Hello, World!

September 20, 2020: The Game Plan moving forward

Hi, everyone, and welcome to my blog! My name is Ashley and I’m a running and fitness enthusiast. After being inspired by some super cool YouTubers, I decided that I wanted to share my running and fitness adventures with other like-minded people and follow along their journeys as well!

My go-to platform has been Instagram but given that I write ridiculously long captions (and work emails, which I’m sure my colleagues do not always appreciate, oops) and that I feel like I have so much more I want to share and talk about, this blog was birthed into being. I’m going to use this blog to supplement some of my IG posts as well as write longer entries exclusive to this page. Also, you, dear reader, are probably wondering, “who dis?” right around now.

So to start, here are a few (non-fitness related) things about me:

• I grew up in a suburb near LA but then went to school on the East Coast. There, I fell in love with city life and the East Coast culture. (I find it really difficult to put my finger on the difference between the “feel” of the different coasts despite having lived in both. There’s an… intensity or edge to the East Coast vibe but it’s not quite accurate to say that the West Coast attitude is more “easy going” or “chill.”)
• I was (am?) a recent transplant to the world’s greatest city, NYC, but, due to COVID, am temporarily sheltering in place back in sunny California.
• My parents are Taiwanese and I’m a first generation Taiwanese American. I have family in Taiwan and visit the country annually. I used to hate that I came from a bi-cultural background, but now I cherish and appreciate both sides of my heritage.
• I majored in Philosophy. About half way through my studies, I discovered Existentialism. It was a rough time in my life and studying this branch of philosophy helped me orient myself, makes sense of my place in the world, and foster a more accepting relationship with my own being. It may be cheesy to say this but philosophy opened my eyes to a whole new way of perceiving the world and others and I’m a more compassionate and happy person for it.
• I’m an extremely silly person and don’t take myself too seriously. (I mean doing that would make life a pretty dreary experience, no?) Rather than spend my energy accruing f*cks to give, I’d rather spend it having fun with people who I care about and be my unapologetically spunky self. Hell, this mentality has become so ingrained that every time I look in the mirror, I can’t help but crack a funny face!
• I used to be a hardcore video game player (before fitness lol) — I even have a video game themed tattoo!

Speaking of which, here’s the fitness stuff. “I present to you… my fitness story” (Please read in the voice of the candle bro, Lumiere, from Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”):

• I started swimming when I was 5 and swam competitively until sophomore year of high school. (I wasn’t that good but I absolutely loved the camaraderie of being a part of a team. That sense of solidarity and shared experience drove me to keep swimming those ridiculous hours. They don’t feel ridiculous now, hehe.)
• Before college, I literally HATED running; I would joke that if Godzilla attacked and we had to flee, I’d just sit down and let him squish me instead of trying to run. I was even (stupidly) proud of the fact that I would get winded going up a flight of stairs. (Weirdly enough I was this way even though I was swimming up to 18 hours a week! I just sucked at land sports?)
• I didn’t realize how big of a role exercise played in my life until I hit a rough patch in college. In 2015, I got severely ill and then was diagnosed with brittle bones among other things. It was during this time I re-discovered the calming and centering capacity of exercise. Fitness in many ways saved me. I fell in love with moving, with being bodied, and, through that experience, developed a whole new outlook on life and agency.
• Well, in the beginning of my fitness journey, I could barely walk. But little by little — and through a hell lot of hard work — my health got better and, in 2016, I started lifting weights, running, doing HIIT, and spinning. (Under the appropriate medical supervision!)
• However, because of my weakened bones, I had to do it very slowly but was still very injury-prone.
• My worst injury was a sacral stress fracture that took about a year to heal. It really sucked because, first, sitting was a literal pain in my ass and second, ironically enough, running ended up being the exercise I liked the most and was the main thing I couldn’t do.
• Throughout this time, I continued to lift and spin. Spinning turned into biking on Zwift and then outdoors. I also realized, “hey wait, I can swim!” and so got back into that as well.
• After that year-ish hiatus + physical therapy, I started running again. Let’s fast forward a bit because sometimes I’ve acted against my better judgment plus also skip over a series of unfortunate events in 2019, which were out of my control — plus you know, most of 2020 — and get to the now. So during this whole time I’ve been just diving deep into exercise science and anatomy. I learned a crap ton about lifting, about nutrition, biking, running techniques, elite running, running strategies, shoe tech, anatomy, biomechanics, etc. The learning itself became a passion of mine. I still have a lot I don’t know but I’m excited to keep going!

So let’s circle back to the “Why” of starting this blog (and then on to the “what the hell are you going to be posting?” part). The why is simple. I love fitness, I love learning, and, after going through what I did and doing a lot of self-reflection, I realize that what makes life meaningful and fun is your attitude towards yourself and the world and though the relationships you form with other people.

It totally makes sense now, looking back, why I stuck with swimming for as long as I did — I loved being part of something bigger than myself. We all got in the cold ass pool at 5 or 6 AM in the mornings and then reconvened for round 2 in the afternoons. We cheered for each other during swim meets and had team gatherings. Maybe I’m romanticizing the swimming a bit; hindsight is always 20-20, no? (This saying has aged like milk…) But regardless, the person I am today is one who finds meaning and joy through connecting with other people. So there’s the “why;” on Instagram, I see so many cool people that share this passion for fitness and running, with whom I wish I had the opportunity to connect with and learn from. I’m hoping that, in addition to IG, this blog will help with that endeavor.

Oiyyyy, now here’s the WHAT. This blog will be like a fun companion to my IG so surprise, surprise, things I’ll write about include my return to running, my fitness experiences, and other running-adjacent topics such as RUNNING SHOE REVIEWS. What’s different though is that we will be using our words here — okay some pictures will be included — and I’ll be able to do a deeper dive into topics that I can’t do on IG posts.

It’s pretty empty right now but keep an eye on this space. Many more words, many more thoughts, and many more adventures to come!