Runners have a long track ahead preparing for the 2020 Boston Marathon since it’s been postponed to September, but a Sargent College webinar should help. Photo by Cydney Scott

Public Health

Sargent Webinar Helps Runners Recalibrate for Postponed Marathon

Also in our Coronavirus Thursday Roundup: Should Memorial Drive be closed for better social distancing?

If you have a question or comment related to BU and its response to the COVID-19 crisis, on the subject of the move-out, remote learning, retrieving personal belongings, or anything else, please visit Boston University’s special COVID-19 website. Questions are being answered there by specific departments in a timely fashion. Thank you.
—Doug Most, executive editor, BU Today

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BU News

Still running the (rescheduled) Marathon? Get help reshaping your regimen

In March, with the coronavirus emergency gathering steam, the Boston Athletic Association postponed the 124th Boston Marathon from April 20 to September 14. And that has thrown a monkey wrench into the training regimens of all the people who were planning to run on Patriots Day. Now Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences is hosting a free webinar on Zoom April 22, at 7 pm EST, to help runners training for Boston (and other spring marathons) to restructure their programs and plan out the next five months of training.

“This is obviously an extremely large group of people, many of them in our own BU community, who would benefit from professional guidance and instruction,” says Emma Zeligson, a BU Physical Therapy Center (BUPTC) physical therapist and one of the organizers. 

The panelists are Louise Donlon and Caleigh O’Brien, BUPTC physical therapists; Sarah Gilbert, a Sargent Choice Nutrition Center registered dietitian; and four-time Boston Marathon qualifier Nancy Wilkinson Steers. The experts will outline important cross-training supplementation to running, discuss optimal nutritional habits, and explore the psychological barriers that come with restructuring a running program. There will be time at the end for Q&A.

The webinar is free and open to the public, but spots are limited. Register here.

Gratitude, delivered

BU’s Government and Community Affairs team marked One Boston Day April 15 by distributing some gratitude in edible form, including a stack of pizzas to Boston University Police Department staff and chocolate chip cookies to the public safety team at BU’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL).

Thank you @BU_GCA for the pizzas and supporting our officers on #OneBostonDay pic.twitter.com/QvDoCoiECp

— BU Police Department (@BUPolice) April 15, 2020

Reflections that go Zoom

BU Digital Learning & Innovation has launched a Remote Teaching & Learning at BU Voices & Reflections series, a collection of insights and experiences—shared via video, audio, poetry, and more—from those teaching and learning remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic this spring. BU’s leadership, faculty, students, and staff discuss their challenges and unexpected revelations and accomplishments. 

Included are moments such as a CFA violin duet via Zoom, a visit by Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander (CFA’81, Hon.’95) to Michael Kaye’s CFA acting classes via Zoom, COM’s WBTU first live radio broadcast via Zoom (audio), and much more. They highlight important teaching and learning moments and new educational opportunities and share heartwarming experiences of students and faculty connecting with and beyond technology.

Boston and Beyond News

Testing expands in Boston—and so do donations

On Wednesday, Mayor Martin J. Walsh announced expansion of COVID-19 testing programs in the city: Whittier Street Health Center in Roxbury will offer expanded testing to all residents; the city’s first-responder testing facility at Suffolk Downs in East Boston will be expanded to include Boston residents starting this Friday; and by this weekend, Codman Square Health Center in Dorchester will have expanded access to testing and Brigham & Women’s Hospital will expand services in its Hyde Park primary care site. 

Walsh also announced that the Mapfre Foundation has donated $500,000 to the Boston Resiliency Fund to purchase critical supplies for medical professionals and first-responders, and Liberty Mutual has committed an additional $15 million in grants to be distributed to Boston-based nonprofits, including $1 million to Boston Medical Center, Pine Street Inn, and Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, and $500,000 to St. Francis House, Friends of Boston’s Homeless, and the Greater Boston Foodbank. Since its creation in March, the fund has raised over $25 million from more than 3,500 donors.

Social distancing on Memorial Drive?

The Cambridge City Council wants to close Memorial Drive to traffic during the pandemic—since there’s not really that much traffic anyway—and open it up to runners, walkers, bicyclists, and the like. The idea is that more space for recreation could mean less violation of social-distancing rules on the existing paths by the Charles River. The Boston Globe reports that the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, which controls the road, is considering the request. A stretch of Memorial Drive is already handed over to pedestrians on Sundays during warm weather months.

US & Global News

At-home SAT and ACT will be ready if needed in the fall

The College Board, which administers the SAT, and ACT, which administers its own standardized test, are developing at-home, digital versions of the two standardized college admissions tests for if the coronavirus keeps schools from opening in the fall. The New York Times says: “The proposal for at-home testing is an implicit admission that the pandemic is threatening the industry’s test delivery and business model.” BU announced three weeks ago that it will go test-optional for students applying for the fall 2021 and spring 2022 semesters, as this spring’s testing schedule has already been disrupted by the pandemic. This is intended as a one-time change, however.

Latest count of coronavirus cases

United States, 601,472; Massachusetts, 29,918.

Distraction of the day:

The Broadway World website has been compiling and showcasing short videos sent in by college seniors who were denied their final performances IRL by the pandemic. The popular website tweets out a sample every day, and among the performers highlighted this week was actor Gina Fonseca (CFA’20), blazing through a monologue from the play Dance Nation by Clare Barron. (As they say on TV, adult language—parental discretion advised.)

Find BU Today’s latest coverage of the pandemic here. The University’s hotline for faculty, staff, students, and visiting scholars to call for referral of their virus-related medical concerns is 617-358-4990.