• Direct: The last hour of the coronavirus
  • Confinement. Why shouldn't you run down the hall?

"I hide in the garage because they were watching me on the roof." After nap, Angelina descends from her fourth floor in Cuatro Caminos to the basement where her second-hand Qashqai sleeps. The small 60-square-meter compound has replaced the gym. She clandestinely stretches muscle during confinement. “The garage is a common area where exercise is prohibited, but I use it because it helps me to ward off the burden of this damn coronavirus. I go around like a fool, but that helps me to discharge adrenaline . I have not been caught yet and I hope this continues, "he maintains without remorse for his illegal conduct.

«I go down there every day, hiding, as if I were going to get some magazines from the storage room, I close the door discreetly so as not to be discovered and start walking fast. I walk without turning on the light, so as not to arouse the curiosity of the neighbors . I do it in the dark, taking advantage of the little light that comes in from the street. I put on the stopwatch and don't stop until an hour later. Walking in such a small place is uncomfortable and to avoid claustrophobia I have no other choice but to abstract myself », he adds.

Angelina is a quarantine runner who flirts with the forbidden: «I know this is illegal, but I do not harm anyone, I do not touch anything in the garage, there is no risk of infecting or being infected. Despite feeling banned, the benefit I get, de-stressing, compensates me ».

Javier , a veteran marathon runner, also ventures underground: «I am a junkie in sports and since I have no treadmill or exercise bike, I have to find my life. From the beginning of the running of the bulls I went out running for a couple of days as a poacher and I had problems with the neighbors, who rebuked me from their homes, that's why it occurred to me to use an interior area of ​​the community, which nobody takes advantage of, to exercise. I start at 9:30 am and always do the same circuit, going down the stairs from the seventh floor and down to the garage, which is large, with two floors. There I even do series on a 50 meter straight. So I am for 45 minutes, this serves to create endorphins ».

"Human ingenuity"

This athlete from the Chamartín area has assumed the surreptitious as a habit: "Sometimes I think that when this confinement ends I will have Stockholm syndrome and that I will continue running around here."

New guidelines generated by an unusual interior exile that require a visit to the couch. "That recourse to the solitude and darkness of the garages to relieve tension shows that the ingenuity of the human being is immeasurable," says psychiatrist Jesús de la Gándara .

“There are two types of individuals, those who seek solutions to problems and those who become alarmed or stuck. Those who do sports on the sly are startled, restless people, different from those who remain calm, afraid. Both behaviors are prototypical of the origin of humanity. There are animals that to confront the threats, to escape from the lion, remain mimetized on the ground, overwhelmed, and others who flee to carry out a tempest of movements, "adds de la Gándara.

Mikel Martínez , a specialist in sports medicine, warns about the danger of this practice: «Although some believe that they do not harm anyone, the truth is that when we play sports we hyperventilate and generate more saliva. We can not run with a mask, because we drown, and if we are asymptomatic carriers, the bug that we expel does not stay in the air, because it does not float, but falls on surfaces, on the ground, on the walls, in cars ... therefore the concentration of risk increases. I understand that it is not something convenient, apart from the fact that we should all be exemplary and avoid picaresque ».

This doctor points out that this new hidden custom is different from the activities organized by neighborhood communities in large venues and outdoors: "It does not seem counterproductive to use patios or open spaces for individual use and with distribution of schedules, never use them in collective training" .

Marcelino Torrontegui , masseuse of the Málaga soccer team, claims that physical exercise in times of confinement is basic: «The situation is complicated, we have to look for alternatives because with what is happening we are going to be very touched mentally. That some resort to garages shows that inventive capacity can be very great. Of course it is not the right place to do sports, because psychologically it is very screwed running in the dark indoors, but I understand that they do it. We are like caged monkeys, I do not sleep until five in the morning. I have started to run, without moving, in front of the television, but in the end you break your twins ».

Torrontegui assures that he has not yet seen his neighbors from Malaga invading common areas: «Even Tato does not come down here, and that the houses are small, we are four in mine and we all do sports. Sometimes it seems that we are in a circus, because we do not all fit in the room and we have to relieve ourselves to exercise. There are fights to get on the exercise bike , here there are more nudges than on a stage of the Tour ».

And it is that each one is relieved as he can. «I don't have the excuse to walk the dog, that's why I go down to the garage. I know that it is illegitimate, but I do not bother anyone, "exclaims Miguel , a Madrid official who lives in the Pacific area. "I do not see the end of the tunnel, meanwhile I will continue to avoid rows of cars in this infernal confinement", affects from his hidden retirement.

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