Ep #330 2 Month Check In

Jill:Welcome to The Run Your Best Life edition of the Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’re a GenX woman whose brain still feels like a member of the breakfast club but the person you see in the mirror is starting to look a lot like your parents, you are in the right place. I’m your host, Jill Angie and we’re gonna dive into all the weird shit Gen X women are facing right now, so you feel less alone and a lot more empowered. Are you ready? Let’s fucking go!

Well, hello my friend. So it’s been a couple months since you and I have chatted, just the two of us, and I’m wondering if you have enjoyed the interview series that just finished up. I will tell you I had such a blast talking to so many awesome women who are helping us Gen Xers with our lives. I learned so much and I hope you did too.

Now, this week I’m taking a little breather before I dive back in again, and you might be wondering, hey, what is next for the podcast? Well, let’s talk about it. So for the next couple of months, I’m going to be bringing on some women who are doing unusual and epic things with their lives. Like my friend who travels the North American continent in her van with her dog and runs her entire company from her laptop without ever going into an office.

And another friend who sold her house at age 50 to start a brand-new social media company. And yet another friend who decided to relocate to Mexico. All by herself and start a whole new life there. Now, now that I’m saying it out loud, I guess I actually know a lot of people who like to shake up their whole lives by selling their houses.

But, seriously, I’ve got a lot of amazing stories to bring to you over the next few months and I’m going to be doing some solo episodes here and there. And here is where I need your help. Now, I have done over 300 hundred episodes on running. I have talked so much about it, I think I’ve answered just about every question there is about running while fat and I really want to keep this podcast going and keep connecting with you, but I don’t think there’s going to be a ton of running talk from here on out, um, here and there yes, of course, but it’s not going to be the focus and I know that might be disappointing for some of you, uh, but I’m also not sure if I have anything new to say, I’m just keeping it real and honest here. So rather than to keep rehashing the same old stuff, I really want to branch out and have some fun.

So tell me, faithful listener, what non running topics would you like to hear about in the future? or just anything at all, what format would you like to see here on the podcast? Email me to let me know. The email address is support@notyouraveragerunner.com. And I am truly, truly interested in your thoughts.

While you are thinking about that, I want to share a story with you that actually does relate to running a little bit. Maybe it’s impossible for me to not relate everything to running, but I’m going to try. But this one definitely has some really good, some really good parallels.

So, about five years ago, Andy told me that I started snoring. And I’ve never been a snorer in my life, but about five years ago, apparently, I started. I was not happy to hear about this. I was kind of like, Eww. Right? I had all kinds of thoughts in my brain about what it means to be somebody who snores. Um, but also it was kind of funny at first. Uh, but the problem is my sleep was getting worse.

I was having trouble sleeping throughout the night, and this, you know, a lot of this hit me during perimenopause. I started having trouble with my sleep, but once I started snoring, like, it was getting worse. And I tried all the things, all the sleep hygiene tricks, like keeping the room cool and dark, and avoiding alcohol before bed, and avoiding screens before bed, and blah, blah, blah.

And nothing really made a big difference. Even, I tried melatonin, and that would, like, help me sleep a little bit better, but not much. The only thing that made any kind of difference was keeping the room temperature low. But even with that, I still kept snoring. And honestly, I really didn’t make the connection that my snoring was connected to my poor sleep.

I was convinced that it was something to do with my hormones or some like external thing that I could fix. I really have my head in the sand. But seriously, over a few years, a minor annoyance and embarrassment became a significant problem because all of the last year, probably two years, I’m waking up every hour or so, I’m feeling tired all the time, I would wake up with a sore throat and a headache. I started to feel like I wasn’t thinking as quickly or sharply as I used to.

I chalked a lot of that up to ADHD, but really, I was like, I don’t feel good. And I’m like, what is the problem here? And then a friend happened to mention she had done a sleep study, and they prescribed a CPAP for her, and that she started to be able to sleep through the night almost immediately, and she started to feel so much better almost immediately.

And I was like, alright, I’m gonna do it. And then I procrastinated for like six months. But eventually, I did a home sleep study and they told me I have severe obstructive sleep apnea, which still kind of came as a surprise to me. I don’t know, like looking back, I’m like, come on, Jill, but whatever. They prescribed a CPAP.

I was not excited about this. Not at all. I was like, I don’t want to wear a mask, I’m gonna look weird, it’s gonna be a hassle, um, but also, it’s like, my sleep is so fucking bad right now, I feel like I’m just constantly sleep deprived, so I was willing to try it. So I got one. I spent a lot of money on this motherfucker.

And on the first night, it sucked. It absolutely sucked. I lasted about 90 minutes, and I ripped it off. I didn’t wear it for another couple of nights. I was like, I need a moment. And then I came back to it, tried it again, same thing happened. You know, lasted 90 minutes, two hours, took it off. Couldn’t, couldn’t stick with it.

Eventually I kind of, you know, after a couple of days I worked up to three hours but I was really struggling to stay asleep with it on. But I looked at my sleep report, so the CPAP that I have like gives you this little report and I knew from my sleep study that without the mask, I was having about, you know, over 40 apnea events per hour, which is severe and significant and something to be concerned about. And for the times I was wearing the mask, even though it was like 90 minutes to, to a couple hours at a time, my apnea events had dropped to three. So I’ve gone from 40 to 3.

And the interesting thing is I looked up like, what’s the number of apnea events that an, that an average person has that does not have sleep apnea, and it’s less than 5. So basically, while I was wearing the mask, it was bringing down my apnea events to a range that was, you know, to be expected for anybody.

So I was like, alright, I’m gonna stick with this a little longer. Let’s just see. I worked up to 4 hours and then 5 hours. I would still you know, I’d make it to maybe like 3 a. m. and then I’d rip it off and finish sleeping without it. But after a few weeks, something magic happened. I slept through the whole night with the mask.

The whole night. I woke up in the morning, so Andy leaves around 6 a. m. to go to work, and he woke me up to say goodbye, and I realized I had slept through the whole night with the mask. And I woke up feeling energetic and alert in a way that I have not felt for a few years. It was like, what is this? What is happening? It felt like maybe I had taken some kind of like magic pill. It was awesome. I like got a hopped out of bed. I got my, uh, my workout clothes on. I like went outside for a walk and I was just like, this is amazing. And I was like, well, there we go. It works. It’s perfect. I love it. And then the next couple of nights were like right back to the usual. I’d make it four or five hours and then take it off. And I was like, oh, maybe that was a fluke.

But then I had another really good night with the mask, and I woke up with that super energetic feeling and I kind of realized like, Oh, I was expecting a magic bullet. I was expecting to be somebody who wears the mask for the first night and then everything is perfect afterwards.

But instead, my results came from being consistent. From doing the thing even when I didn’t really want to do it and also doing my best. Right like kind of setting a minimum Baseline for how much time I was gonna wear the mask every night and then giving myself permission to take it off after I hit that that timeline.

So, I actually started doing a little bit of research, which you think I would have done before, but I didn’t. I started doing a little research into CPAP therapy, and found out that it often takes up to six, uh, six months, or at least three months, for people to really see the true benefits and results. And you have to be willing to stick with it through the uncomfortable times and maybe that mean you need to get your mask refitted, or try a different pressure, or whatever.

There’s lots of things. You would talk to your sleep doctor about it but you’ve got to be willing to kind of stick with it through the uncomfortable times to get to the good stuff. And I’m so grateful. First of all, I’m grateful that my insurance didn’t cover the CPAP and then I had to pay cash out of pocket for it because my thought was I paid a lot of money for this stupid thing I’m gonna make it work. And so I stuck with it and then it worked and then I was like once I had that first night and then that second night of really You know, good quality sleep. It’s still not perfect. It’s still not perfect sleep, but it’s much, much better. And seeing how much better my body felt, I was like, Oh, I see.

I see. That’s how it works. You’ve got to be willing to stick with it and it’s worth it. And then once you get to that point of like getting your routine, like suddenly you’re getting all these benefits. And the thing is, that’s exactly like running. It’s exactly like running.

Nobody starts running and says, oh, well, that was easy. Why haven’t I been doing that forever? Right? You go for a run, and magically you’re fit, and you feel amazing. Right? That’s not how it works. Instead, you go for a run, and you go for maybe 10 or 20 minutes, which is exactly how I teach it in my Up and Running and Run Your Best Life programs. You go for a run, maybe 10 or 20 minutes.

It’s hard as fuck. And you say, wow, I wonder if I’ll ever be good at running. That was terrible. And you go again, and like, maybe it feels a little better, maybe not, but if you stick with it, if you keep trying and being willing to suck at it, you will actually make some progress and get better. And not every run is going to be perfect.

But every once in a while you’ll go on that amazing run and it’ll keep you coming back. But if you expected it to be easy for the first time around, and you gave up because it wasn’t easy, you miss out on all of the benefits. So, here’s the thing. If you are somebody that is struggling to start running and stick with it, I want you to think of my CPAP story.

Right? My ridiculous CPAP story. It takes a hot minute for it to get easier, my friend. So please, please stick with it. Okay?

Okay. That’s it for this week, my friend. Short and sweet. Let me know what you want to hear on the show going forward. I am really, really interested. Stay safe. I love you. And get your ass out there and run.

And I’ll talk to you next week. Mwah!