I don't know about you, but I tend to find one good running route wherever I live and stick with it. I might have variations on it -- right now I have a four-miler that can easily be made into a six- or a two-miler with little modification -- but if I'm happy with my route, I don't usually go out of my way to find something new.

And that, my friends, is boring. There are a million things to see here! There are wooded areas and the University of Florida and all kinds of gorgeous and interesting neighborhoods, but do I make an effort to run through them? No! And why not? Because I don't know a specific route, so I don't know how far I'll have to run, and I'm a dork who likes to know these things ahead of time.

Now I have no excuse. With Run.com I can plug in my city and find a bunch of cool new running routes, all with mileage listed and a description. In Gainesville, there are 16 routes listed (and I might just have to list my boring old route, too).

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Does diabetes run in your family? How about cancer? Heart disease? This is the stuff you should know about your relatives, not because you're destined to fall prey to the same ailments -- although it's a possibility -- but because family history can help you chart your course for a lifestyle of prevention. If your mom and aunt both had breast cancer, for example, and you know a healthy diet and regular exercise help ward off this disease, then you can hop on board and embrace these practices. Add annual mammograms, clinical exams, and your own monthly self-exams, and you might just keep one step ahead of cancer.

It all starts with knowledge. So grab a pen and paper and begin recording your family health history. It'll be like your map -- keep it handy for yourself and take it with you to medical appointments. Here's how to put it all together.

• Call or send e-mails to relatives informing them of your health project. Cover at least three generations -- yours (include siblings and cousins), your parents (include siblings), and your grandparents.
  

This isn't so much a news story or new research as it's just a link to something cool. A friend sent me this map from CNN that shows how obesity has spread in this country across the years, and it's a little scary! And considering experts predict that 75% of us will be overweight or obese by 2015 that scariness is just going to get worse unless we all start doing something about it now.

What state do you live in? How has it been doing in comparison with the rest of the country? It looks like they need more colors for the map -- all but 8 states are in the top 2 highest levels as of 2004!

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