It was Saturday morning, about 10a. I’d been watching for Whitney the last 20 minutes or so, expecting to see her come bounding down the trail at any moment. I was at aid station #4 – mile 19, the first time I’d see her in the race. As her crew, my job was to tend to her needs as quickly as possible (food, drink, salt caps, medication, clothing, etc) and get her back on her way. It’s easy to burn a lot of time in aid stations in a ultra if you aren’t careful, and Whitney has hers down to a science. She had an aggressive time goal and the training to back it up. We both expected a good day.

I finally spotted Whitney and walked up to meet her. I knew she was off her pace sheet by 15 minutes or so, but with 80+ miles remaining in the race, I wasn’t at all concerned. She had plenty of time to make up a slow start and still get her PR. I asked her how it was going and she responded by saying she needed to lie down and that her asthma was really bad. We talked a bit and at her request I grabbed the nurse who happened to be working the aid station. Whitney was able to discuss her symptoms and he checked her out as best he could. She felt better after lying down for a bit, talking with her husband on the phone and using her inhaler. The rainy weather of the preceding few days seemed to stir up a lot of mold, with the fall harvest likely not helping at all. I could tell she was discouraged and frustrated, but with the nurse’s assurances that she was ok, I didn’t want her to quit without giving her body a chance to come out of the hole it was in, as weird things can happen in long races. The Hennepin Hundred has frequent aid stations by ultra running standards, so I knew she wouldn’t be on her own for long, and I was to see her again at mile 32 (aid station #7).

By the time she came into #7, it was raining and she’d lost more time on her goal. She quickly sat down again and wasn’t feeling any better. I was hesitant to push her too much, as my own asthma was giving me fits so I knew there was more to what she was experiencing than just an isolated incident (a fact I didn’t share with her until she was done), but I wanted her to be more confident in dropping. I wasn’t going to talk her into continuing, but I wasn’t going to talk her out of dropping either. After conversation with some very persistent aid station volunteers she went back out one more time. I would see her at the next aid station (providing an easy out if needed), so there wasn’t much to lose by going out one more time.

Coming into aid station #8, nothing had changed. She was still miserable, it was still raining (meaning no magical mold solutions), and 60+ miles remained in the race. By now our friends Lisa and Joe had joined us, as Lisa planned to pace Whitney a bit later in the race, and some of her running friends from Chicago were working the aid station. Whitney still wasn’t 100% certain she wanted to drop (she shared that she’d only be 100% sure if someone had to drag her off the course), but she seemed a lot less interested in continuing. With multiple 100-mile finishes and several wins under her belt, she had nothing to prove. She would risk real damage to her body to continue, only to “just finish” a race she had originally hoped to win.

We runners tend to idolize those who persevere at all costs…the runners who crawl across finish lines, who complete their races battered and bruised. I personally find more to admire in the runners who’ve learned when to go to the well and when to back off. Those who can say today isn’t my day and live to fight again. Whitney digging really deep, deep enough to know for certain that her day wasn’t going to turn around, and only to then decide to walk away, struck me as courageous and brave.

One of the things I love most about running is all of the little life lessons tucked into the training and racing. Ultra running especially has so many parallels to real life, the microcosm of our experience at Hennepin included. My own health situation might be entirely different right now if I had valued quitting in my own life much sooner. If I had more quickly quit the stressful job that started all of this in 2014, not taken the even more stressful job in 2015 (a case of my being stubborn and not wanting to “pause” my career), and just held still in 2016. Quitting is a dirty word in our society. We don’t value those who can look at a situation (or a race) and say “this isn’t for me” and walk away. Why not? Why don’t we value the ability to take care of ourselves, mentally and physically, even when that care involves quitting? I greatly admire my friend’s running accomplishments and what she’s been able to achieve the last few years. But I have even more respect for what I witnessed on Saturday.

As we continue to have conversations about mental health in this country, I hope the collective we start to make space for saying “no”, for walking away from the things that don’t serve us, whether that’s the job, the relationship, the city, the race, etc. I hope we can recognize that realizing what isn’t working is just as powerful as knowing what does. Sometimes the answer is to lean in and fight hard, but sometimes it’s to walk away. For my friend, the answer on Saturday was to walk. May we someday learn that when we honor our bodies and our hearts, it is impossible to let down our “crew” – the people who support us in life. Rather it is in those moments that we honor them the most.

When quitting is done correctly, it isn’t giving up – it’s making room for something better.  ~Adam Kirk Smith

On Friday evening, I went for a walk on the beach. I watched my young niece play in the sand and splash in the waves. I watched my sister fly a kite with her seven-year-old son. My husband and brother-in-law goofed around, my 13-year-old niece looked for shells. The sun set behind the clouds, lighting up some storms off to the east. We were coming to the tail-end of a week long vacation at my family’s favorite beach, a place we’ve been visiting for over 25 years. That we even had this vacation with all of us is something of a miracle, as my dad is sharing his body with a tumor that will eventually take his life. Metastatic pancreatic cancer has been part of our family for two years now, and each milestone and holiday we get to share together is one that I hang on to with every cell in my being.

I was thinking about all of this as we walked back up to the house. I still needed to pack before going to bed, as we were hitting the road early the next morning. I quickly checked Twitter in one last bit of procrastination before throwing my stuff in the suitcase, only to read about what was transpiring in Charlottesville. When I wasn’t driving on Saturday, I spent much of my time following the day’s events on social media, increasingly horrified by what I read. I spent most of the week bathed in gratitude…grateful for a family that continues to choose to spend time together, grateful for parents that made the most of what little we had growing up and who made sure we got to travel outside of our small town when we were young-including this beautiful beach, grateful that my sisters are two of my closest friends, grateful to spend time with their kids-who are all becoming wonderful humans, and grateful for the privilege of spending a week on vacation with all of them. These feelings of gratitude contrasted so sharply with the emotions I felt reading about the “unite the right” rally and the violence that ensued.

As someone who can be a bit of a pollyanna, I’ve spent the last several years reconciling what I think I know of our country with what it actually is. I’m ashamed to admit that it wasn’t until I started working in public health that I began to deeply appreciate the inequities that exist, and how they continue to be perpetuated by public policy. When working in cardiac rehab, I had patients who regularly chose between medication and food, but I had no appreciation for the environmental factors that influence poverty, nor did I understand how policy perpetuates that poverty. When we lived in Fort Collins, I  supervised a grant that provided resources for the facilitation of a health equity coalition. We partnered with eight neighborhoods that were low-income and inhabited by residents who were primarily Hispanic, a number of whom were undocumented. For the first time, I began to dig in to the topic of health equity, and to understand how policy contributes to great inequity in this country. I appreciated working with these honest, hard-working people, and I appreciated getting a small window into the immigration debate, a debate that is certainly not as simple and straightforward as some politicians would like us to believe. “Build a wall” is a ridiculously simple solution to a complex issue, and says more about the person offering the solution than it does about the issue itself.

In the run-up to last year’s election, it seemed that a light was being shone into some very dark corners of our collective psyche. A candidate for the highest office in our country admitted to (and bragged about) sexually assaulting women, incited violence at his “rallies”, displayed a shocking level of unfamiliarity with public policy, and thumbed his nose at the transparency we’ve come to expect of presidential candidates (releasing taxes), and was still elected. This speaks volumes to the priorities of a large number of Americans, and to what they’re willing to overlook in order to advance their ideology. Since Trump’s inauguration, Amy Siskind has been tracking subtle shifts in our democracy, and each week’s list is more alarming than the last. This week culminated with a white supremacist rally that ended in violence with three people dead. Many politicians made statements agains hate groups such as nazis and white supremacists, but Trump wasn’t one of them. The anti-immigration, anti-science, anti-environment, and racist agenda of this administration is making every attempt to drag us 50 years into the past. Back to a time when pollution clogged our air and our rivers, when government-sanctioned segregation was still a thing, and when women did not have full autonomy over their bodies.

Throughout the election and the first part of this year, I’ve been careful with my words. I hate conflict and will go out of my way to make others comfortable. In my desire to not offend others, I’ve not honored the values that are most important to me…those of equity and inclusion. Decades upon decades of horrible public policy have harmed entire groups of people in our country. From urban renewal decimating black neighborhoods to the military’s policies on LGBTQ service members, our government has continually and routinely perpetuated inequities.  Over time, some of those policies have been overturned/updated, but so much work remains. In addition to promoting an agenda that will only enhance racial and income inequity, our current president emboldens the worst of us-those that promote hate, abhor diversity and stand for everything our country is supposedly against. Time will tell how we will respond. I recently read the book Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit, which offered great perspective on these dark times:

Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes – you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. It’s the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand. We may not, in fact, know them afterward either, but they matter all the same, and history is full of people whose influence was most powerful after they were gone. 

So I choose hope, and I choose to use my voice. I will use my privilege and the security it affords to not sit silent in the presence of violence, racism and hate. I’ll force myself to get uncomfortable, because the discomfort felt by others is exponentially greater. I’m late to the party, but trust that showing up late is better than not showing up at all. I believe all of us will have to pick a side if you will, that the current administration demands we engage with our government. I do not feel people are being alarmist when they say our democracy is in danger. If you haven’t already been in contact with your members of congress, consider reaching out this week. Ensure they know what’s important to you, and hold them accountable for their words and actions. A little more than half of all eligible voters participated in the 2016 presidential election (61% was the most recent figure I could find). This administration does not represent a majority of voters. Our democracy will function at its best when everyone participates and inequity is all but assured to continue (and likely to worsen) unless we engage. Other forces-money, lobbyists, etc-influence government, but when we are silent we essentially give the microphone to those interests.

If you, like me, are worried, horrified, afraid, concerned, etc, use that energy to act in whatever way you are comfortable. Write letters, donate money, speak out, volunteer your time to organizations that support issues important to you. Don’t sit on the sidelines. As Rebecca Solnit said, we must believe that what we do matters. Because it does.

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” ~ Elie Wiesel

A few days ago I was sitting in a cafe having lunch. I was eating alone, reading my book. I know that reading while eating is a bad habit, but I’ve been doing it since I was a kid and can’t stop. While waiting for my food, I looked around at the handful of tables and the majority of people were eating with others. Every so often I’d glance up from my book and towards the end of my lunch, I was struck by how much time these people spent on their devices. What’s the point of lunching with friends or colleagues if much of the time your noise is buried in a device? Put down the phones, people.

I was late to the texting and social media game. Not because of any noble principles, but mostly because technology doesn’t interest me much. As the years have gone on and devices get easier to use (and do more stuff), I’ve found myself spending more time on my phone. And lately I’ve begun to hate it, which is a tricky place to be. We don’t have a landline, and even if we did, I wouldn’t want anyone to call me on it. There’s not much I hate more than talking on the phone. Texting and social media are great, ideal forms of communication for a quiet person. I have a large number of friends with whom I wouldn’t be connected without them, and I’m not interested in letting those relationships go just so I can “disconnect”. But I struggle to find a balance with being connected and being TOO connected. More recently, I’ve noticed myself grabbing my phone when my brain needs a break. This feels like a slippery slope, one that I want to step off of quickly. I think it’s reducing my ability to focus, almost like the habit itself is creating a sort of ADD.

I’ve read a number of articles providing insight on how and why to disconnect. But I don’t want to disconnect, I simply want to connect more intentionally. I used to be terrible at keeping my cell on my person, which wasn’t a big deal until I missed a call from M’s best friend telling me he’d had a skydiving accident. (Major wife fail.) Now I wear a bluetooth-enabled watch, which feels like a good solution for someone who still doesn’t keep her phone close by…I rarely miss messages/calls anymore, but can turn off the bluetooth when I want to unplug.

I’ve thought a great deal about the person I don’t want to be…I don’t want to be the girl checking her phone at stoplights (this makes me crazy…when did sitting still for two minutes become so damn difficult?). I don’t want to be the person texting/on social media while sharing a meal with others. I don’t want to interrupt conversations with live, in-person humans to take care of something on my phone. I don’t want to reach for a device when my brain needs to check out for a few min. I need to develop some boundaries, but I’m not yet sure what those boundaries look like.

This post is less a description of a solution and more an exploration of the problem. Cell phones, social media and increased connectivity aren’t going away, and I don’t want them to. But I want to cultivate a healthier relationship with them so that I can be more present, even if it’s just being more present with myself. This introvert is prone to daydreaming and a wandering mind, and in someways, these technologies reinforce the darker side of that tendency. Our time on this planet is incredibly short…walking around with my nose in a device isn’t how I want to prioritize my time. Savoring conversations with the humans in my life (conversations which could be electronic), cooking a fabulous meal, hanging out with my dog, seeing, smelling, feeling nature as I run through the woods, that’s the good stuff for me. I need to ensure that how I utilize my devices supports how I want to spend my time, and that they don’t become a distraction that syphons my attention from what matters.

“The real ugliness lies in the relationship between people who produce the technology and the things they produce, which results in a similar relationship between the people who use the technology and the things they use.”  ― Robert M. Pirsig

One of the qualities possessed by most introverts is that of being a good listener. Generally speaking, I’d much rather hear someone else’s story than share my own. Like many things in life, it’s a continuum and there are times when I don’t take in a message as deeply as I should, but for the most part I tend to align with the stereotype of the attentive, empathetic introvert.

I’ve recently realized that there’s a hard stop with when it comes to my ability to listen. While I take great joy in listening to the stories of my friends, learning what’s important to them and what they value, I’m terrible at listening to myself. As I’ve struggled with my health the past few years, not much else has become as apparent.

I do a really good job of listening to other people’s thoughts about what I should do to get well. I listen to people tell me it will be fine and that things will go back to the way they used to be, when there’s absolutely nothing to suggest that they will (which really is fine…the past should never be the goal). I listen to people diminish my concerns, and let their perceptions influence my understanding of my own reality. A few days ago, I listened to one of my physicians disparage the doc that single-handedly pulled me out of the worst Hashi’s flare I’ve ever endured. It was that moment that made me realize that I need to stop listening to other people’s opinion quite as much, particularly when it comes to my wellbeing.

I know what I need to do to recover from the latest setback (not Hashi’s related, for better or worse). I know that it requires sacrifices I don’t want to make, which I think makes it easy for me to believe the stories other people tell, the picture they paint. Every time, I walk away questioning what I need to do, wondering if I’m being too rash, too dramatic, even though when I step back from the situation and view it objectively, I know I’m not.

My health-related challenges are a drop in the bucket compared to what some people endure. One of my favorite people on the planet is battling a devastating cancer, and my hubby nearly died in an accident a few years ago. While life isn’t what I thought it would be right now, I still have much for which I am grateful. It’s quite likely that I’ll recover from this latest setback, and while the future might look different from the past, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Through all of the bullshit of the last several years, what I’ve realized matters most to me is time. Time to spend with friends and family, time to be in the mountains with my most favorite person, time to hang out with my dog. I don’t have to run marathons to hang out with my friends that do (see recent weekend in Boston). I don’t have to have an “important” job title to make an impact. While I have a lot of frustration over the past few years, I can see much more clearly that which matters to me. I’m present in a way I wasn’t before.

So perhaps I have learned to listen to myself. Perhaps it’s a skill to be stretched and developed, just like any other. I don’t know that it will ever be easy for me to cut out the noise, but the clearer my priorities, the easier it becomes.

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.” ~Douglas Noel Adams

Earlier this week, I was perusing Instagram when I came across a post by a food blogger that I follow. It was a picture of her infant daughter sitting on a beach with the caption “You don’t know what the expression ‘my heart is full’ means until you become a mama”. Instantly, my blood was boiling, which was annoying because generally that only happens when I’m on Facebook. Her post brought to the surface a few things I’ve been thinking about at length lately…what does it mean to be happy? What does it mean to be fulfilled? What does it meant to be successful? How does society influence what we perceive to be a good life? And why is being a parent the benchmark?

I’ve known since I was a kid that being a parent wasn’t for me. I dreamed of traveling, having a job that positively impacted others, spending time with my family, reading good books, sharing my home with dogs, sharing my life with someone (maybe), but never of having children. As a teenager, this would occasionally come up in conversation with adults (not my parents, who’ve never given two shits about whether or not I had kids) and they’d always assure me that I’d change my mind when I got older. Those assurances continued well into my 20s. Even as a youngster this struck me as insulting. What did it matter to them if I had kids? Why the need to be condescending? So what if I changed my mind? And so began 30+ years of “defending” my choice. An abbreviated list of comments made to me:

• I’ll regret it.
• Who will take care of me when I’m old?
• I’m selfish.
• I don’t know what it means to be happy/fulfilled.
• I don’t know what it means to be tired/exhausted/in pain/challenged/etc.
• I’m missing out.
• My life is easy/simple.
• When M was deployed, I was “lucky” that it was just me. Similarly, when he had his accident, I was “lucky” we didn’t have kids.
• What does my husband think?

At times when I was younger, I was as guilty as the insensitive commenter. I’d agree that I was “lucky” we didn’t have kids when M was deployed; I’d agree that I was selfish; I’d agree that my life was easy because it’s just us. More recently, I’ve pushed back against such statements. Mostly because the older I get, the more I appreciate how freaking complicated and messy life is for everyone. No one has it easy, even if they tell you they do. I’m uncomfortable with parenting being the benchmark by which we measure emotions and experiences. In a broader context, I’m more interested in how we add-to the world, versus take-away-from, and while raising good kids would certainly be a big check mark in the add-to column, I don’t think it’s the only check nor do I buy in to an artificial hierarchy of contribution based on offspring.

As I got into my mid-late 30s, I began to realize that most of the cringe-worthy comments had more to do with the person who said them than me. (In many ways, getting older is such a wonderful blessing.) Some of it is innocent, in that people don’t realize they’re being insensitive. In other cases, I think my choice forced people to consider their own choices. I’ve had similar experiences recently when talking about my career…I’m no longer invested in climbing ladders, job titles or the amount of the paycheck and it doesn’t always resonate. (What I am invested in is spending time with my family and friends, hanging out with my dog, traveling, sleep (!!), and doing my part to make the world a better place.) I believe some people go through life following a path society expects…marriage, kids, career, house, etc, not because it’s their hearts’ desire, but because it’s just what people do. When confronted with someone who’s intentionally taken a different path, I think it can be discomfiting, which sometimes gets projected back to me. At 41, I’m ok with this. At 25, it just pissed me off, mostly because I didn’t understand. (Again, the blessings of age!)

We all have the challenge of sorting through the noise and determining what matters most to us. If we’re lucky, how we spend our time aligns closely with what we believe is important. Society tells us that success is 2.2 kids, having a job with a fancy title and a fat paycheck, and being skinny. For some that may very well be the definition of happiness and fulfillment. For others, it looks very different. May we all do the hard work of identifying our priorities and then doing everything we can to ensure how we spend our time aligns closely with those priorities. And if it doesn’t? It’s on us to make changes. For my part, I will work hard to not calibrate or qualify someone’s experience against my own…someone doesn’t need to have an autoimmune condition to know crushing fatigue, or be a marathoner to know hard work. Diminishing their experience doesn’t lift up mine. Also, I will cheer on those around me as they work to discover their own definition of happiness/fulfillment…because it’s kind of like the flight attendants say at the beginning of a flight, we must put on our own oxygen mask before helping others. If we are content and fulfilled, we are able to be more present for our loved ones and better-positioned to do more good in the world, which is really what it’s all about I think.

And about that Instagram post, it has since been taken down. Another follower and I both commented respectfully, and rather than respond and leave the post, she deleted it. Had she said “I didn’t know what the expression ‘my heart is full’ meant until I became a mama”, I would’ve scrolled right on by, but the moment she said that I don’t know what it means to have a full heart because I’m not a “mama”, she made it about me and all of her followers. And I wholeheartedly disagree with her statement…no pun intended. 🙂

“Your work is discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.” ~Buddha

I made it to day seven…one full week without eating any grains, legumes, dairy, alcohol, added sugar, or artificial sweeteners. Not one sandwich, not one diet soda, not one bite of cheese, not one piece of gum. Because I don’t drink coffee or much tea, it also meant not having caffeine. Honestly, getting here feels like a miracle.

This week has been HARD. I had no illusions about how challenging it would be and there were days where it felt hour-to-hour. If it wasn’t a craving for a sandwich, it was a diet coke or a piece of gum. The cravings were everywhere, some of them more out of habit (I LOVE routine) than a particular desire for the food (which is insightful in-and-of itself). My sleep schedule has been a mess…I’ve been in bed by 8:30p three different evenings, by 9:00p the other three, and awake at 4:30a a handful of mornings. Some nights have been really restful, others not so much. Focusing at work in the afternoons nearly took an act of God.

But it’s not been all bad…since I can’t spend my lunch hour enjoying a sandwich at the little bakery around the corner from my office, I’ve been bringing my lunch, eating at my desk, and then going for a walk outside after I’m done eating. I’ve yet to find a route that allows me to avoid all of the smokers out on their own lunch breaks, and it doesn’t prevent the crash from not having a diet soda, but the fresh air makes me happy and it feels good to get some exercise in the middle of the day. Also, since I can’t have gum, I’m taking a toothbrush and toothpaste to leave at my desk at work. I never would have guessed that the Whole30 would lead to more tooth-brushing. I’ve been drinking a ton of water, and while I was well-hydrated before, I do think drinking primarily water for a few weeks is going to help flush my system of a whole bunch of crap. On the suggestion of a friend, I’ve been adding lemon essential oil to it sometimes, which provides welcome variety (thanks, Jenni!). Lastly, the bloat in my stomach is completely gone. I went into this with 20 lbs to lose, so there is no doubt that I need to make changes for the long haul, but my belly is noticeably flatter after just a week (I’m lookin’ at you, grains and dairy).

I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t have made it through the week without M, who did the heavy lifting with dinner several nights and gently reminded me more than once why I was doing this (I did A LOT of bitching mid-week…the “kill all the things” phase is legit). Initially, I would’ve preferred to start this when he was on a trip, just so he could avoid the first-week drama, but I’m really glad he ended up being home. Week two will be all me, but I feel prepared.

This week has forced me to confront every bad habit I have related to food, which is exactly what I need. Having my sister going through this right along with me has been a huge help…not letting her down is almost as much motivation as not letting myself down. In a lot of ways, it’s hard and miserable, but there’s no denying that my digestive system is happier. From what I’ve read, the cravings should diminish in another week or so. And there’s something called “tiger blood” in Whole30 circles that is supposed to be pretty amazing. That doesn’t show up until late in the process, but I’d love to feel that good. It’s been a while.