Hi everyone! Thanks for clicking by my blog. I’m Colleen, a 24 year old community organizer living in Portland, OR. As my blog title suggests… I love to run (actually, exercise of any kind!) and I love to bake. Considering how much I love to eat the fruits of my baking labors, the running is pretty necessary! Of course, that’s not WHY I run. I run, or cycle, or do yoga, because of the way it makes me feel – accomplished, strong, and great inside and out!
This blog is about a couple of things:
1) Finding a healthy balance in my life. This is a journey for me, and it’s been a difficult road at times. Over the last few years, starting with my senior year of college in 2007, I have really struggled with weight and body image issues. I’ve always been really involved in sports and physical activity, including rowing varsity crew when I was in college, and until my senior year, had a healthy, happy body image. Since then, the phenomenon of loathing the image in the mirror has plagued me, like so many other women.
I’ve been through the diet-binge cycle more times than I care to admit – counting calories obsessively for three days, only to get frustrated and seek solace in a bowl (read: tub) of ice cream. I want to find a happy place between these two extremes – where I can be conscious of the nutritional content of what I’m putting into my body, not to obsess over it, but to see food as fuel for the active lifestyle I love. Reading success stories from bloggers has really helped me begin to see that there is another way to life, and I hope by joining this amazing community I can be of support to others going through the same thing!
2) Developing my passions. One of my favorite part about sports growing up and in college was the competitive aspect – training hard for something and giving it your all on race day. I’ve been missing that the last couple years and I started to get less motivated to work out, since I was doing it basically just to work out. In January, I decided to sign up for my first half marathon. I had a great time doing it and now am getting hooked on racing. I want to complete a marathon by December 2010 and do at least one sprint triathlon this summer. In addition, I’ve got some long distance cycling in my future as well!
Like getting exercise, baking is also one of my favorite outlets. Scraping down the sides of a mixing bowl or rolling out dough is extremely therapeutic! Of course, chocolate chip cookies cure most woes as well 
I’ve always loved to experiment with recipes, and prefer to never follow one to a T. I plan to post recipes for my baking creations weekly, so stay tuned for some good eats!!
I hope you enjoy this blog and feel free to contact me at runtobake@gmail.com with any questions or comments! I’m excited to be jumping into the blogging world!
xox Colleen
