After a year and a half of continued physical and mental recovery following long COVID, Professor Leon Brin is set to run the Gaylord Gauntlet, an open trail 5K run, on Saturday, June 25, 2022.
Brin, a 22-year faculty member with Southern’s math department, was diagnosed with COVID-19 just after Thanksgiving 2020, and then again that following January. His long COVID symptoms included heart palpitations, heavy breathing and brain fog.
His physical and mental limitations made it difficult for Brin to return to the classroom in fall 2020, opting to teach online classes that semester.
“In my 22 years I’ve never had to cancel a class for lack of ability to put together a lesson plan,” he said. But he had to do that four or five times.
While vaccinations were not available to the general public at the time of Brin’s diagnosis, doctors put him on an exercise routine which helped him lift his mental burden.
In an interview with the New Haven Register, Brin discusses how he feels about returning to the race and what those final days of recovery felt like.
“As of that day, I finally feel like I’m living rather than just surviving,” he said. “I’m going to recondition myself and that’s the last test.”
Read the article, “Long COVID stopped Cheshire marathoner in his tracks, but he’s running again,” New Haven Register, June 22, 2022. (Read PDF)
