run

Week Nine, Day 2

Tuesday, September 7th, 2023

It is 95 thousand degrees again. Good golly, but it is hot outside. I’m looking forward to it though, I don’t mind running in the heat,  she said, sitting in the comfort of her apartment with a giant thermos of ice water and the AC running in tandem with an overhead fan. 

I’m feeling good about today. I don’t know if I’ll hit another 2.99-mile marker, only because of this insane heat, but I have a game plan in place. I am going to take the train down to either 66th or Columbus Circle, and then do what I did when I went to Ikea all those weeks ago and run to my destination, which is, mercifully, acupuncture. From 59th to the office, it’s 2.6 miles, so I wonder if I get out at 66th, I can squeeze in some more. This is going to be like, true city running, which is different than what I did in FiDi. In FiDi, I ran from Chambers through the Oculus area and then to where Battery Park cups the tip of the island – what did I have to write it like that – but this is like, Mad Men territory. Which is also why I wonder about how far I’m going to get. I don’t want to be the annoying person running on the sidewalk, and I know I will be polite, obviously, and I doubt I’m going to be zooming past anyone. 

When I tell you I cannot wait for acupuncture today. I’m going to ask her to put needles all OVER my body. Fuck, I’ll see if she’ll even put some on my head. Needles on needles on needles, let’s GO. Megan is an absolute beast and I trust her with my body in a way that I don’t know I’ve ever trusted another being. Truly. And she is a witch. A literal witch. She has the ability to look at you and be like, oh yeah, it’s this, and then boom, it gets addressed. It’s magic, and I was such a skeptic of acupuncture for years. And then last year, when my knees got all kinds of fucked up, she was one of the physical therapists we had at The Public, and she mentioned that she also does acupuncture and I was like, I’ll do anything right now. I remember one time, I went in there and I couldn’t bend my knee at more than a 45° and when I walked out after our session, I had near full range of motion. 

LIKE I SAID SHE IS A WHITE WITCH AND I LOVE HER. 

Today is also two days post my first dose of Wegovy, and y’all, my body feels a little crazy. Like, I’m adjusting to the medication and also to a new version of my body at the same time. The quiet that everyone talks about in regard to hunger signals isn’t totally there yet, but there are moments when I’ll be like, oh, I haven’t thought about food in a while, which is interesting, and maybe that’s what it is? I’m not sure. Definitely want to talk to a few people who are also on it and get more insight as to what this quiet means to them because, of course, I’m worried that I’m not doing it right. Or like, it’s not working on me like it does on them. Which is stupid, since every body is different, but I want to be like everyone else you know?  

The nausea isn’t great. It is nowhere near as bad as it was when I onboarded with Saxenda, but the rolling waves that come and go have sort of been knocking me about for the last 48 hours. But I think that means that it is working. Or my body is fighting it. Who can say. Also, it’s interesting because I’ll go from feeling like, not hungry at all to suddenly feeling very hungry, and then I’ll eat, and then very abruptly my body will be like ok, and now we are done. Which is wild, too. I’m not used to that. So, again, maybe it’s working. Like I said, I’m only two days into this. I will say though, I had to take my old medication daily, and there is a bit of a phantom limb effect happening where I feel like I’ve forgotten something these past two days. Wegovy is only once a week, so this is going to be different in that respect as well. It feels strange to break that habit, you know? Every morning I would wake up, take the shot, go about my day. Both yesterday and today, I’ve gone to my fridge where the pen was kept and stood there for a few seconds before remembering I don’t need to be there. I think that will ebb in a little bit, maybe it’ll even feel freeing, but for now, it is odd. 

Despite all of this, I stand by what I said on Tuesday; week nine is shaping up to be a good one, I really feel that. Am I ignoring the fact that I work the opening shift all weekend at the shop and have to get my beautiful fat ass out of bed at 5am from Friday through Sunday? Maybe. But I’m vibing over here, so maybe I won’t mind! 

Ok. Compression socks on. Change of clothes packed so I’m not a dripping mess for Megan. Water in hand. Day two, I’m coming for you. 

POST-RUN MORTUM

Time Running: 40 minutes 

Distance Achieved: 2.83 miles 

Tunage: Love Never Dies*

*Come on, it was Hadestown again, and doesn’t that seem like a less crazy option than LND? 

Hello from the one train platform where it is hotter than Hadestown. See what I did there 😏. I promise this will wane eventually. Y’all just caught me in the throes of discovering something I like. I make no apologies. 

So, I changed my game plan because I’m allowed to. I was walking out of the apartment, and it really is just so unbearable hot that the idea of getting on an air-conditioned train only to run and then show up to this appointment dripping in sweat and hot as ovaries – ovaries can be hot too, why is it always about the balls – and the thought occurred to me: do the route you did on Tuesday and catch the train at 79th which will be right there for you. So I did! And I gotta say, this route, though I love it, is infinitely harder when it is this hot. Also, it’s the afternoon now, so the sun is in a different place, and the shade was minimal. But I am equipped with water, and I stripped all the way down to my shorts and a bra because ain’t nobody got time for a tank top today. 

There was a moment along this route where I almost quit. If you’ve seen You’ve Got Mail, you’ll know just the spot I chose to possibly quit at. 

Ok, hold. The train is arriving, and I swear to the gods if this car is not air-conditioned. Hold please. Boarding. 

Today I bless the MTA for the gift that is this air conditioning. 

So, yeah, at the end of YGM, where they meet in Riverside Park, the path does in fact split there, and if I had gone left, it would have taken me to street level where I could have gone as far as the 1 stop at 86th and cut my run short. I had already planned for this potential outcome when I was home and talking to my mom who mentioned for the seventh time that call how hot it is. I love you, mom, and I love how you love, and yes I have water and I’m drinking it don’t worry. I’m actually going to call you when I’m off the train so you don’t think I’ve collapsed. But yeah, I even took a few steps that direction. Because after that split off, you’re kind of stuck down there on this beautifully paved, tree-lined straightaway that lasts for about 15 blocks. So if I went right, I was committing to going to 79th street. And commit I did, god damn it. Commit I did. About half way through this straightaway I worried that I made a terrible mistake. Actually, about three times during this run I worried I had made a terrible mistake, but this last bit was right before the cooldown, and I had little left in my reserves. But we powered through and did the damn thing because this is week nine gosh darn it and we are not fucking around!

Ok. Pulling into Times Square, where I will transfer to the yellow and then hop off to get blissfully healed. I will report back for a post post-run mortum, thrilling I know, and talk to you in a few. 

POST-POST-RUN MORTUM

I am blissfully sore and feeling energized and grateful. The takeaway from today’s session is that my bootay and hips need some strengthening, because would you believe it, they are integral to running. The reason my hips are so messed up right now is because the hip flexors are doing all of the work, as my glutes are weak and not pulling their weight, which is saying something because my glutes have me some weight there. Megan gave me some stretches and strengthening exercises to introduce into my workouts, which, if I can be honest, outside of the running, I’m not so sure about this program I’m doing. There isn’t a lot of variation in the programs and I’m a little bored of doing the same thing over and over again. I feel like one of those bears you see in a zoo who just walk back and forth because they aren’t being stimulated enough. Ok, that was perhaps a bit much, and pour one out for our bear brethren, but I am unstimulated. And I’ve been doing this program since March, so I feel like I should be farther along? I don’t know. Maybe I’ll reach out again and ask for different options to change it up. Just something to think about. 

But, yes, all of this to say, Megan coined my booty a “show ass™”, which I am just obsessed with. She says it’s all form and no function, and I don’t think she’s wrong. Which is why I think I need a different workout program, and preferably, with someone in person who can see what I’m doing and give me corrections and really help me strengthen. I also think I’m a little over working out at home. I’ve done at home workouts before, but it was always in tandem with going to the actual gym. This solely-in-the-home-working-out was a thing born completely out of and because of the pandemic, and were it not for the world collapsing around us all, I don’t know that I would have invested so much into working out at home. I like to be out of my space when I work out. I like to have other people around. Mostly though, I like the machines. I’m sorry, and I mean no disrespect to people who do only bodyweight workouts, I know they are amazing and efficient and effective, I know this, but there is something satisfying as hell about sitting down at a leg press machine with the weight set to 360 and doing 3 reps of 12, know what I mean? I want to get back to that. 

Megan and I also spoke about the Wegovy of it all. She knows about my background and when I told her I started taking this, her brow furrowed a little and she said, “But this medication makes you want to not eat a lot, right?” to which I nodded and said, “Yeah.” To which she replied, “Ok, just remember that you struggle with taking in enough calories as it is, so please try to get a gameplan together to get those calories. You don’t want to be at a deficit every day.”

WHEN I SAY I LOVE HER. 

No judgement. No foreboding type of a warning. Just a gentle reminder and a signal that she also has my back. 

You know what it is, y’all? I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a group of medical professionals be not only invested in me, but like, kind about it. Genuinely concerned for me as a human being. It’s absolutely wild and overwhelming and for possibly the first time ever, I feel really held and supported by people inside of an industry that has never felt safe. 

And if that’s not a win, then I don’t know what is.

From my Show Ass™️ to yours,  may you stretch and recover and strengthen and rest.