I have not been feeling sexy. It’s been this way for quite a while now. When I turned 31 in January, everything started to slow and sag. The months since I’ve had sex crept by. 6. 7. 7 1/2. 8. Hospital visits with my grandma. My friend died. My bank account dried up. Some part of my love and zest for life got lost in those white-washed, air-conditioned corridors, their sunny windows and their views of the Hollywood Hills mocking me gently in the distance.

When that familiar sense of hopelessness clouds my day, I click “Start New Cycle” on my period-tracking app, Clue. I sit at a bar beside a friend. My belly is full of Panda Express orange chicken, fried rice, and noodles. A tall, handsome, young, curly-haired boy and I start chatting each other up.

“How old are you?” I ask him.

“25,” he says.

I swallow hard. I continue on with the pleasantries of talking to him, but I feel like a walking, rolling dumpling. I make an excuse, and I go home.

On the way home, I kick myself. Ironic, I know. How can I publish my first course titled, “Writing to Rekindle Desire,” and be struggling with the very thing I claim to know so much about? I never said I was perfect. But I feel I am missing something. Or something is terribly wrong with me.

I forget that I’m going round and round in a circle game, as Joni Mitchell might say. I wake up on Sunday morning with 11/10 energy. Fully awake. I feel alive again. And I start to fantasize about the sexiest thing to every runner out there: what I am going to title my run on Strava once it’s completed.

I come up with the phrase “No Más Lomas,” or “No more hills.” I want to run 20km. I put on my running gear. I stretch. And I leave my house. I head up the gentle incline of Reforma through the park, towards the hilly suburbs of Mexico City. I stop at the Starbucks at the end of my familiar world, under the Torre Virreyes, an upside-down triangular skyscraper, where I usually take a left and loop back into the park on my regular runs. I am already 3.26 miles from my house. I must run at least that far again from here if I want to get to the 20km / 12.5 miles in total I’m gunning for.

In Lomas de Chapultepec, I take every hardest, steepest road I can find. The more incline, the better. Like I’m trying to rip something out of me. Scrape something off of me. The stress of the job search. The universe has been laughing at me. I took this similar route some two years ago, when I went to a lofty mansion for Design Week, decorated with Mexico’s most luxurious, boutique interior designers in every room. I remember where I saw the house. I push past it. I keep going.

I look at my map. I had saved locations close by. Casa Holtz, with it’s rounded, grand Art Nouveau windows and curved garden railings. I take a steep shortcut down a circular road. The hills plummet all around me as I descend. I emerge onto an empty, wooded street. The air is fresh and dewy and wet, and the flowers abound from the stone. I am in totally new territory. The Praxis House, the Brutalist-angled prism, sits on a single stilt. I look up the hillside to see the hovering balconies of the properties above, even more dramatic. Another hill I want to climb.

According to Google Maps, I have crossed the border of Mexico City into Estado de México, the region that surrounds it, quite like where New York City becomes New York State. This neighborhood is Bosques de Las Lomas, a fancier, more distant place where one of my rich exes grew up. With the low walls hiding the houses, and the BMWs and Teslas parked outside, I wonder if his family lives anywhere near here.

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I climb the massive hill above the Praxis house. When I reach the top, I decide that it’s probably a good idea to head home soon. That climb shook the wind out of me, so I curve down the hill, merging into Reforma, the main road that I hope will bring me home. Except that in these suburbs, designed for cars, the pedestrian sidewalk fades into a short stretch of tunneled freeway.

I reach the mouth of the empty tunnel. The pavement is less than a meter wide. I turn my head over my shoulder, and a couple of cars whizz past me. At 50 or 60 mph, their engines shudder through me. This isn’t safe. But I’d have to retrace at least a mile to be able to cross the road. I hesitate. Should I plow ahead? Should I go back?

Something moves in me. At the next opening between the cars, I sprint through the short tunnel. I stand there on the other side, where the light floods in, where the edge of the sidewalk finally disappears around a sharp corner. There is a thin, grassy bank of sidewalk on the other side of the road. The cars are forced to turn. My heart is racing, but at least now they see me. I must look a bit odd there; a tall, white woman with a long blonde ponytail, somewhat worn out, at the edge of a tunneled freeway. I make eye contact with at least 5 drivers, but on a freeway, none of them stop. I wait.

At last, there is another break in the cars. I sprint across the road. I jump onto the grassy sidewalk. At least I know I am safe again. Clouds are circling, forming in the sky. There is lightning, thunder. I am still a good five miles away from home. I have no option now. I just have to keep running.

Back in the somewhat-familiar territory of Lomas de Chapultepec, I sprint down the hill on the wide and quiet residential roads. The rain is pouring now. It soaks the shoulders and the neck of my polyester running shirt, sticking to my body. It drips off the rim of my colorful cap to the right, trickling off of me onto the ground. The muscles of my legs start to tense sorely, but I feel my lungs and my whole being expand as I dodge puddles and shock the drivers turning corners past me. Beast mode. Freedom. Alive.

I feel the inspiration of these women. Kelsey Pfendler, the fastest person to row solo from California to Hawaii. It took her almost 44 days. Rachel Entrekin, who has won the ultramarathon of Cocodona 250 (253 miles long) three years in a row, and her record time of running continuously for just over 56 hours. Jennifer Lichter won the women’s division of the Western States 100-mile Endurance Run, breaking the record with the fastest time at just under 15 and a half hours. I mean, wtf? These women are doing incredible things.

I channel their energy into me as I round the Torre Virreyes again. I am almost up to my 12.5 miles / 20km mark. Like those professional athlete women, yet in my own tiny way, I have blasted through the limits I created for myself. Still miles from home, I am still far beyond what I thought possible for me to do.

I keep jogging down into the park now, back on my usual route, and I am still going. Still pushing myself up the hilled, covered bike path that directs me safely up and over a busy street. I round the border between Section 1 and Section 2 of the park, and I blast over the walkway there. Now that I have tasted the freedom, and all the rain and the giant hills of Bosques, these previous challenges pale in comparison. As I round my way down, I realize I have just finished a half-marathon. Yet I still have more to go.

I half-jog, half-walk, and mostly hobble through the last two miles. I get home. I upload my run to Strava as I stretch in my sweaty and exhausted mess on my yoga mat in the middle of my living room floor. Soon, the results of my run come through:

“No Más Lomas”

15.13 miles.

3 hours 33 minutes and 33 seconds.

1,023 ft of elevation gain.

Highest elevation 7,924 ft.

My second fastest half-marathon ever. I have to tell my friends and my dad.

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Over the next few hours, I stretch, shower, cool down, and go out to watch the England vs. Mexico game. Flooded with my follicular phase hormones and the crazy endorphins of my runner’s high, my body feels different. I hold myself differently. This beautiful vessel of my being can do amazing things. Strong. Capable. Carrying me through, charging me through at times, blasting.

What makes me feel sexy is my strength. Pushing past what I thought were my limits when I have the energy for it. My body amazes and astounds me. I feel grateful, proud, in flow. Pride. I feel like saying to every potential partner I meet,

“Do you know what my body can do?”

I let the insecurities of what my body looks like wash over me and melt away when I think of all my body can do. My body looks the way it does because of the hills I threw myself up, the hills it helped me climb. Not some external standard. But the gratitude for what I am capable of because of my body.

Later that afternoon, standing in the pub, I see a guy with a hoop earring, a black leather jacket, and messy hair. I face him, whole and energized. Our eyes meet. There is a wet, metal dining set between us. I wish he were standing a little closer. I blink and imagine myself waking up next to him, us cradling each other. He has that kind of effeminate look. It’s giving metrosexual. Bisexual. He intrigues me.

The next day, I am sitting in a coffee shop typing garbage into my computer. I see two male friends coworking next to each other on a couch. One of them looks like the famous musician, El Búho. The other has glasses and wavy brown hair. I decide that I’d happily have sex with either of them, and something in me clicks.

All is well with the world.

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