The Last Lakefront Run 

Hi Kofuzi! A fan from Spain, as phisician and casual runner as well I feel your frustration of not been able to run freely but also the concern of the pandemic crisis. From the front line on the hospital and the inside of my running shoes (which I wear all day on the ward) : "please, stay at home", this is serious.

I was on the lakefront trail Wednesday during peak hours when it was warm out, and it was way worse than the pictures show here. I was having to weave in and out of people on the path, and it was some of the busiest I've ever seen it. Tons of bike-riders, walkers, and runners. I would love to have a picture of the path next to Belmont Harbor just to show how crowded the area was. So I understand Lori's decision to shut it down just due to the sheer amount of people using the lakefront (during peak hours, on one of the first nice days in Chicago in a long time).

Having run my local routes at all different times, I'm suddenly seeing runners that I've never seen before. Logically, they're usually treadmillers at the local gyms, which are now closed. Still very low density on the sidewalks here, and the roads are quite open for giving space as needed. Early AM is still the sweet spot for the solo runner. Gonna miss those epic lakeshore shots you get!

Kofuzi, what i see in the pictures of the lakefront is not social distancing. I am writting from Portugal and here we are still allowed to go out to do short exercise session. Combining that with the social distancing is easy and clear to me: run alone and seeing no one during my run. That for me is complying and logical. And what i will do until i am not allowed, if we get there. I would say to you - do that. Choose the place and hour so that you don't see anyone on your run. Keep safe

Amazing how much we are one global village, I am about six thousand miles away from you in Israel, and the situation is so similar .. The truth is that we are progressing to full closure in the next coming days. Hope we get back to normal soon. Your lake video is beautiful!

Here in Malaysia, government has started restriction of movement order since 18th March 2020 and will be continued until 14th April... All outdoor activities/exercises are not allowed, not even running alone... We can only exercise at home 😐

Hi Ko! Greetings from Hong Kong. First of all thanks for making so many clips full of passion and love for running. Currently Hong Kong is no better than the States but I trust we all shall overcome. Hope everyone stays safe and healthy.

Breathe, smile, and I joy the air. Control what you can and find some joy in what is available. Thanks for continually making videos during this time.

The great thing about running my local trails is that once I get past the lower sections there a rarely anybody else out. Blessed to still able to do my runs.

This crisis requires strong local communities working together. Normal no longer exists. Make changes now. It is no joke.

I can understand when you talk about inconsistencies. Here in Italy the national emergency decree originally (when the situation wasn't so serious) didn't ban going for a solo run or bike ride, so outdoor exercise was allowed. But at the same time it also recommended everyone to stay indoors as much as possible. After the decree I went for a run three times and it made me feel uncomfortable, I don't know how to explain it, my city was a wasteland and there were people staring at me like I was doing something wrong even though I live in the southern part of Italy which for now is the least affected area. So I stopped going out. I heard that in other areas runners were targeted as criminals because running wasn't seen as "necessary" or "appropriate" in that circumstance although it was allowed. Also police started to give a hard time to people exercising asking them to go home. So yes, there were and still are too many inconsistencies. In the end, several local mayors and regional governors led cities to close parks and ban outdoor exercise. I think they made the best decision. Not being able to run hurts but this whole COVID-19 situation my country's living hurts even more. We just have to do our best to get out of this tragic situation. I feel quite responsible for everyone around me and scared at this point. More than ever countries around the world have to take control or people will just end up to underestimate what's happening as many of us did in the first place. Hopefully you'll understand my point of view. Just be careful out there and stay safe.

The US now has more cases than any other country. You guys HAVE to take these lockdown measures seriously if you want to contain this deadly virus. I'm in NZ and despite small number of cases, we are in complete lockdown and a state of emergency. Only essential services & businesses are open. ONE person is allowed to go to supermarket or pharmacy if needed. Can do short walk, bike, run solo locally. Can't drive anywhere unless essential eg: food, medicine NZ motto is Stay home, Save lives. Take care all, look after your families by following the rules & we will all be back running sooner. 😷🏃😍

I am living in Malaysia, the government came out with a 'MOVEMENT CONTROL ORDER' for a period of 1 month, it basically forces every people to stay home. All parks and gyms were lock down and no outdoor exercise including running.

Dear Micheal, I am also disappointed because I enjoy watching your running footage tremendously. I am a runner and also a hospital x-ray tech, and this is all so very new and strange for me. I also grew up in a place where we had frequent tornadoes and take them very seriously. I don't know how to be helpful, so I just wanted you to know that you are a great source of encouragement to me, personally and I hope that you can stay encouraged. We will all get through this, eventually. Thanks for being a friend to me.

Damn I really enjoyed watching slo-mo vids of the waves and you running through them 😔

I am excited for you to continue running as your air quality improves and see if you notice a difference.

Same here in Michigan Brother, we have cases here very close to home, it’s scary. Stay safe Michael! 😷😷😷

Stay Safe amd Thank You for the video Mr. Kofuzi.

Definitely sad news about the lakefront closure. Weird times, but more important for everyone to stay safe!

Challenging times. Thats a real pity about the Lakefront. In Ireland we went into lockdown tonight so we’re allowed out to exercise once a day for a walk or run within a 2km radius of our homes. Not ideal of course but any run is better than no run and there’s plenty of people who can’t even do that right now so i’m not complaining. Gonna be a long road but we’ll get back to where we were in time. Stay safe Kofuzi

Similar situation here. No more trail or sidewalk running for me - I've moved to busy streets with no sidewalks, but w/large shoulders. Running against traffic, only occasional biker passes me from the other direction. Everyone stay safe and limit interactions as much as possible to reduce the % risk for everyone! If you wait until it hits your town, you're already 2 weeks too late.

As a fellow Lakefront trail runner I had very similar feelings about this, but as someone who was running in the afternoon it definitely needed to be done. The number of people I was seeing on the trail ~4-6pm (especially in bulk) was unsafe and people were definitely being reckless out there. I'm just a few blocks north of you and I've been running along the Lincoln Park paths as they seem to still be open so I'd suggest giving those a shot as they cut down on the number of stops and cars around.

The Lake looked very calm today. Doing my running within our gated community, usually before the sun is up. There is a lot of cases in our county in Florida yet on our Facebook page for our community people complaining and threatening not to pay their HOA because the pool, gym, tennis courts are locked up. I just can not believe people are so self centered.

Running trails here in Colorado are still open but Boulder County has restricted groups to 2 people. My running club is now doing Zoom runs where everyone logs in and runs at the same time.

in the bay area and not a car owner, so long runs over 5 miles are out of question now. I go to asphalt paths or loose gravel trails, and I rely on bathrooms either before, during or after- to change, take of business, etc- before biking home or taking the city bus. All bathrooms are now closed by various authorities, including park water fountains, with even various nearby grocery stores locking the bathroom as well. On a run a couple of days ago, I changed outdoors by the side of some remote bldg the regional park service uses.

At least here in Indiana the close golf courses have proven to be a great place to run on the cart paths!

Although the Lakefront Path is locked out, it seems that CPD is lenient about paths west of Lake Shore Drive. My guess is that as long as we're social distancing during our workouts, we shouldn't run into trouble.

Ko you had me at hello... this intro tune is SWEEEEET! What’s going onnnnn?

Priorities. Think of it like this. If things get really bad and people are dying will you be happy looking back on your behavior exposure over the previous month. I’ve decided to stay indoors use the exercise bike or run on a road where nobody is running. Lucky for me I have one. Don’t overthink it just lay low for a month to see where things go.

I am on border of Aurora and Naperville. Me and my dog ran our normal Prairie Path loop this morning. We saw more deer than people walking and about 5 to 10% of the normal vehicle traffic. Since Boston and every other spring race cancelled, I am thinking about a Fastest Known Time (FKT) solo trail run so I feel like I accomplished something this spring.

What's the opening music? I love it.

Been in that situation and mood 12 days ago. I adapted and you will too. Trust in you and rational thinking. Whenever you need sy to talk to, feel free to get in touch. Greetings from Austria

Here in PA we have a stay at home order but we are allowed to run and walk still. But the parks are PACKED! The state parks are too. I’m hoping they are going close the state parks because people are bring stupid. I feel like people aren’t taking it seriously

I hope you had some success in finding a good route through the city today 👌 yes it seems like it’s different levels depending on where you are. We had an update today saying they are seeing positive signs of the actions we are taking as the general public but they won’t see the benefits of us being on a “loose” lockdown for 2/3 weeks so as long as people play ball here, we might see the curve start to flatten out in 2/3 weeks.... hopefully 🤞🤞

Today (South Coast of the UK) they have been stopping people (and runners) along the seafront, as its just got too busy all of a sudden. The sunny weather hasn't helped in that respect. But much like Chicago's Lakefront - people seem drawn to the water. I have been ok, doing a lot around the backstreets - which are deserted, not my best routes by any means, but at least i can still get out - our "guidance" is 1 outing a day, for exercise OR shopping, so for me running takes priority!!!

thanks for sharing bro, ill do my best to get in daily runs for health. stay safe

I've seen it here in MN too, a cold, breezy Sunday low 40's and the parks were packed. If there wasn't all these closures none of these people would be going to parks. I loved running on Lakefront when I was visiting Chicago a real bummer.

The lightest foot strike I've seen, solid!

I don't live in Illinois but I remember they have a river-walk path along Wacker? Is that also closed?

Hey Kofuzi-I'm not sure where you're located in the city, but I like to run in Horner Park (there is a 1 mile loop you can do protected from car traffic etc.) or along the river if you enter at Ronan Park (Lawrence and California) which takes you pretty far north uninterrupted by street traffic. I'm out there every day and it has been pretty low traffic/there is space to keep a safe distance from others. Good luck and maybe see you out there!

you test so may running shoes - do you ever have issues with blisters? I find that every time i get new shoes, i have train less b/c of the blisters and sometimes even have to return the shoes. (But i'm not sure if the problem really is the shoes) :/ Any tips?!!??

😟 aw that stinks We've been continuing to run outside but luckily havent encountered too many other people along our routes

On the island we are locked down, know one could go walkoutside for last two weeks and governor just anaunced two more weeks. Went from 60 miles to 20 running in a kilometer distance back and forth 👍🏻

That’s a bummer. Just looking to start up my running for the year. Probably a bad time here in Chicagoland.

This may also happen here (Sydney). Too many people are out in larger groups. Solo runners, etc aren’t so much the issue. I saw groups of people having picnics. We are in stage 2 lockdown which sounds like Chicago. Essential services only - restaurants and cafes takeaway only. Bars etc closed. Oddly hairdressers are open 🤪

0:16 That view! So surreal given the circumstances. Sorry that your usual running route is shut down Ko. If your plan is to keep running outdoors, something that I've mentioned to my running crew to challenge themselves during this quarantine period is to check out citystrides.com. You can link your Strava and try to complete all the streets in a certain neighbor or city. Stay safe, stay healthy.

So sad for you😞. Ive been going out earlier over here in 🇬🇧. But same as you we’ve had the first spell of decent weather and everyone is out. Yes you are right one form of exercise a day over here. All playgrounds, leisure facilities over here have been closed as well.

I think everyone's stocked up on TP. Next panic buy item: treadmills

Chicago has stunning views , that's why it's my favorite city 🙌🙏🔥 I live in Windsor Ontario we're only 4 and half hours away from Chicago. Me and my wife go to Chicago every summer 😁

Be safe, running is the only thing that keeps me calm at this time.

Sorry to hear that mate.

We will be back sooner or later! Stronger than before... Keep healthy!

I was on the trail at 7:30 p.m., on Wednesday (I run in the evening) and it was pretty empty. I had no idea that people were violating the rules or that it would be my last run for awhile. It really sucks that the bad ones messed it up for everyone.

It’s unfortunately like here in Canada. People don’t listen and go out with group and will all end up in same situation by the water lakefront . Stay safe and hope this don’t last too long

Same frustration here - some runners get really angry seeing others outside... But that just shows how overpopulated are the cities. We seek space, not socialising, just breathe air. So people are sticking with their family only but in a big community it looks like a crowd. Hm, I still recall a site from "Day One", 2 weeks ago - city looking like abandoned.

I am from Spain, living in NY. I am not running either biking for the last three weeks. Central Park is packed, we don’t see what is coming. This is going to last longer because people are not staying at home as they should.

the mayor also said don't run a 5k I think? Do you have another location to train your steeple?

🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾

My closest neighbor is 3/4 mile away. Pretty quiet until I go running. I'm seeing a lot of cars out for this area. 48 cars in a 13.1 miles run the other day. Today 25 for 11 miles. I'm guessing because people are not working.

You could just pack up the fam and move down to Beverly and have a nice, neat neighborhood to run each day. Hit the lakefront on weekends.

Props to describing median vs mean 👍 👏 💯

I think it's hard to find the right balance or even a consensus right now. Every country, state, county, city is different. We try to learn from the mistakes committed by others, but adapt it to fit our needs. There's gonna be some things we prefer and some we don't. Like how my country right now is enforcing distancing measures in public masks, restaurants. Yet they don't enforce it on the public transport, so peak hour traffic is just as bad. It's kinda superficial I guess, but with the majority of the population using the public subways everyday to work, there's no way we can enforce distancing measures in there.

The lake in my community was closed down as well. I'm not happy about it at all. We need to run.

In Belgium we can still run and bike as much and as often as we want on one day ;-) Tomorrow I am going for a Marathon on my own, replacing my Ghent Marathon.

What are you wearing around your calves?

That sucks, it's happening all over. I'm just waiting for them to close the university where i run. Maybe this is a good opportunity to find new places to run while you can?

No man, you should do everything in 360😎✌...

8:19 "I'm so bad at maps and directions" Really? I had no clue you were bad with maps and directions!! 😅

You can run in the toilet paper aisle at the grocery store, those are empty...

if we don't make good decisions, the decisions will be made for us.

In North London its been a mixed bag. Today was the first time I saw people actively cross roads to avoid each other. But then again saw people out for picnics 🤦🏾‍♂️

Sorry to hear that. Still running here in CO. Honestly, if they said we needed to stop I’d tell them to fu?& off.

I stopped running about a week ago myself.

I know by myself that is very dificult to accept not to run outside but is the best decision for you and don't let your kids to got outside is hard but isolation is the best way to confront the virus

Stay safe, everyone!

The idea of calling the cops because someone is going out for a second run is too much hahaha I saw pics of the Chicago lakefront at around 6:45PM and it looked way to busy so makes sense they closed it. Even where I live near Toronto, I went out to get groceries around 5PM and I saw more people outside walking/running than I expected.

The Chicago mayor said: "You cannot go on long bike rides. Playgrounds are shut down,” she said. “You must abide by the order. Outside is for a brief respite, not for 5Ks.” She added: “I can’t emphasize enough that we abide [by] the rules.”

To be able to run outside in the open is such a privilege now. In my country, the police will arrest anyone caught running outside 😔 and spend the night at the lock-up. Many are arrested just yesterday.

I live in Toronto, I usually run in the streets/sidewalks, but now with the non-essential businesses closed, the streets are virtually empty so I have been running faster becuase I never need to stop for traffic. But I have been seeing a lot more runner and bikers, but mostly solo.

while we can still run I have been signing up for virtual events. not as fun, but trying to support the event companies too.

This isnt easy on anyone so appreciate your approach. One thing I found interesting is there are multiple strains of the virus all around the planet. Scientist are no longer confident of origination with so many variations at play. With that many variations cant help but wonder how long this has been around and mixed in with standard flu stats. Anyone annoyed w/my viewpoint please forgive me and understand that I had a most nasty virus that everyone around me contracted at the same time, last year in Costa RIca. Fever, cough, aches, lungs clogged for 2months, flat out nasty. So I wonder how long these strains have been around all along? Cheers.

Just done 5k in my apartment, going to attempt a half marathon tomorrow It does work

May be city of Chicago will turn on some fire hydrants, so you can run through some water 😀. We are going to miss that!

I respectfully suggest to not only give lots of space to older people, but to any human being. As we all know now, a child can be a asymptomatic but still will shed the virus and therefore can be even more risky to others because of the false sense of security due to their lack of outward symptoms. And that goes for all ages in between. And it’s very disturbing to hear about states like Iowa giving people a false sense of security as well. It’s only a matter of time and we don’t even need to look at Italy and Spain, but rather NY, Florida, California, Louisiana, etc. to see what’s coming. The people who go outside in groups are ruining it for everyone who abides by the current policies and recommendations. If not for them, being outdoors is safe if we simply keep our distance.

Here in France you're in lockdown with one hour and 1k radio to run.

Sorry man. It is a difficult and unusual time. Be safe running the streets. We take so much for granted don’t we?

We are reduced to running down Chicago's alleyways now! Ugh ...

I found out today my race in September is cancelled. should I keep up my training pace and just get a new pr, or slow it down?

Stay safe, the lakefront will reopen and welcome you.

This is sad 🥺

Conflicted on whether to LIKE the video or not...I don't like the circumstances but did like the video. Stay safe.

😢😢😢

Suggestion, review Garmin 245 and synced to Zwift and competing against people and live streaming. Hang in there. My place, they are starting arrest people for jogging. Yeah, Malaysia has deaths from Covid, so I can see the reason for the lockdown. Searching for a treadmill right now to try out zwift.

Shit...in Moscow,Russia they also start to close parks and other public places...gyms are already closed since last week....i will be fat by end of carantine (

Honestly..with COVID-19..prevention is lots better than cure..prevention at all cost..

Time to get in a car and drive to a remote place for a run. Good luck.

I know i can run now if i wanted to. Been running up until a few days ago when people started showing up inside our village to run too. I stop because i felt guilty. I don’t want to encourage it. Now, with the conditions surrounding our area, i just wish our government would put us in total lockdown because people around here just dont get it. I don’t mind. As long as this thing gets under control.

Stay safe

i am sorry you lost your route , i understand your Mayors decision , rational ,while i understand the medical strategy , I will never ever in my heart accept this and the rest of my life i will have an internal rebellion about accepting this" reality " i never will. in Milwaukee our lakefront is open still, i hope Chicago opens theirs back up soon . normal needs to return with a vengeance and a long memory, a little rant sorry

Watch Peter Attia channel and his podcast for technical information but it is USA bias, which is totally understandable. We are all in this together.