A few days ago I had added jogging in the house to my daily routine, after realizing that it would be quite a while before I could actually go back to jogging in my neighbourhood park, under tall trees laden with morning dew and to the sound of various elderly people doing Taichi.

On the very first day of the initiation of my “Jogging Program”, I brought my laptop down to the living room, to play some music. I had chosen the living room as my running track, as that was the most spacious space we had in the house. Still, I could do not much but run around the table, then to the empty space near the front door of our house, and back again.

I opened a Chinese song playlist on my laptop and started playing the songs; these songs were not my absolute favourites, but I had decided to explore a bit on the different song genres available, only during my jogging times. That way, I could get a feel for other types of songs, and maybe one day I’d stumble upon something I didn’t know I liked!

So I started jogging. I jogged on my bare feet for a good 20 minutes, but my ankles soon felt sore as it repeatedly took the weight of my entire body; then I started to jog flatfooted, which is not the proper way to jog, and which reduced my momentum. I felt that this would not do, so I thought of a plan.

After the session, I proceeded to wash my long neglected jogging shoes. I scrubbed the base thoroughly, making sure to get all the grub out, and then put it out to dry the next day.

Two days later, I tried jogging in the living room with my clean shoes on. It felt much more comfortable, with the cushion of air in the base of the shoe. From my laptop, a lady sang a breathy song in Mandarin. It also felt good to sweat a bit, as I hadn’t moved around a lot in ages.

It’s good to have started on a healthy routine like this, but I also hope for better days when COVID is over, more of us are vaccinated, and I can go out to my neighbourhood park to jog, play basketball, and breathe in some fresh air!