George, Distraction and Community

George completed many of his runs alone this season due to Covid-19 isolation.

When George, a tenth graders at Stern Mass, ran his first LA Marathon last March he didn’t think it was going his last run with the SRLA community for over a year. In the months that followed George used his SRLA training as a distraction and an opportunity to find connection.

The pandemic affected people all over the world. Many people lost their jobs, many people suffered people emotionally and physically. My family thankfully wasn’t hit hard of the virus and I’m so thankful for that. When the pandemic started hitting off early March, I just ran the 2020 Marathon. Thinking of how much luck we had in having the opportunity in running it. It was also my first marathon but not my last.

Once schools started closing, I was just wondering how would I keep myself distracted. So I came up with the idea that with all the free time I can start training for the next SRLA Season, so I did. I would run everyday from 6:00 am to 8:00 am. This would help me emotionally and physically. Especially as Covid-19 was getting worse. I took a break from running outdoors and inverted into running indoors in my treadmill. This was as I have asthma and as the Covid-19 cases were more up, I just wanted to take a precaution.

I feel grateful that I had the support of my SRLA coach Ms. Gutierrez as she helped the team still be active virtually during the start of the SRLA Season. I hope that soon as a whole we can all as a SRLA community can start running safely.

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