There are some quotes that just stick with you. For me, right now it is this: “Bringing integrity back to your running means you have to stop worrying about where you should be and own where you are.” (Lauren Fleshman, Compete Training Journal). The thing about a good quote is that it will challenge your thinking and break you out of your status quo. Certainly, this has been the case for me.
Read MoreThere are women who grew up on cross country teams, those who as adults found their way to running groups, and others whose joy for running is fueled by their “BRFs” (“Best Running Friends”). I do not fit into any of those categories. I quit my high school cross country team after two weeks because of a “hip injury”. (Or maybe after thirty years it is okay to admit that I quit because running is hard and I could not understand the point.) These days, running plays a central role in my life, but it is and always has been very much a solo pursuit. My idea of a “group run” is a long run with my husband on the weekend, or if I’m really going to go big on the group exercise bit, we’ll have our son our daughter join us for a stretch. Mostly, though, running provides a space where I do some of my best thinking and writing, and I find that these thoughts are best processed when I am very much alone.
Read MoreThis site is about running, parenting and living well. Sometimes “living well” extends beyond pursuing personal happiness and dreams. Sometimes living well means finding your place within our complicated world and striving to make it better – for everyone. So, in that spirit, I offer you this.
Read MoreThings I am really good at: (1) surfing Facebook for just five minutes (magically turns into 15), (2) nibbling bits off of a cookie every time I pass by the dessert plate until it is gone (did I really even taste it?), (3) going for a run without a goal (4 miles? 6? Pace? Meh.), and (4) getting lost in a book in one room while my family pursues separate endeavors throughout the house until one of us realizes that no one has spoken to each other in over an hour and, oh by the way, what's for dinner? There is a lot to love about a homemade cookie, a relaxed no-pressure run, a good book, and even social media connections. But what I have come to resent is how quickly things (and time) slip by me before I have the presence of mind to enjoy or pursue them fully. Hence, resolved: in 2017 I will run, parent, and live with intention.
Read MoreThey say that opposites attract, and perhaps we are the poster couple for that saying. You are an extrovert compared to my introverted self. You chose medicine; I chose law. You will go off the beaten path just to explore what is there while I cling to the safety of a well-worn trail. And when it comes to running and to marathons, the paths that brought us to our starting lines could not have been more different.
Read MoreThe dice have been rolled and landed. And somehow, inexplicably, Donald Trump has won the election. And it hurts, to my core. And while this site primary focuses on the positive – and everything that is good about parenting, and running, and life- I would not be doing truth justice if I didn’t comment on the other side of the equation. My life and career is, and has been, largely driven by the need to face down the continued inequalities that exist in this nation. And for each of us that do not belong to the historic privileged-class, we’ve just been dealt a devastating blow.
Read MoreFor those who know me or know my writing, you understand that, for me, running is equal parts about the sport and about the journey. So while I will write about the race – the course, the spectators, the City, and everything that made the Chicago Marathon such an exceptional event – this is not that post. Because, in my mind, it is impossible to do justice to the race without also acknowledging this: 26.2 miles is a friggin’ long way to go. It is hard. Sunday's race tested me and tested my emotions, and that is exactly what made it so impactful.
Read MoreI am (overly) cautious and a worrier by nature. Always have been. With a truly overactive imagination, in any given situation I can come up with a dozen ways that things could go horribly wrong, and then preoccupy myself with thoughts about how best to avert disaster. My family knows this and, my son especially, will exploit it for his own entertainment (“Look Mom – no hands!” … and then watch as my freak out begins and I turn fifty shades of pale.)
Read MoreIf distance running was a product, it would come with the following prominently written on the label: WARNING – You WILL get injured. Every runner I know who has been at it awhile has a war story - hamstring injuries, plantar fasciitis, shin splints, knee pain. True devotees to the sport seem to spend equal parts time training and trying to keep their bodies healthy. Because of this, when I started my training for Chicago I was alert to the possibility that at some point my body might call an injury timeout. What I did not expect was that the injury would come not from running, but from a game of hopscotch.
Read MoreThis summer, we had the chance to babysit our nephew for a couple of days while his parents took a well-earned, albeit brief, mini-vacation. With our kids now well into their teens, it has been a solid 13 years since we last had a toddler in the house. God bless them, my brother and his wife managed to look past this and trusted me when I told them that “we’ve got this,” pointing to our 19-year track record of parenting, my husband’s M.D., and 4-on-1 defense with two teenagers on hand to help us corral a toddler and keep him entertained, safe, and happy while his parents were away. And we did all right … aided in no small part by the fact that my 2-year old nephew sensed our lack of recent toddler experience like an animal smells fear, and drew on every “big boy” ability he had at his disposal to rise to the occasion. In short: The kid went easy on us.
Read MorePhoto Credit: Megan Ewens
I am a list maker and a planner. A habitual rule-follower, most of my life has been spent traveling a straight and narrow path and trying to avoid temptations to stray outside of the lines. While constraining in other contexts, these Type A tendencies have served me particularly well in training. With a well-vetted marathon plan in hand, I plunge ahead with a good deal of confidence that if I check all of the boxes, if I hit all of my runs and paces, then come race day I will be prepared for the task at hand. In week 8 of training, I had every intention of drawing on this compulsive desire (need?) to click off all of the workouts, and to stay entirely on point, to avoid otherwise inevitable vacation detours.
Read MoreMarathon training this time around is different. Getting into the New York City Marathon was a surprise, and my expectations going into it principally involved two objectives: (1) finish the race with my dignity in tact and (2) soak in what surely would be an epic experience. I started the training fitter than I had been in years, and every long run was a new milestone, reinforcing feelings of accomplishment and strength. Now, one year later, training for Chicago and training for a cause, I have every reason to feel confident and emboldened. And yet here I am, five weeks in, still waiting to hit my stride mentally and physically.
Read MoreGrowing up, I LOVED the countdown to the start of a new school year. It came with the emotional bundle of apprehension, optimism, excitement, and nervous anticipation. Fresh school supplies, a first day of school outfit, a finely tuned new organization plan, and a hopeful vision for what surely would be a perfect year. A little nerdy and unrealistic? Sure. But apparently not much has changed because my build up to the start of Chicago Marathon training played out much the same way.
Read MoreJune is a month littered with milestones. It marks the end of the school year for some, graduation for others, and a big month for exchanging vows. In our family, the first week in June included ninth grade graduation from middle school for our son, and moving our daughter out of her dorm room marking the end of her first year of college. Those doors were barely closed behind them before they started to move on to what is next.
Read MorePhoto Credit: Megan Ewens
It was a slow start when I returned to running after a years-long hiatus. Literally. A two to three mile run-walk (or, more accurately, walk-jog) left me breathless and struggling to remember why, again, was I doing this? After a few months, the pieces started to come together and while I was by no means fast, at age 44 I was posting life-long personal bests in middle distance races, and I came to view every run as a new opportunity to see whether I could eke out a slightly faster time. That game ended when I started to train for the marathon, and I was instructed to slow down – way down – and to learn to train at my marathon pace.
Read MoreWhen I think about parenting and motherhood, it conjures images of young families, and the frenetic joy and chaos that come with raising young kids. There is the side of parenting that makes me laugh and smile until my heart overflows with love, that exists with the other side of parenting that at times leaves me half-paralyzed by fear and insecurity. How do I keep them safe, especially when they start to test their wings and learn to fly? Where are my answers to the ever-evolving parenting questions when the issues (and the stakes) seem to get so much higher with each passing year? How do I stop time, because it is slipping away … as I know it must?
Read MoreEnvy. One of the seven deadly sins. Our culture promotes it, and our conscience fights against it. But there are times when envy just sucks you in, and this week the Boston Marathon was my undoing. The more I read about it, watched coverage of it, and was pinged on social media with happy pictures of it, the more I wanted a piece of Boston for myself.
Read MoreIt has been fifty years since Bobbi Gibb became the first woman to race the Boston Marathon, unbeknownst to the race organizers who did not realize that a woman covertly made her way to the start. Soon discovered, she shed a heavy sweatshirt and openly finished the race – to the sound of cheers – in a remarkable 3 hours 21 minutes. As she tells her story, the next two years she ran again (sans bib). Sara Mae Berman picked up the baton and ran in 1969, 1970 and 1971 until the Boston Marathon officially opened its race to women in 1972.
Read MoreBefore we had children, if you would have asked what life skills I hoped to impart on our kids, somewhere on list probably would have been the ability to stick to their convictions and intelligently state the basis for their opinions. Now well into their teens, I can say that our children have all but mastered this. As an attorney, to hear the kids competently defend their positions is a point of pride. As their mother, at times it can be, well, a challenge.
Read MoreSearching for running goals to guide me through 2016 prompted some serious self-examination about what motivates me most. Especially coming off of last year, if I am going to commit to something beyond a local 10k, it needs to grab me and inspire me in a very real way. I set the bar high, looking for something I could commit to wholeheartedly and without a second thought.
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