​Sometimes I feel as if I’m a runner with Stockholm’s Syndrome. I’m deeply infatuated and in love with a sport and community that leaves me feeling invigorated, inspired and broken. My limbs gleefully seize up from each extension; my thick legs reverberate the sounds of an internal protest – this is oftentimes welcomed and expected. I didn’t account for the sounds of my peers telling me that I am not wanted here or how my body is a force of repulsion. My thoughts are not always welcomed in spaces that I once considered safe. I don’t know exactly when I shifted from being a person once invited to join a collective of asphalt clapping runners to being a nuisance in the community but I know how it made me feel once I acknowledged the shift. Despite my treks through unfamiliar terrains, this void feels foreign. These days, I don’t find solace being in a group with like-minded strangers. I learned how to run alone and at times, I find it hard to muster the courage to not feel broken in my solitude.

Signing up for a virtual duathlon almost a week ago seem like a good idea until my menstrual roughly cleared its throat Saturday morning.  I was on day two and shamefully I woke up questioning if it was going to happen.  This morning's wake up call stemmed from a burning sensation that rushed from my vagina, past my rectum and traveled up the lower parts of my back.  My hands and face are slightly swollen and feet grew angry once touching the cold laminated wood floors in my bedroom.  Without hesitation, I pulled back my covers while my husband was nuzzled inside and checked the white sheets -- there's no trace of my pain on the linen today.  While wobbling past a hairball gift wrapped in my hallway from my cat, I started seeing doubles on the way to the bathroom.  My pride wouldn't let me ask for help even though my husband would understand.  Before sitting down, I checked out my blue and black checkered pajamas and felt defeated; they were not as fortunate as my sheets.  I spent 45 minutes in the bathroom asking myself if doing a virtual duathlon during this pandemic and an endometriosis flare is even possible.  After showering off, I reminded myself that this is not unfamiliar territory.  I took two acetaminophen, allowed my husband to supervise as I made old fashioned oatmeal and glanced at my road bike on the kickstand.  My virtual duathlon happened but not for a number of hours.

Any person who reads enough ramblings from me will notice that I love running no more than 4 times a week.  On the fifth day, I want to murder everything moving.  Despite it all, I find myself signing up for races at 2AM like I'm on QVC because that's how I avoid midnight snacks these days.  I'm almost certain this is how I signed up for the New York Road Runners' Knickerbocker 60K.  Somehow I managed to develop amnesia for the third time and thought running 37.2 miles two weeks after the New York City Marathon was a GREAT idea.  If I could complete my first 100K last year six days before the NYC Marathon and do this race two weeks after, what could possibly go wrong this year?  Every. Single. Thing.  
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If it feels like it's been a long time since I've wrote anything consistent here, that would be painfully accurate.  There's not one particular reason that I can give you but I can throw out a few:
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1. My 2019 schedule was built for an endurance nutter like me;
2. I underestimated how busy I'd be as a full time sponsored athlete;
3. Shitty comments from random fuckers I don't know on the internet made me reevaluate posting regular updates on here -- or anywhere.

Through one on one interactions with people in the running community and with loved ones reminded me about the reasons why I constructed this crazy website Running Fat Chef and it damn sure wasn't for internet fame.  I truly love blurbing about the highs, lows, unstable moments and adventure that comes with fitness, particularly running.  By having a honest heart to heart with myself, I buried myself under a blanket, wrote down a list with my insecurities, rolled it into a shape of a blunt and decided to say "fuck all of that shit-- I'm writing again."  

With that said, let's talk about my 2019 highs and lows before the year is out -- and let's start with my DNFs.
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My mind and body has kept me captive for the last week.  Every time I try to escape this sedentary state, I'm back on my sofa or working on my computer for hours for assignments.  For the last week, I gave myself a full blown pep talk of what I'm going to do and how I'm going to do it.  One morning I forgot to set my alarm and it was already 9AM - which is ridiculously late for me - and another day, I woke up at 5AM with clothes laid out but greeted to brutal temperatures and an aching body.  It feels as if the world is giving me an assortment of excuses to not leave my house.  I have the Humana Rock n Roll New Orleans in a few weeks, just purchased my tickets and I don't feel prepared at all.