Hello!
It’s been totally inspiring to hear over the last few days how important SE Fitness is in your lives. It’s a comfort to hear that SE Fitness has brought people together, helped forge lifelong friendships and provided a sense of belonging. I feel your pain and I appreciate how, now more than ever, you feel the need of that support network.
However having taken the extremely difficult decision to close SE Fitness, my lovely business, I would beg you all to support that decision and not to arrange to meet other runners and walkers at SE Fitness HQ.
I totally get that we all consider ourselves to be low risk and perhaps feel the measures being taken by the government are excessively draconian. I can only say I hope they are! I look forward to having a drink with you at the summer social and wondering what the heck this has all been about! How wonderful when we can all get back together again, what a party that will be!
I didn’t take the decision to protect us, although several of our older members do fall into the high risk category. I decided to close SE Fitness to avoid ‘non-essential social contact’ and help keep numbers with the virus to a minimum.
It wasn’t through lack of bravery on my part! I’d happily keep going if the risk was mine and yours but that’s the tricky thing with this Coronavirus isn’t it? The brave thing to do is not keep going out and carrying on. The brave thing to do and the right thing, according to our government, is to face the prospect of isolation. To separate ourselves from our friends and family.
We are not trying to protect ourselves. We are trying to protect NHS workers, police officers and other front line staff. Just imagine for one moment that you do get it bad, or your mom gets it bad, or your runner / walker friend gets it bad……
You will want them to be able to get in an ambulance, get a bed in hospital and have nurses and doctors to care for them. You want police on the streets to keep us safe just in case there’s rioting over the bog roll!
At SE Fitness alone we already have one ambulance driver at home really poorly with suspected Coronavirus and two police officers and a GP in 2 week lock down. If this is already happening to the people we know how much strain are our emergency services under?
The great news is that we are all at liberty to head out for a walk or a run. We can do so with our families or on our own perfectly legitimately as long as we respect the social distance rule (2 metres). We are so fortunate to live in the leafy suburbs with Sutton Park, Newhall Valley and green fields on our doorstep. If I honestly thought we could run/walk on the trails in Sutton Park or on the pavements as a group but keep 2 metres apart I would have kept us going believe me.
It’s the first day of Spring and the weekend forecast is gorgeous so do please do get out there and enjoy it. I know we miss SE Fitness, me most of all, but please support me and follow the government advice. Let’s protect our friends in the NHS, police and other support services just in case we or a loved one might need them.
Much love from me,
Helyn xx