I Run These Towns

I do not have a race on the calendar. It's weird. My knee has healed, my Crohn's is in remission, and yet my race calendar remains empty. I need to change that, but I haven't been ready. I haven't been ready to commit at a time when my calendar looks like a game of Tetris. I went for a run on Mackinac Island this morning. It's 8.2 miles to run the entire Island, and even though I'm not in 8.2 shape, I thought I'd give it a shot. Even if I walked a good bit of it that would be fine. I had a conference call about a mile and a half into the route. It lasted almost 25 minutes. Then as I ran on this beautiful morning heading toward the back of the Island I realized at a run/walk pace I was going to really cut it close to meet my husband for lunch. I turned around and ended up running around five miles which, while not my goal isn't nothing. But even at five miles my body was not amused. I realized it's time - time to get back into running. It's time...

I had a fantastic weekend in Denver a few weeks ago with my BFF. At one point as we were chatting I was telling her in grotesque detail (that I will spare the blogosphere) about my health challenges throughout the last year and a half. She got to hear the gory details of the abscess that took ten months to heal and then the meniscus surgery that followed shortly thereafter. I had a moment during this discussion where I realized how much my body has been through in the last eighteen months.  Resetting with my bestie in Denver If you know me you know I don't know my limits. I also tend to greatly underplay my health issues. But if I'm being honest I must admit that this is the longest it's taken me to bounce back from a Crohn's incident, both physically and mentally. The unrelated meniscus tear challenged me even more.  During the first week of November, the week I had knee surgery and was still drugged up on narcotics, I decided to sign up for a race a few months...

Last year I was approached by a work acquaintance earnestly asking me for advice for training and fueling for his first marathon. At first I thought he was kidding because I basically have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to either of those things. Then I realized he wasn't, and I struggled to give him advice. There is tons of advice on how many miles one should run weekly, what cross training is most effective, what one should eat before/during/after a run, what carb loading is the best. I ignore 100 percent of it.  I firmly believe that running is largely a mental sport. Sure if one wants to run marathons with 6 minute miles there's obviously significant training for that. But if you're an average, amateur runner, the biggest  key to getting better/faster/smarter at the sport is to stop overthinking it. I'll give you a few examples from my life. I've done it all wrong. I've tortured myself and insisted on running every single mile of my training pr...

Nearly six years ago I wrote a blog about my race/place bucket list. Since then we've done a lot of traveling, and I've run a lot of races. In that time my bucket list has also evolved as bucket lists are wont to do. As mentioned in that blog I ran the LL Bean 10k  in 2012, and it was awesome. I ran the New York Marathon in 2015, and I don't know that any race will ever compare. In the last half decade I've completed a triathlon, and I've determined that marathons aren't for me. I may run another at some point, but for now I'm taking a hiatus from 26.2. So where does that leave me with running goals? NYC Marathon in 2015. The best. I'd like to run a race in every state. It doesn't have to be something significant - maybe a 5k - but I want to pin on a bib and run in all 50 states. I have a lot of work to do; I've only run races in 12 states. I turn 40 this year, and I need to up the ante and knock some more states off the list. I've ...

I wish I had it all figured out. I'd quit my job and be a high-priced consultant to moms and live a life of pseudo luxury. But I don't even though I like to pretend I do. I maintain that I can have it all even if that means exhaustion and spreading myself very thinly at any given time.  I love my job. Absolutely love it. I didn't quite account for how challenging it would be with a toddler. I can handle it, but my son doesn't understand it. I'm gone several nights each week and working pretty incessantly. I try really hard to carve out time to focus specifically on my family. I'm more successful on some days than on others.  Last week I had a rock star mama tell me that there's no such thing as work/life "balance". She said "Life is way more like a teeter totter - always more of one thing than another but occasional moments of 'balance'. Just before your ass hits the ground!"  I love  this, and it came exactly when I needed...

Those who know me know what I expect in the cities I love. I want a place that feels authentic. I want a place that has just the right amount of grit. What is that amount? I know it when I see it. Last week my husband had a conference in Milwaukee, and I was really excited to go. People seemed surprised by this excitement, but it's a Midwest industrial city on the water that's famous for making beer. What's not  to like? Plus I could walk around with the Laverne & Shirley  theme song in my head for four days. I flew from Lansing with my champion toddler traveler to meet my husband who was already there. We were on our way downtown from the airport when I was already raving about street design because that's what I do. We stayed across the street from the convention center which was surprisingly cute. My experience with convention centers is they often look like a building out of a horrible Soviet Union photograph from 1987. Milwaukee has managed to break the horri...

I am a firm believer that all it takes to be a "real" runner is to lace up your shoes and get out there. I wrote a blog about this complicated formula to being a real runner nearly five years ago. Although I'm nowhere close to being a competitive runner, I've spent the last 12 years logging regular miles and changing who I am by becoming a runner. In the last eight months I've begun to question whether I'm still a runner.  After a serious few years of speedy races, 2017 was a disappointment. I ran the Detroit Half Marathon in October of 2016 and ended up in the hospital the next week with a serious abscess. It sidelined my running for months. Finally l ast summer I ended my running drought by running three 5ks in July.  They weren't my fastest or best work, but I was feeling like myself again. After the third 5k in as many weeks I tweaked my knee but thought it was no big deal. In August I found I was unable to run at all. And then after a few months ...