Everyone who follows me on Facebook is probably very tired
of seeing my posts about running. I’m sure my friends are tired of hearing me
talk about it and trying to convert them – I realize when I talk about running
I occasionally sound like I just found Jesus. It’s odd to think that I only
started in the middle of March of this year, and I still have a lot to learn. I
still consider myself a novice runner, though I just ran my longest distance –
6.5 miles – this past Friday.
I’ve always hated running. I love a good, long walk, and
hiking is fantastic. My sister is the runner in our family, committed to doing
it day after day, every day, for longer than I can remember. Walking was my
thing. I love to walk everywhere, eschewing the subway when I'm not in a
hurry, sometimes walking 40, 50, even 100 blocks at a time just because I can
and I enjoy it. I even enjoy multi-day hikes and have gone on hiking
vacations. But, just over a year ago, I sprained my ankle – badly. I’ve
written about it on this blog, in fact. The ironic part of the whole thing was
that I wasn’t out in the woods somewhere or on a mountain – I was taking a
stroll in the New York Botanical Gardens on a beautiful spring day.
The sprain was nasty enough to have me on crutches for about
two weeks and then in an aircast for another month. It could have been a lot
worse, and the damage was not permanent, but my ankle wasn’t “right” for months
even after that, and I couldn’t have run if I’d tried - and I certainly couldn't walk for 100 blocks straight. Around this time, a
year-long relationship ended (my boyfriend left me for a Swiss hedgefund a
month after he’d asked me to move in with him), and I also found out I had to
finish my dissertation by the end of the summer. The latter was a very good
thing, but it meant taking care of myself physically became subordinate to my
writing and preparing for my dissertation defense.
Here’s the thing about writing dissertations: it requires a
lot of motivation. As incentive to write, I would buy myself a thick slice of
chocolate cake at Whole Foods and eat it as I wrote. I didn’t save it as a
reward for after – but I wasn’t allowed to have it unless I was actually typing
my chapter drafts at the same time. Weirdly, this worked. I finished my
dissertation at least in part through the Chocolate Strategy. I knew I was
probably gaining some weight, but I didn’t worry about it. I could deal with it
later. I was never in a big hurry to lose weight, either – I was comfortable
with how I looked, and I carried my weight fairly well, even when I gained a
little more than I should have. Throughout the academic year, I taught my
classes and applied for permanent jobs (another long story), but I didn’t think
much about diet or exercise. I was just too busy and stressed.
This past February, I went to the doctor for a physical for
the first time in far too long. It was time to take advantage of temporarily
having decent health insurance (as a grad student my insurance was pretty
shoddy). I had the good fortune to be referred to what might be the most
thorough internal medicine doctor in Manhattan. Dr. B. ordered All The Tests.
But the main source of concern was a wildly irregular heartbeat, along with a
heart murmur. I had an EKG, which confirmed the insanely irregular heartbeat and
eventually had an echocardiogram (needless to say, all of this freaked me out quite considerably, and I was useless and distracted for several weeks). My doctor also did tests for just about every
other condition known to man. I have in the other room about twenty pages of
test results, most of which are just fine. What I did find out was that I had
some allergies that were probably affecting my breathing (though I hadn’t
noticed), low levels of certain vitamins, and maybe a low thyroid (from my
tests, it looks to be on the low side of the normal range, and I declined to go
on medication, which my doctor said was OK). I also do have a slight heart
murmur, but it’s nothing to worry about. The irregular heartbeat seemed to
improve with aerobic exercise, but it also seems to be nothing to worry about.
I was told I had “very clean blood.” My doctor seemed quite impressed by that
and actually said to me that “most New York women have something, but your
blood is very clean. You must show these results to your next partner and
insist on the same thing.” I wasn’t sure how to take that, but it was good news
about my health, so I decided to enjoy it. So, I immediately started taking the
vitamins, and they’re working – my levels of those are good now. I also take
Clarinex daily, though I have no idea whether it helps or not. I’d read that a
low thyroid might prevent me from losing weight, and I worried about this. My
doctor offered me diet pills, but I declined. Mostly, I wanted my irregular
heartbeat to go away, though. That’s why I started exercising.
I tried doing a workout video at home toward the end of
winter, but I’ve never been able to stick with workout videos. I just get so
bored with them after one or two times. Then, one day in early March, the
weather was nice, and I decided I would try running, because I was that
desperate to make the irregular heartbeat vanish, if even only for the time I
was exercising. I could feel it happening, and it was driving me crazy. I ran
.6 miles that first day, and then walked 2.4. That wasn’t so bad. If I only ran
until I got tired and could walk the rest of the way, that was all right. I did
walk/runs for a couple of weeks, three or four days a week. I didn’t notice any
weight loss, but that wasn’t why I was doing it. I did notice that I felt
amazing afterwards, and that amazing feeling lasted for the rest of the day in
some cases. And I would see other people out running, and that was a nice
feeling, too – like there was this camaraderie with strangers to whom I might
never speak, just because we were all doing the same thing.
Every time I ran, I made myself go just a little bit
further. Even one block further was acceptable to me, as long as I made
progress. This was working out all right, until I went home to Pittsburgh for a
week, and I did lots of hill walking and running. It was great! It kind of
pushed me into shape, so that when I came back to NYC at the end of the week, I
was able to run three miles without stopping. This was at the end of March. At
the same time, I installed a running app to my phone to keep track of my
progress and post my runs to Facebook (yes, I’m aware that it’s annoying. In
fact, a friend made a passive-aggressive post saying as much. But – it helps
keep me accountable to myself, so too bad). I started to set goals for myself –
four miles, then five, then 6.2. My current goal is seven miles.
In the middle of April, when I was just shy of completing my
first four-mile run, I suffered a setback. Yes. I sprained the other ankle. I wanted to scream. Fortunately, this sprain wasn’t
as severe as the first one had been, but I did have to stop running for 2.5
weeks. I thought I would lose all my progress, and I found that extremely
depressing. I had started watching my diet at the same time I’d started running
– not actually dieting, but just trying to be more aware of my food choices. I
let myself eat a few too many carbs while I was recuperating yet again. I had
no idea when the pain was going to go away, and it seemed to be taking forever,
no matter how much I iced and elevated. But one day, the pain just seemed to
lift, and I felt considerably better. At last I was able to get back out there,
and I was so happy to find that after a day or so, I was able to run at my old
distance and speed. I got an ankle brace to wear while I ran (though I have
since stopped wearing it), and while I’d been a bit cavalier about stretching
before I got hurt, I began making sure I was doing the right stretches so I
didn’t reinjure myself. I’ve been meeting my goals, and I’ve even signed up for
a race in July (not a very competitive one, by all accounts).
I don’t know how my new hobby has affected my heart. I do
know that the palpitations, while I still get them, are much milder than
before, and far less frequent. That can only be a good thing. Per my doctor’s
advice, I’ve given up caffeine, except for the occasional piece of chocolate cake,
of course. I also lost weight! I wanted that more than I was willing to admit
when I started out, so afraid I wouldn’t be able to do it. I lost fourteen
pounds when I last checked (about a week and a half ago), and I am back in a
size 8 in clothes (down from 10, pushing 12). I’d like to lose more, but even
if I don’t, I’m comfortable where I am. Weight loss, though fantastic, wasn’t
why I started in the first place.
The main thing for me is that running is now something I
find enjoyable – I like setting goals and being able to work toward them and
meet them in a quantifiable way. That’s something that was often elusive while
I was in grad school. Though I’m sometimes weirdly competitive, I only tend to
compete against myself when I run. I also find it a great way to cope with
stress, of which I still have a lot, and it makes me feel good physically. I
have also found that when I do any sort of intense exercise that I become more
aware of my body than at any other time. I first noticed this in 2010 when I
did my multi-day hike through the Scottish Highlands. Parts of my body hurt
that I wasn’t even aware had existed up until that point. Running isn’t quite
that painful – I’ve never felt like I was seriously suffering at the end – but
I am much more aware of my body and what it can and can’t do.
So I realize I sound like a missionary from the Religion of
Running to some of my friends now, and they probably are tired of it. I’ll just
say here – I’m sorry. I can’t help it. Though it feels like longer in some
ways, I did my first three-mile run ten weeks ago, and I am still euphoric
about what this has done for me physically and psychologically. I'm definitely still learning, but I'm loving it. I want everyone
else to feel that good, too, but I know it isn’t for everyone.
I promise my next post will be about my awful former
roommate, and you will be entertained. :-)
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