run

Week Nine, Day 1

Tuesday, September 5th, 2023

WEEK NINE, Y’ALL! Ugh, we made it. Did you think we’d make it here? Because I gotta tell you, I wasn’t sure! Who am I kidding, of course I knew we’d make it here, but now we are here!! Wow. When this started back in July, week nine felt SO far away. I can’t believe it’s arrived so quickly. Time, you know? She just marches on. 

I am excited for this week. We have a new mattress arriving tomorrow, I’m taking myself on a day date to see Hadestown – to hopefully give you a reprieve from my tunage – and on Thursday, I have acupuncture. Oh! And, I believe my prescription for Wegovy comes in. There were supply issues, so it was a bit delayed, but hopefully, by end of day today, I have some insight as to when it arrives exactly. They said this week, so fingers crossed. I’m eager to get on that so my body can start to adjust. I spoke about it on Instagram over the weekend and, as always, my network of humans has been nothing but supportive and incredible. A bunch of people actually reached out to me, telling me that they’ve been on it for a while and that they are seeing results! I’m honored that they would share that with me. I’m honored to hold that space for them and to maybe help them feel like these medications are not a “cheat” or that we don’t deserve to be taking them. It’s been so wonderful to talk with people and hear their stories.

Indeed. This is the week of self care and love….while simultaneously working 40 hours at the coffee shop 🤣. But, honestly, y’all? I’m not even minding the muggle job. It’s keeping me up on my feet, my core is oddly always activated while I’m there – it’s a lot of pivoting and I just feel the abs engaged in a way that makes me feel pleasantly sore at the end of a shift – and I dig everyone I work with. 

All of this to say, I feel, dare I say it, good about going into this week. It will become clearer when I open the app, but I think this week has me running in the 40-minute range, possibly the 45-minute range, so I will be interested to see if I can hit three miles at some point this week. Because then all I have left are the free runs. I’m already planning a strategy for those weeks leading up to the 5K and right now I’m flirting with the idea of mapping out a 3.1 mile route and just running it and not worrying so much about the time. I know last week, I was really bummed about not being able to break out fo the 2.6 mile arena, and there is still a part of me that thought that by now I would be going farther, but I have to remind myself that this race in October is not timed. I mean, it is timed, but I don’t **have** to complete it in any amount of set time. I won’t get kicked out if I don’t hit a 35-minute 5K. This is just about me finishing the thing and doing so in a way that I will be proud of. And I’m already really proud of myself. So, yeah, for the free runs, I’m going to map out a course, but this week, I’m just going to run the program. And I’m going to try really hard to not worry about hitting a mile marker. Even though there is a part of me that is screaming out to hit a specific mile marker. I’m just going to run. 

I don’t know y’all. Maybe every planet suddenly and collectively took themselves out of retrograde, and maybe I am shooting myself in the foot by saying this, but I feel good about this week. Famous last words? I hope not! Color me cautiously optimistic. 

POST-RUN MORTUM

Time Running: 40 minutes 

Distance Achieved: 2.99 miles?!?!?!?!?!?! 

Tunage: Hadestown, I’m owning it now

Y’all. Y’ALL. Ok, so I did a rookie mistake and I closed the app instead of locking it so I was warming up and warming up and my guy Run didn’t say “Ok, let’s jog” in the time that he normally would, and your girl was suss, so I opened my phone and realized that I had, in fact, closed the app. So I had to start over and I skipped the warmup, because I’d already been doing that, but so I didn’t lose my milage, I dropped a pin on Google Maps where I was and the distance it was from my apartment. Googs told me the distance is .5 miles. 

You see it, right? I’m not crazy. .5 miles. Ok. OKAY OKAY, so, when I finished the rest of my workout, this is what my screen showed me:

2.49 MOTHER FLIPPING MILES!!!!! So, if I apply the minimal math I know, .5+2.49=2.99 MILES!!!!!

I ALMOST CLEARED THREE MILES!!!! And I know that next time I can. I have discovered as I do this, I don’t like running in a loop. This app is great about telling you when you’re at the halfway point, and in previous runs, I will have turned around at that point and then done a circuit, but I’ve never really liked that. I like running toward something, not back to where I started. And the amazing thing about living in NYC is that I can hop on the subway to bring me home. Which is exactly what I did today and what I will likely do a lot more of moving forward. 

There is an interesting popping thing happening in my left leg, in a different spot than I normally feel popping. It’s like…mid thigh popping? Which is wild because it’s usually my knee joints that pop like that and there are no joints, as far as I can tell with my BFA in musical theater, in the middle of the thigh. It did feel good to get this run in, though. I felt like I worked some of the sore stiffness out of my legs that was there when I woke up. My hips are still in a great amount of pain and I’m SUPER excited to see my acupuncturist, Megan, on Thursday. She is a literal white witch of healing energy and light and if I could see her once a week, I would but alas, I am not made of money. I am made only of sore muscles and tight hammy’s. But today was a great day. I have a feeling I did clear 3 miles, but because I stopped to reopen the app, there were maybe a few feet that didn’t get registered. Either way. I’m closer than I’ve ever been, and I’m ridiculously proud of myself. 

Week, nine, y’all. Let’s fucking go.