I Run These Towns

I have an insatiable desire to learn and have ever since I was a kid. Being a perfectionist means I'm always harder on myself than anyone else could be, and I expect myself to learn a lot. I recall being in first grade and completing a worksheet. My paper had been xeroxed wrong, and it was missing the reverse side of the sheet (and back in the mid-80s still smelled like the copy machine. I loved  that smell). When I realized I had a worksheet that wasn't complete I had a total meltdown. It was easily fixable, but I hated not excelling.  I don't know if I've ever, at any level of school (to include law school and the Bar exam) been the second person to finish my work. I've almost always finished first, and on the rare occasion where someone beat me, I was totally stressed out. I've always needed a lot of challenges to keep from getting bored. I realize this probably made me a difficult student in a lot of ways. I got detention once in my life: for talking in ...

I've been a super active person my entire life. Fitness isn't something I intended to take seriously; it simply became a part of who I am. It makes sense that I started distance running a dozen years ago as the next step in my fitness evolution. I have never had serious fitness motivation problems. Even after my month-long hospital stay in 2014 I was ready to start running again a few months later. This last year, however, has been different. For the first time in my entire life I'm having serious motivation issues. There are legit health reasons for them, but that doesn't change the fact that they exist. And it's not the first time I've been sidelined by my health. This time it's just been harder to come back. The timeline is brutal. Abscess in October 2016 (a week after the Detroit Half Marathon, my last half). That abscess drained for ten months until the drain was removed in August of last year. It definitely affected my running. I spent a week in th...