run

Week Six, Day 2

Thursday, August 17th, 2023

All dressed up and nowhere to go. I have my sneaks and new compression sockies on, but just as I was about to head out, it started to downpour. 

So now we wait. 

I could write more here at the top. 

But I’m going to watch Shameless and have some breakfast while I wait for the skies to clear. 

POST-RUN MORTUM 

Distance Achieved: 2.48 miles 

Time Running: 33 minutes 

Tunage: Titanic: The Musical – Listen, it has LONG been a favorite of mine, if you don’t know this about me, you should know that I’ve also LONG been obsessed with the Titanic proper as well as the film which I saw in theaters 7 times when it came out in 1997 and the musical is coming to City Center next year and I am trying to MANIFEST THAT SHIT BABYYYYYYY

Running Milestone Unlocked: I did that little jog thing that I see people do at intersections while waiting for the light to change

Today’s run felt good. There is a slight pain/ache in my left knee, but it’s a familiar pain/ache that I know will be helped by the theragun – which I should have brought in the car with me as I sit here for the next hour and a half doing street sweeping – and stretching.

I did feel like I could have gone a little bit longer today, which is cool, considering it was another one with the really long running interval. Not the full 20-minute interval, but I think it was two eight-minute blocks again, and I have to say, I covered a good amount of distance in those blocks. I now know that if I needed to, I could probably run about ten city blocks in eight minutes. Which might not actually be that cool of a thing, but for me, that feels amazing. 

My breath went a little out the window, but I think that’s alright, or at least, I’m choosing to tell myself that it’s alright. When I could, I did my best to breathe in through my nose, but then, most of the time, I exhaled through my mouth. And, like, if I’m going to breathe through my mouth, I’m pretty sure the exhale is the better one to do it on. I also really focused today on how my foot was hitting the ground. I have a tendency to shuffle, both with walking and running – it’s why my shoes wear down so quickly – and I don’t know why that is. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that if I shuffle my feet, they’ll make less of an impact on the ground, or the floor won’t shake, I don’t know, but I noticed that with the running I’ve been doing, there is a good amount of shuffling. So today, the focus was on really pushing off and landing firmly on my heel, not my toe, like I also tend to do, because only dainty, tiny people walk so daintily on their toes. 

Fuck that noise. I’m using the full foot moving forward, gosh dang it, ground shaking be damned. Damned I say!

I know I’ve written about this before earlier on, but this process is really making me realize just how much I try to minimize my body in the world, right down to the way that I walk. It’s not surprising, and I know that many fat people struggle with this idea of taking up the full breadth of space that our bodies do, but it’s kind of heartbreaking to see the way that these insecurities are literally written into the cells of my flesh. It’s going to take a lot of time to work these out, but I would be lying if I said that when I’m running, I’m taking up little space. Because I’m not. Sometimes, when I’m on my route, I see myself in this little sphere, like an aura almost, where I am contained within it, but also allowing myself to take up space. It is a feeling that I know well from my time on stage, but to feel it in real life? When I’m just me? That is a wholly different and unfamiliar beast. But it feels good. And it’s stemming from running, whoever would have thought. CERTAINLY NOT I. 

Not sure if the compression socks did much? When I first put them on, they kind of made my toes tingle, and I really did get them more for work, but Daddy Bezos said that they are good for running, too, so I gave them a shot, and I think I’ll keep using them. 

So yeah, another Thursday run that felt good, which I’m digging. Let’s keep with this Thursday vibe thing going, especially since I have an 8-hour shift on Saturday and am really trying to talk myself into not bailing on the running of it all. 

May your foot find full contact on the ground today, and may the space you take be a glorious and vibrant thing.