I Run These Towns

In January I posted a blog that this year I would seize the day, run faster, and push my own limits. I am happy to declare that I exceeded each of these resolutions in ways that I couldn't have imagined when I wrote them. In a lengthy cocktail-filled brunch earlier this year with dear friends we proclaimed 2014 a year of celebration. In 2014 I ran faster than I ever have, I pushed my own limits, and I fell in love over and over again. Before writing this blog I started thinking that I hadn't traveled very often this year. It turns out that isn't true. I rang in 2014 in Los Angeles and visited Chicago , Louisville , Washington, DC (four times), Buffalo , Montreal , Quebec City , West Virginia (four times), Atlanta and Norfolk, VA throughout the year. I got to play a small part in some place based projects for work, and I fell in love repeatedly while doing it. I fell in love with Michigan cities like Marquette (where I traveled three times this year), Holland, Midlan...

When I was a little girl I used to wake early before the rest of my family and just sit quietly in front of the Christmas tree. It is one of my favorite holiday memories, and every year I promise myself that I'll slow down and recapture that magic. Every year I fail miserably. This year, however, is the year that has changed. This year, as I promised I would be, I am reflective and content. I haven't been for a run in over a week, and we don't have our next vacation planned (things that generally drive me crazy), but I feel sated nonetheless. We moved into our new house in June, and it's a gorgeous 1884 Victorian. I felt a large responsibility to decorate the house appropriately for the holidays, and I think we've done it justice. In honor of my relaxed attitude this holiday season, I present you holiday decorations that I think have at least in some way contributed. Our smallest tree in the entry These deer (from Target) are my FAV new decoration this s...

Earlier this week I talked about some of my favorite running things, and it got me thinking about my favorite city things. The key to what makes all cities great is walkability. The foundation for a great community is being able to walk safely across the streets and on sidewalks and destinations to visit. Washington Square in Downtown Lansing is pretty walkable. It's one lane in each direction, has lots of well marked crosswalks, and has angled parking. It could teach pretty much every other street in Downtown Lansing a valuable lesson. Many of the other one-way, five lane streets in our downtown are just absurd. Yes I'm talking to you Grand Avenue, Capitol Avenue, Pine Street and Walnut Street. Santa would land his sleigh on Capitol Avenue at basically any point in the day and hand out toys. There's not enough traffic to sustain that insanely wide street, and that needs to be changed. I should NOT be able to do this easily in Downtown Lansing. And please don't...

Every year my husband tells me he doesn't want to get me running gear for Christmas. He finds it annoying that it's really all I want, and then he tries to be creative and buys me something else that I don't really use. When he does this I think if he'd just bought me running stuff like I wanted we wouldn't have this issue. So to make it, ahem, easier for my husband, I'm compiling a list of a few of my favorite (running) things. Compression leg sleeves are the best. I LOVE them. They are the perfect running accessory for most of the year when pants are really too hot, but shorts are really too cold. Also they look adorable. I have one pair of Zensah leg sleeves that are yellow, and they are fabulous. I'm thinking I need at least one more pair...maybe two. Pink? Purple? Both? Running tights are where it's at. I live in Michigan, and it's cold here a lot of the year. Running tights are very expensive, and that makes them the best gift. Right no...

I have an extremely active imagination. It even transcends into the world of dreams. I have very vivid dreams and almost always remember them. Last week, for example, I dreamed that I was sitting in a group of friends (maybe 6 or 7 of us), and Taylor Swift was with us. I dreamed that she was whining about how kids were mean to her, and I said, "So now are you just like 'What's up, bitches? I'm Taylor Swift!'" And in my dream she started crying, said I was mean to her friends and ran away. Then I woke up with that wretched "Shake it Off" song in my head. It was a nightmare the rest of the day. Running is the best way to deal with my active imagination. You won't believe the number of imaginary confrontations I've had (both work and personal) while running. I've come up with brilliant ideas and dismissed silly ones. Running is where my best thinking happens. I've written legislative testimony and dozens of these blogs. I insist on run...

I'd never done (or heard of) a turkey trot before I moved to Michigan. My first was in 2008 when I ran the Lansing Turkeyman Trot. I ran that race in 31:56, nearly 8 minutes slower than I ran the Harbor Lights 5k a few weeks ago. It turns out I've gotten a touch faster over the years.  With a young Murphy after the 2008 Lansing Turkey Trot I ran the Detroit Turkey Trot a few years ago in 2011. It was my first race post abdominal surgery.  That race is almost unmanageably colossal. I'm glad I ran it, but I'm happy to never run it again. There were 20,000 people running the 5k and 10k. It was relatively organized, but it was really just too much. In Detroit after the Detroit Turkey Trot in 2011 In 2012 and 2013 we ran the inaugural and the second annual Morgantown Running Turkey Trot . The one in 2012 was my husband's first 5k, so that race has a special place in my heart. I was sad to not be doing it for the third consecutive year. We stayed in Michiga...

It's easy to take the good life for granted. Life gets stressful and busy. Things that should be wonderful - Christmas shopping, decorating for the holidays, baking, spending time with friends and family - start to feel like a chore. The to do list is so long that these blessings start to feel like burdens.  There's been a lot of unwelcome drama in my life in the last few years, and it's been easy to ignore the blessings. But sometimes that drama is what makes you appreciate what you have. This summer my world was rocked as I spent several weeks in the hospital. When I was informed I had a blood clot, I had a moment where I wondered if this was it. Maybe this was how I was going to go out, and that wasn't acceptable. I've spent a lot of time the last few years lamenting the things that went poorly instead of being thankful for the things that have gone well. The news of that blood clot made me realize I had to reassess how I was looking at my life. There are so ...

When I moved to Norfolk, Virginia in 2003, the mermaids were relatively new. In 1999 the idea was introduced to have "Mermaids on Parade" with mermaids being displayed throughout the community. Around the time I moved there was also a campaign to bring people back to live in the City. You could pick up signs that said "Welcome Home to Norfolk" in businesses across town. I have one in my office at work to this day to inspire me by the vision of leaders in that community. Working for the City of Norfolk is what piqued my love of cities, and it will always have a special place in my heart.  My brother and sister still live in Norfolk, and I went down for the weekend to visit. I also registered for the inaugural Harbor Lights 5k , so I was looking forward to running the fun downtown course. I was actually registered for the "Get Lit" challenge to run the 5k and then the half marathon the following day, but some health issues put the kibosh on that idea.  ...

Last year I wrote the first edition of this blog about how hard the wait for a family is, and how running and traveling are my sanity. That is still true, but the extra time has given and continues to give me time to reflect about the kind of mother I want to be. For a lot of my impressionable young life I felt that I didn't really get along with other girls. I had some girlfriends, but I also had a time in junior high where not a single girl in my class would talk to me. I remember going to class and all the other girls were sitting on the other side of the room talking about me loudly, to ensure I would definitely hear them. I came home crying every day for months.  I remember being on the school bus and girls in my class passing me the nastiest, name-calling notes. I have those notes to this day somewhere in my basement. I've kept them as a reminder that people can say terrible things to me, but I'm stronger than whatever they're dishing out. When I was a li...

Last weekend marked by 4th trip to Washington, DC this year, which is actually down from the last few years. It's one of my favorite cities, and I'm always looking for a reason to go there. We go to DC so often that we have a weird ritual of things we do that are not at all touristy.  As a matter of fact when I travel I generally try to be the anti-tourist. I want to see cities like a local, especially if it's somewhere I've been repeatedly. Here are some ways in which we are anti-tourists in Metro DC: We always stay on Courthouse Road in Arlington. There are two hotels across the street from one another: a Hilton Garden and a Clarion. We stay at one or the other depending on who has the best rates. Last weekend the Clarion won, and we had the largest hotel room I've ever stayed in for $87 a night. We had 1½ baths, a separate bedroom, a full kitchen. I'm not sure how we ended up with this room, but it was ginormous. It's a few blocks walk to the Metro, a...

For a brief period of time when I was little I wanted to be a veterinarian. I love animals, and I loved the idea of working with animals all the time. Then I found out that vets have to put animals down, and the idea lost its luster. Then for the bulk of my life I wanted to be a journalist. I remember writing extensive stories in second and third grade. I would fill journals and notebooks with the things I would write - stories, poetry, anything. I wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of my life writing, and journalism seemed like the best path for me. I told my junior high gym teacher that I wanted to be on SportsCenter. This was back when women were not on SportsCenter. Maybe Linda Cohn was...I don't recall. I went to college as a broadcast journalism major. My first class at West Virginia University was an introductory journalism class. I took it with several hundred of my closest friends. I liked it well enough, but that same day I went to my first political science cla...

I am effusive about my love for living downtown, and I continue to sing its praises. Walking downtown for dinner or brunch is fantastic. Walking my dogs around the Capitol is lovely. Walking to work is amazing. The one and only snag I've found is a new running route. It's been quite the challenge to find the right route. In our old neighborhood I had a perfect 3 mile running route. I ran along Moores River drive in Lansing's fanciest neighborhood, and I always felt safe. I'd run in the dark, in bad weather, almost always by myself. It was a great route, and I've run it more times than I can count. I have also logged lots of miles on the Lansing River Trail, but always in daylight hours generally on Saturdays when I know it's well populated. There are portions of the River Trail that seem unsafe, so I've always been careful about it. I love our new neighborhood, and I don't feel unsafe in any way. The safe pocket we live in, however, is a bit limited...

In the last few weeks I've had a couple of people characterize me as "fearless", and it's the best compliment ever. I love that description, but it's had me wondering if it's true. Am I really fearless? The dictionary defines fearless as: without fear; bold or brave; intrepid. (Also intrepid is another fantastic word). I'm admittedly not afraid of a lot of things. I think sometimes people confuse my being fearless with being aggressively candid, but I suppose that's another kind of fearlessness. It takes cojones to say what you think, and I do it often, without reservation. My general thought process is that I like to know where others are coming from, and I hope people appreciate that they always know where I stand. It may be something simple like the abomination of wearing leggings as pants or a complicated legislative issue, but my opinions rarely come as a surprise to anyone. In that sense I am perhaps fearless. But what about overall? I'm ...

The answer to my question is all of it. The word 'no' isn't in my vocabulary. This isn't because I'm a pushover or because I think I have to be everywhere. It's because I want to be everywhere, and that's maybe even harder.  For more than half of a decade I've been at a point in my life where I was first trying to have children biologically and then have been waiting for an adoption for going on three years. In my head is always the thought, "once we have kids we won't be able to do _____ (fill in the blank) as easily". So I incessantly say yes - to work, to friends, to family.  Last year I wrote a post about learning to say no, and I declared I would start with baby showers. That has actually been surprisingly easy. First off I don't have a lot of friends having their first children (most of mine are on child number 2 or 3 or more), so there are way fewer showers than there were for a while. I also think the people who know me and ...

Four months of not racing feels like an eternity for someone like me who generally has races 2-3 times a month. My last race was the Tri Goddess Tri in June, and then my life ground to a halt. I've been recovering and getting back into running, and last weekend I decided it was time to get back to racing. That meant waking up at 4:45 am on a Sunday and driving to Plymouth, Michigan for the Wicked Halloween 10k .  I ran the same race back in 2012, and I also ran the St. Patrick's Day equivalent (same race company, same course) in 2012.  I haven't found an overabundance of 10k races in mid-Michigan, so I was excited to get out there again. The 10k distance is perfect - enough to feel like I've really challenged myself yet short enough to be able to walk without pain the next day. I ran the 2012 Wicked 10k in 58:52, and the Shamrock 'n Roll earlier that year in 57:22. I've been having a fast year pre-surgeries/hospital stay, but I didn't expect to break my ...

The casualization of America is gross. Seriously. The public places of America are not your living room. For the benefit of the rest of your fellow humans, please take off the yoga pants and pajamas and wear real clothes. Once a year or so I feel this blog is important to remind people that you'll like yourself more if you look cute. Trust me. I'm an expert. I love cute clothes. And shoes. God I love shoes. I think dressing well says a lot about who you are, and you'll never (okay VERY rarely) catch me in public without real clothes. Even (especially) when I'm traveling. Sweatpants are for working out or lying on the couch clearing out the DVR. I'll wear them walking my dogs (in the dark early in the morning). But to the store? To the movies? To dinner? Never, never, never. Even when I came home from a 3-week hospital stay I asked my husband to bring me jeans and a t-shirt. Two surgeries and a blood clot? Not reasons to look like a degenerate in public.  A rar...