Movement as Medicine in Traverse City
This story was originally published in the Traverse City Record-Eagle.
Spring in Traverse City always brings a kind of quiet return — although, to be real, last week’s flooding of the Ottaway River made this year’s return feel anything but quiet.
Still, with another May right around the corner, bikes are coming off hooks in garages. Trails are returning to dirt. Running groups are reappearing in the early morning light. Neighbors begin moving outside again — without their skis, snowshoes, or winter coats — settling back into that joyful rhythm only spring in northern Michigan can provide.
Dr. Jill Burden is part of that rhythm — not just participating in it, but living it.
“I have to move. I have to move every day,” Jill said matter-of-factly, not like a goal or a resolution, but like something closer to a physiological truth.
An emergency medicine physician in Traverse City, Jill has run several marathons and completed two full Ironmans, but her story isn’t really about endurance races.
Movement outside, she said, is the medicine that keeps her steady — helping her show up as a better, more present mom, wife, friend, and doctor.
Jill grew up here in Traverse City. At Central High School, she was a sprinter (the 100, 200, 400 meters), not exactly the profile of someone you’d expect to fall in love with distance. But a coach nudged her toward cross country as cross-training, and something clicked.
“I actually can run distance,” she said of her senior year realization, almost as if she were still surprised by it.
At Notre Dame for undergrad, she stayed active through a mix of sports: gymnastics, crew, and running half-marathons with friends. Then came medical school in Chicago, residency, and long hours. Movement didn’t disappear, but as it does for many people when life gets intense, it became less structured. Less protected.
She moved back to Traverse City in 2011.
And like so many people who live here, she found that the landscape made it easier to move outside again. Parks. Sidewalks. Trails. Water. Healthy-by-design neighborhoods (like Slabtown, where she lives) that connect to special places — Hickory Meadows, the Bay, and the TART Trail — that are free, accessible, and woven into daily life.
Life didn’t slow down when Jill returned home — kids, schedules, work. But movement found its way back in through the edges. Bayshore runs. Triathlon training. Workouts with friends.
Eventually, it became something more than exercise.
It became essential.
Emergency medicine is fast-paced, demanding work — high stakes, constant decision-making with stress layered on stress.
For Jill, movement is where that stress gets sorted out.
“I solve all my problems in my head when I’m moving outside,” she said.
Movement not as performance, but as regulation — mental health and stability.
She notices it when it’s missing.
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“If I didn’t get that physical movement every day, I think I would have a lot more anxiety,” she said. “My family notices too.”
Of course, she also understands the physical side — cardiovascular health, strength, balance, mobility — the building blocks of long-term wellbeing. She’s now stepping into that work more intentionally, joining a local longevity clinic alongside her emergency medicine work.
But even there, the question stays simple.
“What do you want to be able to do when you’re 80?” she asked. “Do you want to hike? Travel? Lift your carry-on into the overhead bin? Pick up your grandchild and stand back up from the floor with ease?”
She talks about working backward from that image — building strength, balance, and mobility now so you can live better (and longer) later.
As a physical therapist, I’ve always been interested in the gap between knowing that movement is good for us at any age and actually building a life (and environments) where movement is unavoidable.
Because the truth is, she acknowledged it too: telling people to move more only works if their neighborhood supports it.
You can’t just say move more if there’s nowhere safe or accessible to do it.
That tension lies beneath so many conversations here in Traverse City — a town, for the most part, well-designed for walking, biking, running, hiking, paddling, and swimming, but still shaped by master plans, budget priorities, infrastructure, and culture that can either make movement easier for neighbors or subtly discourage it.
And then, there’s the part that might be most important of all: community. Jill doesn’t do this alone.
On Sundays, she runs with a group of women, many of them physicians or professionals in demanding jobs, blurring the lines between exercise, connection, and friendship.
“That community piece is so important,” she said, talking about those relationships.
Movement, in her world, is not solitary. It’s social glue.
Jill’s story, to me, isn’t about the Ironmans or the marathons — although those accomplishments are impressive.
It’s something more powerful than that.
A physician who has built her life in a way that makes movement ordinary, not exceptional.
Not a hobby or chore, but a core value — a non-negotiable.
Because Jill walks the walk, this idea feels less like medical advice from a doctor and more like an invitation from a neighbor who models what it looks like to be active for life.
An invitation to move a little more.
To get outside with friends and family.
To picture what you want to be able to do at 80 (or 90 or 100!) and start building toward that now.
To treat movement as medicine.
