Healthy body, healthy mind: the KWP lockdown challenge

By Jess Crutchley

“These are mysterious times …” were the very apt lyrics that blared out of my iPod one evening last week as I ran through my local park, taking care, of course, to ensure I kept a safe distance from other park users (please don’t judge me by my taste in music, I like to run to anything with a good beat – honest!).

As an active person, I’m finding this lockdown business pretty tough and I know I’m not alone. As we shift our laptops from the study to the kitchen for a change of scenery and an attempt to liven up the days, it can feel like there’s not much to look forward to. But alongside the online chats with friends and family, yoga, cooking – and, of course, work! – it’s that small window of the day when I’m allowed out to exercise that keeps me going.

I try to get out to the open spaces near where I live as often as possible, but when I explained to my colleagues that always running the same route can get a bit monotonous, we decided to embark on a challenge: to run or walk our company’s initials – KWP – while out exercising and record it using a fitness tracker. And you know what? It’s not as easy as it sounds! Here are some of our attempts:

                                

There is some room for improvement, of course, and the “K” proved especially tricky. But that doesn’t really matter – the idea was to encourage the team to keep active and to have a bit of fun in the process! After all, it’s a well-known fact that exercise stimulates the mind as well as the body, which can only benefit our writing.

It’s business as usual here at Klein Wolf Peters. We’re all working from home (something we were already well set up to do), of course, and continue to serve all of our customers as normal, naturally providing any additional support with communications about the current situation if required.

So yes, the lyrics of Sash! feat. Tina Cousins, “for this moment I feel like we live in mysterious times”, are very pertinent to me (and many of you, I’m sure) right now, but what’s also true (cue another ’90s classic from my running playlist) is that “things can only get better” (D:Ream). These mysterious times won’t last forever even if my cheesy taste in music does ?

What creative ideas have you had to stay active during lockdown? We’d love to hear them!