Looking back at March - Wow what a month!
When I write these monthly reviews, I tend to look at the previous month to remind myself what was happening at the start of the month. It’s hard to believe that all that has happened has happened within the space of one month! We are living through events that will be taught in schools in years to come.
In February I was:
Planning a new life as an entrepreneur
Preparing for some massive swims in the summer
All of that has changed. I’m going to do my best to summarise what happened in March.
In summary…..
It is the month when the world changed.
We went from complete freedom to lockdown. Carefully made plans evaporated. Our superheroes are the front line workers. We have become accustomed to daily briefings from inside 10 Downing Street. Flights have grounded. The roads are quiet. We have a deadly and invisible enemy and he knows no boundaries.
It started oh so normally
The month started delightfully with the Christening of my partner’s grandson. What an absolutely gorgeous baby, born to two of the loveliest parents you’d ever care to meet. A lovely day.
The next week include a personal training session (just as well, that included setting me up ready for training at home!).
The second weekend was the annual Channel Swimming & Piloting Federation annual dinner. There is a lot of stress in the lead up to this event with presentations to prepare, printing to sort, photos to go through and then, you realise on the night, all the effort was worth it.
This is the video that I put together from the photos & videos from the 2019 season.
During the week that followed, the news of COVID-19 started to appear in the UK.
I was on a swimming teachers course in Manchester the following weekend. I had to think long and hard about how to get there. It’s a very long drive, and I was pretty weary, but it would give me flexibility and no risk of picking up the virus from someone on public transport. On the flip side, I could rest on public transport and do some work (there’s always more to be done than time available), but I’d need to be cautious about what I touched. I decided to go by train. I was fine on the way up to Manchester, but things were moving fast and I actually felt quite unsafe on the way back down south and went out of my way to sanitise a lot and avoid touching seat arms, poles etc.
That, right there, was the end of normality. For how long we don’t know.
COVID-19
As much so that I remember as anything else, I’m going to do a brief timeline of the progression of COVID-19 until the end of March
28-Feb: First UK citizen dies, in Japan. Mostly COVID-19 was happening on foreign shores, it hadn’t yet impacted how we run our lives
1-Mar: the virus had reached all parts of the UK with cases reported in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales
3-Mar: 51 cases. Boris Johnson launched the Coronavirus Action Plan. The outbreak was declared a ‘level four incident’. He warned that 20% of the workforce may be off sick at the peak. He also warned that schools may have to close and large-scale gatherings may be reduced.
4-Mar: first person to die on UK soil (with an underlying medical condition)
5-Mar: 115 cases
6-Mar: I start to think about the impact that this may have on channel swimming, and specifically Dover training
7-Mar: 206 cases
8-Mar: 273 cases
11-Mar: Wold Health Organisation (WHO) declared a pandemic. Liverpool played Alletico Madrid at home. People with plans to fly out of the UK were already beginning to reconsider. My last working day from the office in Cambridge
12-Mar: UK Government’s scientific experts predicted that there would be 510,000 deaths if no measures were put in place. The current mitigation strategy to shield the most vulnerable would still lead to 250,000 deaths. The strategy was switched to one of “suppression”. Anyone with a continuous cough or a fever should self-isolate. Lauren is away for the weekend in the USA and whilst away her college announces it’s in lockdown. The next dilemma is where to go - come home or go to Canada. But what about all her stuff in her room at college?
13-Mar: London Marathon, Premier League football, English football league and May’s local elections were all postponed. Scotland had their first COVID-19 death. I put my first message on the Dover group to say that there would likely be some significant adaptations to training should training go ahed. Croatia close their borders so SwimQuest trip will need to be cancelled.
15-Mar: Hand sanitiser no longer available. Social distancing became a phrase we were starting to understand. Italy, France & Spain were already in lock-down.
16-Mar: Boris Johnson urged against non-essential travel and urged people to avoid pubs & clubs and to work from home
17-Mar: The government began holding daily press conferences. The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak announced £300bn in loan guarantees
18-Mar: Boris Johnson announced that schools would close on Friday. Exams would be cancelled.
19-Mar: much to my relief, Lauren makes it home from the USA, just before borders start to close and airlines ground their aircraft.
20-Mar: restaurants, cafes & pubs ordered to close. Schools closed. My last swim.
23-Mar: lockdown commenced. You could only leave home to exercise once a day, travel to and from work when absolutely necessary and only go shopping for essential items. You had to maintain a distance of 2m from people not from your household. No public gatherings of more than 2 people. I announce that there will be no Dover training until the restrictions lift.
24-Mar: Announcement that the Excel centre would be transformed to a massive field hospital with up to 4,000 beds.
25-Mar: First Dover Channel Training virtual coffee & cake session with the aim of helping people still feel connected.
28-Mar: by now there were 537,000 cases in 175 countries. More than 25% of the planet’s population were living under some kind of restrictions in their social contact and movements. UK cases exceed 1,000. Boris Johnson confirms that he has contacted the virus.
29-Mar: Letter to be sent to all households warning that things would get worse before they get better.
30-Mar: Estimates that there will be 20,000 deaths if these measures work
Phrases / words that we have become oh so familiar with this month:
Stay at home : Protect the NHS : Save Lives
Social Distancing
Underlying conditions
Flatten the curve
Self-isolating
Panic buying, especially toilet roll & soap
Furloughed is a word that isn’t new, but wasn’t commonly used before. It is now!
This virus doesn’t respect money or seniority. Importance is no longer measured in wealth. Key workers are not those who earn a lot or in ‘C suite’ role. Key workers are front line NHS workers and those that are keeping our essential services and shops running.
So what has changed for me?
So much has happened that I’ll probably miss something. But here is what I think has changed:
❌ SwimQuest training camps and guiding, cancelled.
❌ I’m no longer able to swim
❌ My partner is in one part of the country, I’m in another. It’s likely it will need to stay that way until we’re out the other side of this.
❌ Dover training cancelled for the foreseeable future
❌ The rest of my Swim Teacher course is taught online with the practical elements delayed until all this is over
❌ I’ve postponed my plan to focus solely on my coaching business.
❌ It’s highly likely that my swims planned for 2020 will not go ahead
✅ I’m working exclusively from home
✅ I’ve started cycling again
✅ I can still do my strength & conditioning training at home
✅ There are more opportunities to do land based training varying from strength & conditioning classes to yoga than I have time for - people are helping each other and offering their services freely.
Training
Just for the record, here is what I managed to do in March, it all seems a little pointless now in terms of big swims, but it’s good to keep active regardless:
9.5 hours of swimming covering 24,600 metres
4.75 hours of yoga
9.6 hours in the gym (mostly at home)
5.3 hours of cycling covering 52,957 metres
2 hours of walking covering 6,150 metres and some lovely sight seeing
11 rest days
Individual Clients
I am fortunate that 100% of what I do can be done online - that’s coaching and hypnosis. Sports performance hypnosis has featured this month and I’m setting up to help those who have been impacted by the various measures introduced to minimise the spread of COVID-19.
If you’re struggling to come to terms with the changes all around us, I recommend reading ‘Who Moved My Cheese’. It’s a short but thought provoking read.
If you would like some support in adapting to a new way of living or help in replanning sporting events, please do get in touch.
emma@emma2france.com 07702 814690
What does April have in store?
Who knows!! The main focus was to be training camps in Croatia and progressing my coaching business. Given how much the world has changed in the last month, I have no idea what will happen in April.
I know that I’ll do my bit though!
What about you? What do you predict for April?