Quarantined French man runs marathon on apartment balcony

As of noon on Tuesday, March 17, France has gone into a 15-day lockdown, which restricts people to going out for essential work, to buy food and essentials, to attend medical appointments, for vital family reasons and for individual physical exercise. Exercise may only be done within a 2K radius of a person’s home.

While some are upset about the situation, The Huffington Post reports that Elisha Nochomovitz, a French marathoner, spent six hours and 48 minutes running 42.2K around the seven-metre balcony of his apartment in Toulouse on Tuesday.

The runner’s Strava file is hilarious, showing a mass of red for his distance covered. His fastest kilometres was his first (at 4:17) and his slowest was 19:27. According to his Strava, he also ran a 46-second 400m within his marathon (the GPS might have been a little off here). The run has been flagged, according to his profile.

RELATED: France bans running further than 2K from home

Earlier this year, some Chinese runners who were forced to stay indoors due to the coronavirus quarantine also ran around their apartments to get their training in, and posted their workouts on social media. One post by popular amateur marathoner Pan Shancu about running more than 6,000 loops of an eight-metre course in his apartment attracted thousands of comments.

https://twitter.com/kickjumpersup/status/1240375412015972353

No one has ideal training conditions right now, so those who are looking to get active have to get creative. Workout ideas (that aren’t running a marathon in your apartment) can be found below.

Workout ideas

The reluctant runner’s guide to learning how to run
Resistance band exercises for an incredible at-home workout
The $10 gym tool that pro runners are loving
Strength training exercises to improve running efficiency