I Run These Towns

I love the holidays. December is always a blur of parties and events, and I love every single minute of it. I was hospitalized in early November, and one of my biggest fears was not being ready for all the holiday events I love so much. I shouldn't have worried.  I decorated for Christmas two weeks before Thanksgiving to be ready for the festivities. Starting the Friday before Thanksgiving we attended our community's holiday parade that kicks off the season and attended a cocktail party at a friend's house the next day. The day before Thanksgiving I put 225 Christmas cards in the mail. We had Thanksgiving with my in-laws and then flew to Arkansas where we enjoyed an annual weekend with amazing friends.  A weekend with friends in Hot Springs, Arkansas The first weekend in December we attended the inaugural Big Red Ball, a celebration of and fundraiser for our neighborhood organization Downtown Lansing, Inc. The following week was our son's 10th birthday and our 16th wedd...

I've spent more than 30 years beating myself up for how my body looks. Before I go any further let me be clear: this isn't a post with hopes that people will tell me I look good. Because honestly? It won't matter. I don't see myself the way I actually look. And what others think of me doesn't permeate these deep seeded body image issues. I've written about my body image issues before. Logically I know I'm not fat. It's not even that I think I'm "fat" per se; it's that my body doesn't look the way I want it to. It doesn't matter whether I'm at my skinniest or heaviest. I will find something to criticize.  I know how to dress myself well, so I can hide the things I don't particularly like about myself. After my last abdominal surgery (lucky #7) where my surgeon told me he "tried to make my stomach look normal but could only do so much", I have been very paranoid about one side of my stomach that (in my mind) sti...

A few months ago a friend told me someone we knew was venting that I share too much about myself in my blog and on social media. She said (I'm paraphrasing) something like "We all go through stuff. There's no need to share it." At first I was irritated until I realized this person has zero impact on my life. And it's true: we are all going through things. But since then I've been thinking a lot about why I am so candid about things in my life (in particular my struggle with Crohn's Disease).  I was 19 when I got sick. It was so embarrassing. No college girl wants to tell people they're dealing with bloody diarrhea and nausea and horrible cramps. That's the thing about a chronic illness: it's easy to feel like you don't have anyone to lean on. I had my colon removed 5 weeks before I started law school (the delightful adventure chronicled in this blog ). I began law school having lost 30 pounds in less than a month, with steroids puffing up m...

I have a confession to make: I don't think I'm my best self right now. I've been thinking a lot about being my best self overall (including fitness which is a huge thing for me), and I've come to a simple, unalienable truth: there is no shortcut. To be the best version of yourself (whatever that means) you have to do the work. I'm not the same version of myself at 46 as I was at 26. (Man could I give that girl some good advice though.) I spend a lot of time reflecting on who I am and who I want to be. While doing the work all the time seems daunting on its surface, it's not. It doesn't mean life has to be a grind 24/7, but it does mean that there is effort in whatever is important to you (which of course is unique to each of us). Where am I willing to do the work to be the best version of me? Fitness. I love exercise. My husband says I'm "obsessed", and I retort that there are way worse obsessions. While I'm logging way fewer miles than I ...

It was the spring of 1996, and my mom and I were at the mall shopping for my senior prom dress. I had decided I was only going to eat 500 calories a day over the weekend. It was track season, so I couldn't starve myself on practice and meet days, but in my mind it seemed perfectly logical to basically starve my healthy, 17-year-old body on less physical days. I was in the fitting room trying on dresses, and I heard the sales person say to my mom, "Your daughter is so tiny!" I was light headed and nauseous from not eating, but that overheard compliment made me feel like it was all worth it.  Senior Prom 1996 I've struggled with my body image since I was a pre-teen, and in the 30+ years that have passed it's still something with which I struggle daily. I spent years punishing my body so I wouldn't gain weight: eating very few calories and working out for hours, purging, taking laxatives, only drinking alcohol until I threw up so I wouldn't gain weight. It...

A few weeks ago it started raining really hard while I was walking the dog. We were about three blocks from home and ran pretty hard the rest of the way. I finished and was exhausted. Running three blocks made me exhausted. It's not okay. I had clawed my way back into good running shape last year after my shoulder surgery, and since November I have been struggling again. I miss running. Running does not miss me. A lot of people probably love running races in the summer, but my favorite 5k races all come in November and December: the Silver Bells 5k (the day after our holiday parade always on the Saturday before Thanksgiving), the Turkey Trot (on Thanksgiving) and the Scrooge Scramble (the first weekend in December). I was registered for all three last fall ready to capitalize on my relatively quick time in September's Capital City River Run 5k. In that race I felt amazing and surprisingly won my age group with a time of 27:48 (a long way from my PR but pretty solid for me the l...