run

Week Seven, Day 3

Saturday, August 26th, 2023

Greetings from Connecticut. Colby, Pete, and I have escaped the city to spend the week with my family in the Nutmeg State, where a week of paddleboarding, tubing, beach, lake, and firepits with the people we love most awaits. 

Oh yeah, and running, of course, because this program will not stop for vacation. We shan’t be deterred. 

I can’t tell you all the relief I feel in being home. The stress of this past week, the effect it’s had on Colby and on me, it’s been a lot. More than a lot. And, I mean, the city can be a lot, in and of itself and this past week truly did feel insane. Wednesday, in particular, was just a really low moment for me. So, to be here with a lake a literal minute away, the river five minutes away, on top of being wrapped up in the support and love of my parents? It’s incredible. And needed. The timing could not have been better. 

I’m still waiting to hear back about whether or not Wegovy has been approved for me, which makes me nervous, to be sure, but there is a baby shower tomorrow and the myriad of outdoor activities mentioned above to keep my mind otherwise distracted. Today, I took another dose of the medication I’m currently on and felt a twinge of panic as I did the math to realize that I will have just enough to make it through the week without taking the dosage down to cause anything rough in terms of it leaving my system, but beyond that? Past the literal point of no return? It’s a big old question mark. I am just trying to breathe, and focus, and trust, and concentrate on the sweet songs of the cardinals that live in the trees behind my parents’ house. I am going to stay focused on anything but waiting to hear about this approval. 

So…I guess….I have to run. 

Real talk: I actually love running here. During the thick of the pandemic, when we came home to Unionville and I was in one of my running modes, I would go to the town center because, similar to where we live in the city, my parent’s neighborhood is incredibly hilly. I would park next to the old row houses that were once housed factory workers and work my way up and down the tree-lined avenues, winding my way to the overgrown banks of the river. 

It’s just the complete opposite vibe from New York running, not even in a good or a bad way necessarily, just totally different. There’s a sweetness in the air and a peace to be found. 

This morning, I had the idea to run my old route from when I rowed crew in high school. The boat house is a decent distance from the school, and most of us on the team didn’t have our license or a car, so we would have to run to get there. I’m honestly kind of shocked that we were allowed to do this, and I wonder if it’s still the practice today. It’s not desolate desolate, but it’s the country. It’s remote. And I feel like in 2023, it might not be happening anymore, which makes me sad and I hope that it is. I really loved that time. So, yeah,  I thought it might be cool to revisit the site of my first dabbling into running and did what I do and asked my mom for permission to run it, and was shot down. Well, not entirely shot down, my mom did the thing that moms do where she lets you know that she’s not thrilled with the idea of you doing the thing but then ends with the ever-exasperated-yet-rooted-in-love-and-worry “But I’m not going to tell you no, you can do whatever you want to do.” 🤣I mean, I have to laugh, because she knows I’m not going to do it now, but in her mind, it was still my “choice” to reach that decision. Oh, moms. We love them, we do. And I really do mean that, my mom is the best. 

And listen, I get it. That route is REMOTE, and I probably shouldn’t be running it alone. The good news is that I have four opportunities this week to run here in the sticks. I wonder if  maybe I can convince Colby to accompany me, him on a bike, me trudging along on foot, and he can be my big-bad chaperone, because I really would like to run that old route to the boat house. Mark my words now: I will do everything in my power to make that happen. I would try to sneaky pete it myself, but I would need someone to drop me off near the high school and then pick me up at the river so there’s no way to do it without anyone in my family knowing outside of calling an Uber and that feels……weird. Not going to do that. Also, not going to lie to them about a run. But I will find a way. Like Jeff Goldblum said, “Life finds a way,” and running is life, right? Ew, ok, no, not even I can make that joke with a straight face. 

Alright. So, to Unionville Center I go with big plans for the week ahead. 

POST-RUN MORTUM 

Time Running: 35 minutes 

Distance Achieved: 2.39 miles 

Tunage: Hadestown – I’m on a kick, what can I say

What an absolute balm for the soul, running along the river. Restorative and needed. There were several times where I felt myself getting emotional because being home, being out of the city, just feels so unbelievably good. There is a settling into myself that I feel when we are here, and I am really excited for the next three runs coming up this week. 

I also had a thought: I wonder if I ran for the full 35 minutes if, I would hit my goal of a 35-minute 5K. I say this because the first five minutes and the last five minutes of my run is a warm-up and then a cool-down. For the warm-up, I briskly walk. For the cool down, I do the same until I slow it down to more of a stroll after my heart rate has slowed a bit. So, my thinking is, that’s 10 minutes of potential running time that I’m not wasting on walking, but perhaps could be used more strategically. If I run for the full 35 minutes, I feel like I can hit that. We’ll see because I think this next week we up the time to around 45 minutes or so, from that I remember. Time will literally tell. 

There is also a need for acupuncture, and I wish I’d had the foresight to have that done before we left, but once I’m done with this post, I will be going to Megan’s site, found here, and scheduling an appointment with her. She is a literal witch with magical healing abilities, and I need to talk to her about my hips and why they are hurting, specifically my left one, after every run and then just kind of in general. I know that my hips are weak, and I’m starting to understand when they say that you run on one leg 100% of the time. My body is feeling it. And I think I need little needles strategically and methodically placed into muscle groups. Blessed be the needle.