If you live in a locked down area of Australia, then you are probably going mildly insane like I am. It’s been 84 years (three months, but semantics) since those heady, delicious days where I could lick my friends on the face and cover myself in other people’s sweat at gigs without fearing for my health.
I have two goals in life right now – don’t get COVID, and don’t give COVID I might have to other people. It’s relatively easy to achieve these goals daily. Get vaxxed (done and dusted). I wear my mask to the shops and on my lockdown walks, stay home, and if I’m out on a fitness walk or a jog, I take a wide berth around other people.
See, I am writing this with experience on both sides. This isn’t like that time I got drunk at a party and banged on about how fucking annoying cyclists are simply because I don’t like driving next to them, only to find out that my friend’s boyfriend was an avid cyclist with sound reasoning like “it’s good for the environment to cycle” and “you don’t own the roads, Mel”.
I run, and I experience runners. I have been the huffy, sweaty person people want to avoid because I look like a large, moisture-filled ball of COVID hurtling towards them, and I’ve been the person running in an alarmed fashion away from that COVID ball.
So I can confidently say that runners are the fucking worst in this pandemic.
1. It’s Literally So Easy To Go The Fuck Around Me
I can’t see you if you’re bouncing up the footpath behind me, okay? I’m sure you are having a fantastic time with all those endorphins pumping through your blood, but you could see me slowly plodding ahead of you! Just take any of the options that would see you not run right next to my shoulder, mouth-farting into my face maskless! Jog in the parking bit! Jog in the cycle lane! Jog across the road! Jog on the grass strip, fuck! It’s just not that hard.
2. Running Sucks, I Get It
I know running sucks a bag of dicks. It’s the worst! No one has fun running, and if you say you do you’re lying and pretending you love it sick so the running community doesn’t exile you.
We do it because it feels good after, and we want lungs when we’re 50. So I understand that in the middle of your chest collapsing and muscles ripping themselves off your bones, you don’t really want to take stock of those around you and manoeuvre your already decaying body anywhere except forward. But if I can’t see you, I can’t move – so get over yourself.
3. People On Their Silly Little Walks Also Suck
While, like many of you reading this, I might be the pinnacle of human decency when it comes to lockdown walks – you know, making room on the sidewalk and taking my wide berths around everyone else – I also understand that some people are pricks. A lot of people are pricks, actually.
This easily could have been the reverse story, “Your Lungs Aren’t Imploding, So Get Out Of My Way Dickbrains”, because I cannot count the amount of times I’ve had to run my tired ass around walkers who could easily see me coming, and could just move over a little to get our 1.5m sorted.
I’m not out here saying runners are the devil and walkers are saints. But runners are also usually the maskless ones huffing and puffing, so even if you’re being betrayed by your fellow man, who is walking aimlessly all over the footpath, just do the right thing anyway, eh?
4. Just Because You’re Healthy Enough To Run Doesn’t Mean You Don’t Have COVID
Oh, my god. I really do not understand how anyone in privileged Australia – a country with access to news and information that makes sense to them – doesn’t know the basic COVID facts by now.
You can think you’re healthy, but you can be wrong (said in Mean Girls voice). Just because you’re a jogging fiesta today doesn’t mean you’re not going to be sick tomorrow, so don’t run breathing on everyone willy nilly while justifying it with “well I’m super healthy, if I had COVID I couldn’t run.”
5. No One Cares About You And Your Perfect Pace
Hey, Captain Strava. You are the fundamental worst of the worst. You know who you are – that person who runs close to everyone else on purpose to show off your fitness levels.
These people think they can’t possibly have COVID because they’ve been taking their zinc and eat like, 14 types of green vegetables per day. So they bounce next to you thinking they’re exempt from social distancing because they have liquid fuel running through their veins.
To you I say – kindly fuck off and recognise your plebby, rule-following status like the rest of us. You’re not special, you probably do have COVID because people who DGAF about social distancing are the same kinds of people who throw illegal parties where they play Kings Cup. To you I say: I hope your Strava didn’t record properly so you can’t show off your casual 25km morning jog to the group chat.
Melissa is a freelance writer and just cracked 2km with only four walking breaks. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter.
