About Ring in the New Run

In 2008, I moved to Seattle to begin a graduate program at the University of Washington. It was my my fourth major life move in just four years (falling in line after a pretty straight-forward but generally unplanned Chicago-China-Wisconsin-California trajectory). I did all sorts of daring and unusual and very boring things in each of these places, but the one constant is that I ran. And I really ran in Seattle, because how can you not when the weather is cool, the hills are steep, and you’re fueled by delicious beer and doughnuts?

Then, in December 2012, my husband and I moved from Seattle to Chicago. In terms of running, this was a move from great trails and spectacular views (Cascades to the East, Olympics to the west) to something considerably more concrete and sea level-ish. Or, to balance things out, it was a move from perpetual dampness (which Seattleites optimistically refer to as “mist”) and blindingly geared-out triathletes to frosty, bright mornings and bundled-up non-runners who offer the occasional thumbs-up when I pass. It’s wasn’t a bad change, or even necessarily a brand new one, as I’ve lived in Chicago on and off for much of my adult life. Still, after nearly four years of long, lush runs in the Pacific northwest, it’s something I wanted to record.

Since starting this blog, I’ve received my PhD and–more important to my spirit and memories–gone running in Texas and Alabama, New York and Wisconsin. I write about the running here, and my research elsewhere. Ring in the New Run has also become a space for remembering, and for sharing the small successes and more common misadventures of running in a relatively new, sometimes lonely, generally interesting, always flat place like Chicago.

Also:

In the spirit of change, new year, etc., the title for this little web-log is taken from Tennyson’s “In Memoriam.” Only a few weeks before beginning this blog, my grandfather showed my husband and me the sleigh bells his family used to use on their horses. This line struck me as timely, and nice: “Ring out the old, ring in the new/ Ring happy bells, across the snow…” You can find it in its entirety here.