay off due to isolating at home.

The negative test toward the end of isolation

I did not really miss running during that time. I was quite happy to take thing easy, rest and recover but I did feel a bit concerned before I ventured out again this week. For my first run, I went out on my own, to take things easy and just see how I got on. My only hope was that I would be able to do my 5km run without stopping. I had no intention of running at any particular pace, I just wanted to get round. So while it was a bit of a shock to the system, it was just really nice to be out in the fresh air once more – not that I could smell it of course.

“I seemed to cope… pretty well”

Buoyed by that, I also ran with my JogScotland group this week. I did not lead, I did not feel up to that, but I went out with the 5.5 mile group to start with and then the 10km group on Thursday night. Both runs featured routes which took us up some of the biggest hills in the area, so while that was a bit tougher than I had probably hoped, I seemed to cope with them pretty well and got round with the rest in the group. All in all, it looks like fairly promising.

I think what is important right now is just to feel my way back in. I am under no pressure to run. I have no goals left for the year which I want to achieve. I just want to be well, enjoy running with friends and stay healthy. That is ambition enough.

Of course, at this time of year, Strava is full of stats for the year, and my run on Tuesday took me past thirteen hundred running miles for the year, which I am really pleased about. Since my main targets for the year were achieved – Manchester Marathon and Liverpool Half Marathon in October – I have really eased things off. This is partly due to being injured in November, and then Covid of course, but it is also a realisation that taking things a bit easier will benefit my body in the long run.

My Strava stats for 2021

For the next couple of weeks I have no real plan for my running, other than to get out a few times when I am off work. But once we get to January, then it is going to be about focusing on a couple of races to come in March.

This week I signed up for the Inverness Half Marathon, which was the last race I did in Scotland, back in March 2020, before the world went crazy. It was a great event with many of my JogScotland Bridge of Don friends running as well and we hope to send a large contingent to the race again this year. Training for it will start in the New Year.

“my eyes almost popped out of my head”

This race will happen on March 13, but the big focus for me is going to be the following weekend – the New York Half Marathon. This is an event I have applied to enter a few times before but have always been unsuccessful, so it was more with hope than expectation when I submitted my ballot application a few weeks back. At least with this race, the draw happens quite quickly, but on the day of the draw I did not receive anything to indicate that I was in, so I went to bed disappointed at losing out on another chance. But when I got up in the morning and checked my email, my eyes almost popped out of my head. I was in!!

The email image which greeted me in the morning

Perhaps this year, fewer international athletes applied to run. Who knows? All I know is that I am in and now have an amazing event to look forward to. The race starts in Brooklyn and the route will take me past the United Nations Building, through Times Square and then up to a finish in Central Park. It promises to be an incredible day and I cannot wait to get there. I really want to enjoy the event and take it all in, so I am viewing it as a tourist run as opposed to one where I am going to flog my guts out to get a good time. This will be a once in a lifetime chance and I want to make the very most of it.

Over Christmas and New Year, running is just a great opportunity to get out and relax and that is what I intend to do. I am not chasing any end of year target for running mileage. I am not going to run on Christmas Day (which I did last year in the snow and ice). It is going to be about being relieved to have got through another difficult year, emerging unscathed and healthy, and being thankful for the part which running – and in particular my running friends – has played in my life. In particular, thanks to Susan, Cara, Jeanette, Derek, Rob and Jon for helping me through this year, but also to everyone I have run with. Each run means a great deal. Take care and stay safe.

Coping with Covid

My wife put on perfume. That was when it hit me. I could not smell a thing. The scented candle in the living room, with the strong perfume of gingerbread? That did not register either. “Oh my god,” I thought. “I have got Covid”.

A lateral flow test which I had in the house almost immediately turned positive. But I was in denial. “How could I have caught it?”. I did another. Same result. By this point my brain was racing with lots of negative thoughts. There was no option, I had to book a PCR test.

The only good thing was that I was able to get tested almost immediately that afternoon but then it was simply a case of waiting. I isolated in the house, making up a bed in my home office and communicating with the family via Whatsapp. We stayed apart, only giving me more time to be alone with my thoughts, watching TV as a form of distraction as much as another else.

As a man who is over fifty and asthmatic, I have always been in a risk category to be severely impacted by Covid. Throughout the pandemic – and this may seem over dramatic – I have genuinely felt that this is something which could kill me. The seemingly random nature of the illness in terms of how it affected people had left me extremely cautious and at times anxious for how I would cope if I ever caught it.

I had done all the right things. I followed the rules. As time wore on, I broke some of the rules (tell me someone who did not). I got my vaccinations when I was due to and am extremely thankful that I did. And having had the vaccinations felt that we had to get back to much more of a normal life. We have sacrificed so much in the past two years, we need to live live once again. I went back to running with friends, I went out to the pub, I went out to parties. I lived a bit as we used to.

But then here I was, alone in a room, waiting. Just waiting. Seemingly waiting forever. To find out if I had the virus which could prove fatal to someone like me.

Other than the lack of smell or taste, I had no other Covid 19 symptoms. I had no cough. I had no high temperature. At this point, I felt as if I had a bit of a cold. I felt like I had a bit of a fuzzy head, blocked synus, but that was it. What felt worse was not knowing what was to come.

I got my test results back shortly before 10pm the following night. It simply confirmed what I already thought. I had tested positive for Coronavirus. I was one of those millions who has tested positive in the UK since this whole thing started back in March of last year. Those numbers may seem meaningless when we see them each day on the news or online, faceless, irrelevant, just numbers. But all of a sudden, I was one of those statistics too. And at this point, it felt extremely personal.

A lot of thoughts and questions raced through my head when I got the positive diagnosis. “How did I catch it?”. “Could I have spread it to others?”. “Am I going to survive this?”. “Will I need to go to hospital?”. “Am I going to get long Covid?”. Some of that might seem overly dramatic. All of it seemed real to me at the time.

The following days, my sense of having a cold got a bit worse. I felt more blocked up. My throat felt sore. My voice turned a bit husky. I had a tightness in my chest, similar to how I would feel if my asthma was bad. This was the most worrying symptom. I felt it in particular a couple of times in the evenings. Now I realise that this will sound stupid, but in my head, through these days, I kept telling myself, “Come on Craig, fight this”, as though this internal monologue would convince my body to try a bit harder to get me through it. I have used this kind of tactic when things have been tough when I have been running. I felt there was no harm in trying it once more.

I began to google things (not the greatest form of research I realise) but I had a need to know. How long would I remain positive for? After how many days, on average, after a positive diagnosis do people end up in hospital? How do I know if I will have long Covid? What are the daily case numbers for deaths?

Thanfkully, the tightness only lasted a couple of days, and in reality, my symptoms seem pretty mild. There has been no sign of a cough. My temperature always felt ok. The tightness in the chest was not so bad that I needed to use my reliever inhaler a significant amount, though I did up my dose of my regular preventative inhaler and I will maintain this for a while yet.

I continued to work from home, though I did feel very tired by the end of the day so my evenings were spent just lying up on the sofa. Despite the worries, I did manage to sleep well, something which I think always helps when you are ill. Sleep and rest can play a significant role in aiding recovery.

As the week moved on, I felt my condition was improving, but then I did another lateral flow test and it still came back positive. This was, psychologically, a pretty hard blow. Surely by this point I would be negative? It did not really matter to me that I had to continue to isolate for a few more days anyway, I wanted to know that my body was fighting this off, that I was strong enough, that this was going to be over (at least this first phase).

I am pleased to say that I have done another lateral flow and this time tested negative, perhaps all of that “Come one Craig, fight this” has finally worked. This week I will be ok to go back to doing all of the things outside of the house I have not been able to do for the last little while, but the experience has certainly jolted my confidence.

I still have very little sense of taste or smell. I can taste very sweet things or very salty things, but really nothing in between. In terms of smell, while my blocked nose feeling has gone away and I can breathe clearly through my noise, I cannot smell a thing. This has had one benefit, where I successfully finished off the Brussels Sprout gin which we got a while back which no one in the house liked. All of the booze, none of the taste, so at least that was a win.

I need to be positive about so many things. I need to reflect on the fact that my running has helped me, being fit has helped me, having had the vaccinations has helped me. I was due to get my booster last week but that has now had to be moved to early January as you need to wait four weeks after a positive diagnosis before you can get it. All of these things have combined to get me through this.

In the short term I hope to get back to running this week, though I will be taking it very easy and I just have to hope that I am through the worst of it. It certainly seems so at this point but with long Covid a bit of an unknown, I just need to hope that all of those positive things combine to ensure that I do not suffer from that in the future.

I cannot offer any advice. I cannot offer any kind of thoughts or wisdom to anyone else. This is what happened to me. Everyone’s experience will be unique and for many it has, tragically, been far worse than mine. At this stage, I am just grateful to still be in a position to look forward to Christmas, though it would be nice if, by that point, I could at least taste something. Stay safe.

DJ

There will be no text message asking for my address (again). There will be no Christmas Card coming through the door. There will be no message asking for directions to the house (again) for our Christmas party. There will be no cheeky grin as we tell funny stories. There will be no more laughs as boys play the girls at our music quiz in the house. There will be no chat about the football. There will be no examining the buffet and telling us how beautiful and tasty the food is. There will be no extra, last glass of red before he goes. There will be no nip of whisky. There will be none of that. Because my friend Donald John is no longer with us, and this Christmas I will miss him so badly.

It was Christmas Eve two years ago when he died suddenly, so cruelly taken too young, and a gaping chasm in the lives of everyone who knew and loved him so much opened up before us.

I think of DJ a lot. Possibly more now than I did when he was alive, and that I regret. All of our lives are so busy, it is so easy to forget what is truly important and those who really matter, taking for granted what seem the simplest of things. Meeting for a chat, going for a pint, just calling to ask how they are, even just sending a message to check in on them and see how they are doing. The last two and a half years have simply amplified all of this. But with DJ, I cannot do any of that now and how I wish I had done more of it.

This summer, my wife and I visited DJ’s grave in a quiet corner of his beloved South Uist. An emotional trip. A chance to say a final goodbye. A trip I wished we never had to make, but one which I am so glad which we did. It is not closure. There is never closure when a loved one dies, but there is perhaps more peace, knowing where he is, close to his family forever.

DJ is back home

His Christmas card from two years ago still sits on my desk in my home office where I have been working now, almost constantly, since March of 2020. It is in my eyeline whenever I look at the clock to check the time. He has a presence and I feel is still with me. Sometimes I pick it up just to look at his handwriting and to think of his voice saying the words on the card. I don’t want to forget what he sounded like, how he spoke, how he walked (often, infuriatingly, bumping into you even when you were going in a straight line), how he played football, how he ate, how he laughed, how we all laughed together.

Beside the Christmas card is a lovely note I received from his sister with a special photo of him, looking so happy, looking so healthy and vibrant and full of mischief. I am pleased that that remains my abiding memory, the fun we had together.

The last time we met typified that, a dinner out in town at the start of December after we had been lucky enough to bump into each other in a supermarket a couple of weeks beforehand. We ate, we drank, we chuckled, we giggled, we reminisced about when we worked together – the good times, the bad times, the future.

We did not have enough time. We could only have a drink if we were eating, so we had a beer with ice cream just so we could keep on chatting. We could have stayed all night but he had to get back home to take his beloved dog out for her walk. We broke the rules that were in place at the time and we gave him a lift home. I sent him a WhatsApp message with the picture I took of us to him when we got back to our house.

Our final moments at dinner together and the WhatsApp chat

While that was the last time we spoke face to face, it was was not quite the last time we were in touch. Football was a common thread in our friendship, and for DJ that meant Celtic. For me it was Falkirk. So we would routinely take the mickey out of each other depending on how bad things were going – as Celtic were having a hard time, I took the chance to stick in the knife (he would have expected nothing else). So this was our last exchange.

Our last bit of contact

But of course, this was not to be a regular thing. This was to be the final thing. How I wish it was not. All I can do now is focus on the memories, the parties, the dinners in the house, the days in the pub, the days at the football, the stories we shared, the times we had together. Nothing is forever, I know that, but some things end too soon. I was just DJ’s friend, not family, and he had closer friends than me, but the heartbreak is genuine. Almost two years on, his death still does not seem real.

DJ and friends at a party in our house

When I look at the photos I have of DJ – whether he was with me or with others – he was always smiling. He was always a little boy at heart, a boy from the Western Isles who never really left, even though he lived on the mainland of Scotland for far longer than he lived in the Uists.

DJ and me at my 50th birthday party

Dj and my friend Billy on the same night

He was so proud of where he came from, of his family, his son, his sisters, his nieces and nephews. He had so much compassion and genuinely cared for others, as shown by all his work with Mental Health Aberdeen. Running the Manchester Marathon in memory of DJ last year and raising funds for MHA was one of the ways I have tried to deal with his death – to give something to a cause so close to him, helps salve my soul and my anguish at his loss. It is not much I know, but it gives me comfort.

And I hope in all of the sadness in the memories of his death, as the anniversary approaches, everyone who knew him can find comfort. Comfort in just knowing him in the first place and the joy he brought. Comfort in the times spent together. Comfort in being fortunate enough to have had Donald John MacDonald as part of your life. And at our Christmas get together this year, we will raise a glass and toast him and wish he was with us once more.