A 16-day quarantine didn’t disrupt Cody Marett’s running routine last year. It actually inspired him to run a marathon—in his South Korean hotel room.
Some people like Mr. Marett have gotten creative with their fitness routines during the pandemic, using online tools to set new goals for themselves and motivate them to hit new personal bests. Here’s what you can learn from these ambitious exercisers to help you set and achieve goals of every scope.
Mr. Marett, a 33-year-old staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, moved his bed sideways to create an indoor oval running course and used the activity tracker Strava to determine that 85 laps equaled about a mile.
“It began as a simple 1-mile run, some calisthenics, and 1 more mile,” he says. “But I began looking at running certain distances as a unique challenge. I started with a 5k, completed a 10k, 15k and half marathon in successive days, gave myself three days off and ran a full marathon.”
He completed the 26.2 miles in four hours, 27 minutes and 28 seconds; 2,227 laps around the room. He posted Strava snapshots of his quarantine runs to a virtual run group on Facebook and says the support kept him motivated to reach the marathon distance.
