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practicing lynn steger strong substack practicing subscribe sign in home archive about what am i now hs on getting sick lynn steger strong aug 12 2026 10 2 share first a reminder that the new yearlong novel class starts on september 16 applications due august 20 we ve got lots of novels publishing soon or having recently been published it s an intense thrilling communal experience that i feel honored every year to get to facilitate please reach out for details important to watch harry sing about falling first i m not sure when the virus started it s hot out i don t sleep well i ve reached the part of marathon training where most easy days are 8 9 miles at least to drop my kid at camp before a run means i start running around 9 a little after the heat already seeping in the asphalt the sun already high i m not sure when the virus started except i felt tired for a couple weeks and everyone around me was also sick but i still tried to ignore it until i had no choice but stop monday sixteen miles central park again virus likely roiling by then a couple days body slightly shaky what does dying feel like i thought should i stop to drink something am i just old and tired and need to make my peace with that the miles were uneven 7 21 oops 7 56 okay 8 21 am i okay what s wrong why do my fingers feel like that i fell down which hurt but also was embarrassing a rickety 15 ish miles in i tripped on a brick moving from dirt path to road and because my body was the way a body is after 15 miles in the heat plus maybe a virus i couldn t catch myself and fell you okay asked some kind concerned tourists i m fine i said scrambling to stand and run again unfairly furious blood on both knees and elbows scrapes but no blood on both hands and a cracked phone the next day a day off and i had lunch with my friend she s charming funny made us a gorgeous lunch convinced me to have a glass of wine so later when i felt woozy because i drink right now about a glass of wine a month i blamed that wednesday 24 thirty second sprints up the steepest hill in prospect park three miles warmup three miles cool down again a little shaky too much heat i thought i sweat so much i took my clothes off in the vestibule of our house so as not to drip on the floor i took the dog on a walk after and felt zapped and cranky head stuffy wanted nothing more than lie down in the grass thursday 9 miles easy from camp dropoff over the williamsburg bridge my phone gps fails to track parts of the bridge so it told me i d run a twelve and a half minute mile and i wondered again if my body was not so slowly breaking down again so hot out who could tell i stopped at a water fountain but there was no water stopped at traffic lights and my whole body felt relief i knew i d done more than nine miles because my phone didn t clock the bridge but i am broken inside and needed the phone to give me credit so likely did ten miles instead friday same route except i was supposed to do it fast i didn t turn the app on couldn t stand the thought of her seeing me run slow miss my splits not do the workout she d assigned this was not the first time i thought about the ways the app is like a particularly demanding but also reasonable and fair mother figure that i want to please and make proud but is also merciless sparing in her nice work lynn s i had to stop twice to take a break and knew that there was something really wrong i sat the rest of most of the day i think i m sick i said to my husband something s wrong i thought when i lay down and couldn t fathom that i might have to eventually get back up saturday a drive to maine i took it off even though i was supposed to run eight and a half why can t i tell the app i m sick i thought a thousand times is she disappointed is she mad at me what does it mean to heal to take things easy when also your body craves rattles freaks out when you don t get to run i tried to run again on sunday the hills in maine are steep even though i knew by then that i was sick for sure twice i had to stop and walk my body flat breathing heavy my head ached i think maybe i have to rest i said when i got home monday tuesday i didn t run maybe you have mono my mother in law said and i thought what it would feel like to ask her to please put that statement back inside her mouth i thought what would it mean to rest but rest so hard and intensely that somehow i was healed enough to run again how was running also salutary what was or is the give and take between the wear and tear it is 5 8 miles in the heat and hills but easy versus the awful anxious feeling that i get when i don t run is there a tranquilizer i thought maybe meant for horses that i could take to knock myself out my answer my version of horse tranquilizer was bravo s below deck the most recent season and then my favorite thing to go back a few seasons to see how the people who are now in a fight and now in love got to be the place they are don t sleep on this activity particularly if you need to be knocked out my prescription season 11 then season nine then ten of below deck mediterranean see where gael and nathan are right now a baby gael in an airbnb in croatia with the baby while nathan works the charters for six weeks he gets every third or fourth day off but then goes to dinner someplace nice drinks with the crew before showing up to see gael and the baby after that feel free to have dinner with the crew but i miss you gael texts and your insides crumble just a little nathan reads the text gets another beer looks down at his phone again the baby s eight weeks you then go back and see how it all started in season nine gael with another guy whose on another boat when they first meet there s something different about nathan though gael says i ve never felt this way about anyone nathan says in season ten from gael the thing about jumping off a cliff is that it could be magic or you could die or maybe even worse you could not die but break every bone in your entire body and then have to suffer the pain of that cliches are a sign of communality says the book i read this morning as dead as they might sound or feel when said out loud when they are felt when you are in the love that you re describing with that empty overused dead language i ve never met anyone quite like her he just makes me feel more like myself in the early days of parenthood you re talking like so many early parents throughout time it doesn t feel empty or overused when it s happening to you it doesn t feel less endless and exhausting knowing that so many billions of humans have thought and felt the exact same intense hard sludgy feelings as you have i watched gael and nathan present ish tense then gael and nathan falling in love season 9 then gael and nathan having decided to take a break only then to find their way back to one another when another deckhand gets sick and has to take a leave in season ten captain sandy being tough captain sandy is my favorite captain amidst all this she proposes to her girlfriend season 9 she is positive encouraging but also sharp no nonsense she fires two deckhands after two charters in season 10 how can i make my teaching more like captain sandy s captaining i thought seeing as i was sick and hadn t run by then in two days i thought a little about how nice it might have been had captain sandy been my mom hands down she d be a better than my app and then aesha who knew people could do those things with their face who knew a person could be that endearingly absurd and wonderful and also i spent a lot of time wishing a long and happy life for aesha and her seemingly sweet fiancée though he s never onscreen scott still not sure what s going to happen with gael and nathan like i guess you re so seldom sure what s going to happen with people with a nine week old and hard jobs distance fear that desperate yearning for things to somehow lighten lessen when that s no longer in the cards i just didn t know how hard it was going to be said nathan oh bub i thought you and nearly everybody else it s a week later now and i m still tired but mostly feeling better waiting desperately for any and all new episodes of below deck to drop i don t stop on runs any longer i did 15 76 instead of 17 on monday because i am a paragon of mental health and thought i should show restraint as i heal we re still in maine where the hills are endless but also the humidity isn t as bad as new york and there s more swimming after which also feels like healing if you squint in case you re worried that bravo is my whole personality i wrote about emily eakin s the frenchmen for the atlantic the opposite of a horse tranquilizer of a book actually 10 2 share watermelon sugar high lynn steger strong aug 4 20 4 1 on scraped elbows lynn steger strong jul 8 16 1 2 2 more i also love ecstasy lynn steger strong jun 22 24 1 2 runningcoachmegan nathaniel p and me an elephant lynn steger strong jun 9 13 4 1 loading more posts 2026 lynn steger strong 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