run

Free Run, Day 1

Tuesday September 12th, 2023

POST-RUN MORTUM

Time Running: 44:55 minutes 

Distance Achieved: 3.23 miles 

Tunage: Smooth And Mellow Playlist 

Yes, I cracked 3 miles, but am I satisfied? Not really. I want it to be closer to the 40 minute mark. I know. There’s no pleasing me, don’t you know that by now? Also, I’m on my second dose of Wegovy and did a pretty good job of ignoring the nausea that is rolling through me, but around minute 38 of my run, I had to take it down to a walk because a particularly rough wave crashed over me. It’s not an excuse. It’s an explanation.

It’s an interesting thing, running on a track. Admittedly, it’s not my favorite thing to do. I feel similarly about running on a treadmill, or using a stationary bike; I like to know that I’m moving toward something, not just stuck doing the same thing in roughly the same spot for however long my workout is. However, because the world is full of contradictions and we as humans contain multitudes, I found myself on the Riverbank State Park track! I stopped by earlier in the summer to give it a whirl, but it was closed. Today, my plan was to head up to the park and just do the a big loop of the whole complex, possibly twice, but when I saw the track was open, I changed routes again, because I’m allowed to. 

The interesting thing is that because it’s a never-ending loop, after a certain point, you kind of lose track of who’s in front and who’s bringing up the rear. Unless of course, you’re me, and you’re clocking every living being around you who is more agile, faster, and thinner than you, then you are painfully aware that you are, in fact, always the rear bringer. And you know what? I was oddly ok with it. I got lapped about twenty times, even buy a guy who was running backwards, which kind of felt personal in an odd way, but the only time I was really perturbed by it was when this guy did a lap in a full sprint and he went by me going faster than I thought was necessary and I heard myself literally and audibly say, “Ok, guy, we get it.” 

I did six laps there today, which accounted for 1.5 miles of my total mileage. It was brutal. The idea of doing that six more times to get to 3 feels excruciating. 

In highschool, we had to run the mile in order to pass gym class, because, you know, in life, you have to know how to run the mile and the way that you reach to touch your toes are just vital life skills that I have definitely had to employ throughout my time as an adult 🙄. But, yeah, you had to run it. And for whatever awful reason, I always had class 1st or 2nd period. Not the way I wanted to start any day in high school. AND, on top of that, I was always in the class with the athletes. There was this one girl, Becky, who ran a 4 minute mile. A FOUR MINUTE MILE. It was insane. Even though I was running with crew and getting exercise there, how the fuck was my fat ass supposed to compete with a four minute mile. Answer: it wasn’t. Back to humans containing multitudes, so by now, I think you know of the competitive streak that lives inside of me. Not in the way that I think it manifests in most people, but as a people-pleasing-perfectionist, everything is a competition for approval, for praise, for feeling worthy. Remember, I play the games I know I can win. And yet, this incredible secondary trait also exists inside of me. When I know I have no chance of winning the game, when it becomes apparent to me that there is no point or hope, your girl turns into the most carefree, jovial, fuck-it-all-let’s-go-down-dancing-and-set-it-on-fire, and it is kind of amazing. This doesn’t happen often, but it happened a lot in high school gym class. 

There was one year when we had to run the mile where, again, it was first period, so I brought my coffee on the track with me. And I walked every millimeter of that mile. Because Coach Whittaker said we had to complete the mile. Not that we had to necessarily run the mile. A distinction that was not lost on me and one that I was willing in my set-it-on-fire way to take full advantage of. 

Whittaker could be a real hard ass, but for some reason, he had a soft spot for me. Maybe because I was good at making light of the situation, or because he found my sarcasm and wit charming, but he would yell from the sidelines “Let’s go, Bonino, pick up the pace, you can do it!” And I would just lift my coffee in a toast to his misplaced positivity and faith that I was going to do anything but walk. 

I spend a good amount of time, too much, if I’m being honest, thinking about what my life would look like today if I hadn’t gained this weight at such a young age. Thanks to my therapist, I’m beginning to understand why it happened, and it makes a lot of sense. I’m not going to get into that here right now because I don’t know if I fully can or if I’m fully ready to, but I will say, it makes sense. And this response to the trauma inflicted one me, the gaining of weight, is actually very common for children who went through something similar to me. And there is something nice in that, right? Number one, I don’t feel so crazy for reacting the way that I did, and number two, it almost normalizes it a little bit. Like, even inside of th insane chaos of my childhood and the terrible things that were happening inside of it, my body did a thing to protect me. I’m trying to honor that. I’m trying to have sympathy and love and grace for 6 year old Ally. But some days, y’all? It’s hard. And I wonder. Would my career have been different? Would my life look the way that it does now? Would I be in New York? Would I be happier? 

It’s not useful to do that, I know this, but on the track today, as I was shuffling along like I do, I was looking at these beautiful and fit and toned running gods around me and I wondered if there was ever a time when they were like me, you know? Were they ever a shuffle-alonger? Or did they spring from the womb fully formed in Nikes and nipple tape? I don’t know. And again, it’s not super helpful to live in the hypothetical of what my life might have looked like if I hadn’t ever become fat. So today, let’s think about what I can focus on instead:

• I cracked the 3 mile marker. It happened and I am pleased and will use this remaining month and a half to try to get it closer to 40 minutes. 
• There were times where I felt my form slipping and I was able to not only notice it, but to correct it. 
• My breath could have been better, but again, I was able to notice when I was solely breathing out of my mouth and did my best to reintroduce my nose into the party. 

My biggest takeaway from these last few runs, today in particular, is that I am feeling very dropped into my body. Which is, understandably, incredibly difficult for me to do. It is easier to disociate or avoid, and I think in those states, that is where the harm can creep back in with full force. Because if I’m numb, then the harm doesn’t hit as hard. But to be dropped in like this? I’m aware of and feeling my body in a way that is exciting and unfamiliar, but I’m really looking forard to getting to know her more.