June Runner of the Month: Hunter Underwood

Congratulations to our June Runners of the Month! During this time, we are continuing to featuring two of our runners who are essential workers here in NYC.

Hunter first joined NBR in early 2018 after moving to Williamsburg from Manhattan. "[I] was looking for a group to run with. Little did I know that I would make life-long friends and meet my life partner in the process!" Since joining NBR, Hunter has participated in many volunteer and NYRR Club Points team events.

What is your job and where do you work?
I am a chief surgery resident at NYU Langone/Bellevue in my final year of surgical training. As soon as COVID-19 hit, everything changed for all of us at the hospital and many were reassigned to COVID units. Ultimately, I ended up covering emergency surgery at our main campus. The need for emergency surgery in both COVID+ and COVID- patients was much larger than I anticipated. COVID- patients presented with common surgical problems very late in their course simply because they were too afraid to come to the hospital. These were some of the worst appendixes, gallbladders, and colons I've ever seen.

How is your daily life right now?
My daily life is slowly getting back to "normal", but I am unclear what that means anymore with the current status of our city, country, and world. I feel fortunate during this time that I was able to keep my job and the sense of normalcy that going to work everyday provided. We are slowly resuming our elective cases and the COVID census has been steadily decreasing, although this isn't necessarily indicative of the rest of NYC.

Has running helped you cope during these scary times?
To be honest, I didn't run much during this period. Running with a mask was too difficult and dealing with shame of not wearing a mask (even in isolated areas) was even worse. Thank god for Peloton.

What's the one thing that keeps you going?
Kiana, my ever supportive life partner and our cat, Marlin.

Any inspirational thoughts or uplifting stories to share?
While working overnight at the peak of the pandemic, my bike was stolen from outside of the hospital. I really had been relying on this for transportation as I didn't feel comfortable taking the trains at that point. I fell asleep the next morning devastated, but awoke to the news that several of my friends (+ many strangers) had already crowd sourced enough money for me to purchase a new bike. It really restored my faith in people/community during a difficult time.

Anything else you'd like us to know?
1) COVID-19 was horrific and unprecedented, however precautions should be based on science and not fear. It is important to wear a mask to prevent community spread in situations where it is not possible to social distance. Mask shaming, however, is not productive.
2) Black lives matter. Police violence and systemic racism is a public health crisis that has just as much of a threat (if not more) than COVID-19.