run

Week Six, Day 1

Thursday, August 15th, 2023

Blogging is a new medium for me, right? I think we can all agree by what we’re reading from week to week that I am figuring it out as I go, but, I have been really good at getting my posts ready for publication over the last five weeks. I’ll look at what I’ve written – and again, these are posted two weeks behind from when they were written because when I Googled how to blog successfully, mama Googs told me to have stuff ready to go and to not just wing it week to week which makes sense – and I’ll edit it, make some changes here and there, nothing major. But it’s been a really nice process for my writing, actually. I’ve never been a writer who has the, I guess other writers would use the word discipline, but I write for myself and for fun, and in a life full of discipline and structure, writing has always been something a little more free, but it’s true. I don’t wake up at five and watch the sunrise as I type my 10,00 words for the day. It’s just never been me. But this writing tri-weekly, and then going over it, making it pop in places, I don’t know, it’s been great. 

That is until this week. 

But it’s only Tuesday, you say. I KNOW. It’s been a long week already. 

Normally, I will edit the post the night before it goes live so that in the morning, all I have to do is open WordPress and bingo bongo, she’s live. But a new factor has just entered the chat. And I have a feeling it is going to be….tricky to navigate? 

So, I started a new job. And no, this is not the exciting news that I vaguebooked about last week. It is exciting because it means I can now afford to keep brie cheese in the fridge without dipping into savings, but this is not that news. It’s just news. I’m working at this amazing coffee shop around the corner from where we live. Literally. I can see it from our windows. And y’all, this learning curve for getting back into the swing of serving has been ROUGH. 

I haven’t had a serving job since 2016. **YIKESS** And my body is feeling it. Like, ankles swollen, knees throbbing, wrist pulsing from attempting to make art for 100+ lattes in a shift. It didn’t help that I wore the entirely wrong shoes on my first shift, so I think that laid a foundation of pain for this past week, but I remember this from the last time I worked in service. You are just on your feet for 8 hours straight, and it is a lot. 

Now you might be saying, “But Ally, you’re a performer, you sing and dance, and as you’ve said eight thousand times, the last show you did had a set that was only stairs!!” To which I reply, chyeah, performing is intense, and it is a workout, but it is different than just standing for 8 straight hours. 

If you’ve never worked in service before, good for you, but also boo for you. I think the US should have a policy, like Israel with the military, only it’s mandatory to work in the service industry—food, clothing, or otherwise. I just think we, as a nation, would be more empathetic and understanding toward one another if we all knew how grueling and hard and rewarding and difficult and fun and awful a service job can be. 

I bring all of this up because today, this morning, I edited the post that went live on Tuesday, 8/15, because I was exhausted after my shift and, if I’m being completely transparent, forgot about it until I opened my laptop to write this post today. And, y’all, the sheer privilege of me being like, “I’m going to the beach, and it’s hard to get my run in,” like, shut the literal fuck up. Thousands of people work countless jobs just to make ends meet, and you’re over there whining about going to the beach and how “difficult” it’s making this process for you, like, STOBBAT. If you knew then that you’d be working 6 am opening shifts, you would have just gone for the damn run and kept your beautiful, fat mouth shut. 

All of this to say; my body is sore, and my body is tired, and I am still training for this fucking 5K. On top of doing my other workout stuff. On top of a new full-time work schedule. Which has me feeling overwhelmed. And I find it odd that exactly two weeks ago, I was talking about time management in regard to “things coming up,” re, the beach, and now I’m like, life is CLAPPING back. Life is a process. We all grow in real time. 

In the past, I remember adjusting to all of the standing and the being on the feet after a few weeks when I worked many, many years ago, but I wasn’t running. The kind of working out I was doing then was more pilates, strength-based, HIIT stuff that had me in and out in short bursts. Granted, I was doing them like three times a day. Ok, now that I’ve typed that, though, I see that I was doing quite a lot back then, and that running isn’t really so much more than what I was doing. It just feels like a lot right now? 

You know what it is? I’m older now, and, like I said, I’m tired. And there is a part of me that wants to be like, “ok, I have a job now. I can stop this running thing,” but I’ve painted myself into a fucking corner by blogging about all of this, and now I can’t stop because then how does that look? Not great. Not great at all. 

So, what I’m feeling is a little bit trapped—and annoyed that it was I who set the trap. And if I were a less committed, less stubborn person, I would write a lovely farewell post right now about how it was great, but sometimes life happens, and we have to pivot. 

But I’m none of those things. I know that. I’m pretty sure by now you know that as well. 
So we fucking run. 
Swollen body and throbbing wrist and all. 
Because I did this to myself, didn’t I? 
Fun. 
Fun times. 

Ok. Putting my sneaks on and then heading out to do what I am anticipating will be a highly mediocre run. But at least she’s eaten! And even stretched a little bit. My god. Growth, in real time! 

Post-Run Mortum 

Distance Achieved: 2.48 miles 

Time Running: 34 minutes

Tunage: Summertime Playlist 

Running Milestone Unlocked: Powering through the absolute dire need to pee and contemplating finding a bush along the path to pop a squat behind – for clarification, I did not. I made it to the apartment. But if this run were any longer, that bush and I would have become much better acquainted. 

My guy, Runicorn, had to start today with a jog warm-up. He just had to. Because he’s Runicorn, and that’s what he does. But I was not to be deterred. I did, however, pivot from my original course. I was planning on doing the downtown route that I did last week, where I hit 2.6, but I was not about to jog up any hills today. So once I got to the top of my street, I decided to head uptown but along a different path. 

I usually don’t like to do this path alone because it is kind of isolated – sorry, Mom – but they were doing greenspace work on it today, so there were people everywhere. Typically, and I say this now solely for my mom, I will not utilize this path without a friend. 

I’m surprised by the distance. It felt like I was going further than I usually do when I head uptown, but this path is really nice and flat. Which makes me wonder what the course is going to be like for Governor’s Island. There aren’t any super big hills. Well, there’s that one literal hill that I think might be called “The Great Hill,” but I doubt they’ll make us run that. Right? That seems cruel. My friend Rachel suggested that I head out to the island before the race and run around for an afternoon to get the feel of it. At first, I was like, meh, I’ll just do it on the day, but the more I do this, the more I’m understanding how little things can affect your run. The smallest incline, straight-aways vs curves, they all have an impact. And you probably know this, and I realize that it seems obvious, but it’s just something that I’m trying to be aware of. 

I also passed a runner today who gave me a thumbs-up. I was coming out of an 8-minute jog interval, and I didn’t necessarily collapse over myself, but I definitely doubled a bit forward and took in a big breath, and he gave me the thumb of approval. So. At least they thought I was doing ok. Or maybe they thought I was in distress and were trying to be supportive. And then maybe, we can hold and know both of those things to be true. 

Alright. That’s all I have for right now.

I feel like I’m making progress. Maybe not huge leaping bounds, but it’s marginal, and it’s there. Thanks for being along for this ride.