I Run These Towns

It's all my mom's fault really. As I finished my run this evening, IT band screaming, I kept thinking "you have to suffer to be beautiful". That's my mantra when anything gets hard. I don't run just to stay in shape, and the mental benefits I get from running probably outweigh the physical. But in those last moments when it's the hardest, those are the words that go through my head. Do you remember those soft pink curlers we used to wear in our hair overnight? I HATED those things with a passion. I remember my mom putting them in, and as I'd complain she'd say, "You have to suffer to be beautiful." In fairness to my mom, 1) she's an awesome mom and 2) I think she said it to get me to quit complaining. She's not a vain person at all, but every little girl wants to be beautiful.  So I would shut up and sleep on those uncomfortable little things. So it turns out you can still buy these things. Who knew? Fast forward 30ish yea...

I read a lot of Runner's World, and while we're all on board with pushing ourselves, the regular advice also always says "listen to your body". This is where I could consistently use a reminder. A few months ago I had a friend ask me if I'd ever done a winter half marathon in Michigan and whether I thought it would be too cold in February. This inquiry included a link to the inaugural Portage Winter Blast Half Marathon . I registered on the spot. I am rabidly anti treadmill, and yet this year the ice/snow situation in Lansing has led to several long runs on the treadmill. I felt utterly unprepared for my 11th half marathon, but that didn't stop me from running it. We left our house at 6:30 in the morning and headed to Portage, Michigan, a Kalamazoo suburb about an hour and 15 minutes from home. When we arrived in Portage it was 2 degrees. TWO DEGREES. It was frigid. I was rethinking my decision to run this race, but I refused to back down. I jumped into th...

I moved to Michigan seven years ago. I don't know what I expected when I got here, but never did I imagine then that I would fall in love and marry an amazing man, be working at a job that I love and believe in, and have the best group of friends imaginable. That being said - I feel restless. I don't know if that will change once we have a child or if we buy a new house. But I'm starting to feel that itch that will only be scratched by a big life change. I'll be honest - I really miss living in the Ghent neighborhood in Norfolk, Virginia. I miss walking a block to get coffee, have a cocktail, go shopping. It's nearly impossible in Lansing to essentially walk out my front door and onto a vibrant street with stuff to do. It's frustrating, and it's not change that will happen overnight. Sometimes I want to just pack up and go to Chicago and DC where we can live in a tiny, overpriced condo in a great neighborhood and have public transit and a dynamic neighb...

I love cheese. And ice cream. They are two of the best things in life, and they are two things I've always refused to give up. I've been told dozens of times in the last 15 years to limit or give up dairy. My response is always that I don't eat that much dairy...aside from the cheese and ice cream. This year I've decided to really challenge myself. I'm giving up dairy for Lent. It will give me the much needed willpower to give it a shot, and now that I'm announcing it publicly there is no turning back. I've already been experimenting with eliminating cream in my coffee. The soy creamer is so disgusting that I'll be forced to either drink coffee black or give it up entirely. Quite the dilemma. A six week time frame should be enough to notice if there is a real benefit to my Crohn's from giving up dairy, and who knows, maybe it makes no difference. In that case I will gorge myself on cheese and ice cream on Easter Sunday. No ham for me, thanks. ...

I'm a little obsessed with the song, "The Only Way I Know" by Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan. In particular the chorus gets stuck in my head all the time:   "That’s the only way I know Don’t stop 'til everything’s gone Straight ahead, never turn round Don’t back up, don’t back down Full throttle, wide open You get tired and you don’t show it Dig a little deeper when you think you can’t dig no more That’s the only way I know" That feels a lot like my life - pushing forward, pushing hard, never slowing down. The line "dig a little deeper when you think you can't dig no more" is kind of the story of my life. (Granted I think he could be actually referring to farming, but I choose to ignore that part.) It works with running too - those last few miles, digging in, pushing through. That's how I choose to do pretty much everything. After the stress of the last week I have bags under my eyes and I'm behind on my training program wit...