Book Talk
I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book. -J.K. Rowling You know how sometimes you can’t find anything good to read? Well, I’m having the opposite problem- I feel like I’m practically being buried under an avalanche of books I can’t wait to read. But I can’t start any of them until I finish Troubled Blood, the fifth book in Robert Galbraith’s (J.K. Rowling pseudonym) Cormoran Strike mystery series. I’m loving this book SO MUCH. My only complaint is that it’s extremely … heavy. I was leaving a comment on The Birchwood Pie blog post (more about her in a minute) and I accidentally referred to it as a “900 pound book,” ha ha… I meant 900 page. But a 900 page hardcover library book is seriously uncomfortable to hold for long periods of time. I’ve developed a system where I prop it up on two pillows while I sit on the couch so I don’t tire out my hands. Meanwhile, three library holds have come in. I actually don’t remember anything about these books, but I read about them on other blogs and apparently they sounded so good I put a library hold on them. I’m torn between never wanting Troubled Blood to end, and wanting to finish it quickly so I can start these! Furthermore… the aforementioned Birchwood Pie shared this list of “best” thriller books… and they all sound so good! The only one on this list that I’ve read is The Push and I’m excited to check out some of the others. I’m not allowing myself to request any more library holds until I finish my 900 pound book and start the other three I already have, though. And then… as if that’s not enough, I found this list of the 20+ books J.K. Rowling recommends reading. J.K. Rowling is possibly my favorite author of all time, so I found this list fascinating. I’ve read five of them: Emma, Little Women, Catcher in the Rye, Ballet Shoes (yes, there are some kids’ books on her list) and The Casual Vacancy- interesting choice there, as she wrote that one. Some of the others I don’t really have any desire to read, like The Odyssey and Tale of Two Cities (I’m not a Dickens fan.) But I think I have to check out The Woman Who Walked Into Doors because Rowling says Roddy Doyle is her favorite living writer. And Rowling says of The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, “Perhaps more than any other book, it has a direct influence on the Harry Potter books.” Whoa! Intriguing. You guys, I just want to sit down and inhale all these books at once. I wish I didn’t have to go to work so I could just read all day! At this point in the post I would normally ask what everyone is reading now, but I don’t want to risk that- I can’t add any more books to my list! If you had to pick a favorite author of all time, who would it be? Are you in a reading glut now, or a reading drought? Or somewhere in between?
Weekly Rundown- A Full House!
Well, it was quite a week! I ran a race, did some speed work, and lost my home gym for the summer but gained a son. I’m linking up as always with Kim and Deborah for this weekly rundown. Let’s just see how it all went… Sunday Mother’s Day 5 mile race- race recap is here. The official photos from the race are all terrible. Let’s take a look at this one: First of all, what in the world am I doing with my ARM? I’ve been working hard to stop my arms from crossing over my midline, so this was an epic fail. I guess I was giving it one last push over the finish line, so I wasn’t focusing on form. And let’s look at the guy behind me. It was super hot that day… is he wearing JEANS??? I can see by his bib that he was an official runner, but he did the 5K option. So I guess wearing jeans for a hot 5K seemed like a good idea. All six pictures of me were taken as I was approaching and crossing the finish line, so he’s in every one. It was definitely the day of the weird photo bomb. Monday My quads were a little sore so I decided to do a nice, easy yoga class. Except that I accidentally chose a power yoga class, arg! I didn’t feel like stopping it and finding another class, so I just did it. All my yoga classes are on Peloton with Denis Morton. Some of his power yoga classes are harder than others, and luckily this was an easier one. Tuesday Started the day with a 3 mile run, and then did a core class with Ben Alldis. After the inferno that was our race on Sunday, the temps dropped a little bit, and we had some pleasant mornings! Wednesday Ah, a dilemma. I knew I wanted to do speed work this week, but I also wanted to do a harder lower body strength class. If I do strength today and speed work tomorrow, my legs will be sore for the speed work. If I do speed work today and strength tomorrow, it would be hard to fit another strength day into the week without getting too close to my long run on Sunday. Decisions, decisions… There was no perfect solution here, so I just did the strength class- Matty Maggiacomo’s 30 minute glutes and leg strength, and followed it with one of his core classes. AND, I did pull-ups. Good workout! Later in the morning I got a massage and did my best to relax for the rest of the day. Thursday Speed work! Yes, my legs were sore and it wasn’t ideal. But it’s not like I’m training for the Olympics. I haven’t done speed work in a very long time and just wanted to ease into it and see what happens. Back in the old days, I did my speed work on a track, but now I don’t have one that’s convenient. Instead, I use a stretch of sidewalk that’s almost exactly 1/4 mile between cross streets. I did a mile warm up, and then did 4 repeats of the 1/4 mile, walking for a minute between each one. And then I did a one mile cool down. As you can see, I kept it short and easy- baby steps! The hard part was running the intervals at my CURRENT 5K pace, as opposed to what I wish my 5K pace was. The first two were too fast, but I calmed down for the second two. Oh, and for the record- I only felt the soreness in my legs (from the strength class the day before) during the warm up and cool down- I didn’t notice it during the faster intervals. Go figure. After this I did another core class. I’ve been choosing my core classes at random (all on Peloton) and this was the only one I didn’t like- it was with Adrian Williams. I never thought I would say this, but I missed the crunches. Friday I did a short, easy 2 mile run to help my legs recover from the last two days. Since I was disappointed with Adrian’s core class, I chose one that I knew would be a killer- Rebecca Kennedy’s. Ouch. And, I did pull-ups again. As soon as I finished my workout, I moved my yoga mat, blocks, and weights to convert my “home gym” back into my son’s bedroom. In the evening he arrived home from his first year of college! I’m not exactly sure where I’ll be doing my workouts for the next month, but that’s okay. Having my son home makes everything okay! Saturday Well, I stayed up way too late on Friday night, so I just decided to sleep as late as possible this morning, which meant 7:30 am (I work at 9 am on Saturdays.) It felt so weird to just get up and start making breakfast- I actually felt all stiff and groggy. I’ll remember this next time I’m tempted to skip a workout! And guess what… I never did fit in that second lower body strength session this week. Before every run I do banded side steps, squats and lunges- all without weights, just to get my muscles warmed up and activated. Still, I would like to get in two days of heavier strength for lower body- I just have to figure out how to schedule it. Sunday On tap for today- a 10 mile trail run! I can’t wait- I missed my trail run last Sunday because of the race. I’m ready to get back out there. How’s your weather? – I hear it got pretty hot up north! Do you have trouble scheduling strength work with harder runs during the week?
Fast Running and a Playlist
While I was writing the recap for my race on Sunday, I was thinking about how much the concept of “fast” varies from person to person. I’m running slowly right now, compared to a few years ago, but for some people my pace may be fast. And for others my paces will seem REALLY slow. Unfortunately- or fortunately, depending on who you are- genetics plays a large role in determining a fast runner. I remember back in elementary school, we had field day once a year. There were all sorts of races and I wanted to win one so badly. And I tried! I really tried, but just couldn’t compete with some of the other girls. I was envious of the girls who could run fast. When I started running in high school, my natural “easy” pace was 1o minutes per mile. I never attempted to run competitively in high school- I just ran for fun. Same with college. But after college I became aware of this thing called “speed work” and started going to a track once a week. Speed work consisted of running quarter mile repeats. Period! I had never heard of tempo runs or strides (were there such things in the 1990s?) and it never occurred to me to run 200, 800 or mile repeats. Nope- speed work meant 400s, over and over and over again. Because I did it consistently, I had success with that. This was when I was living in New York City, and I raced a LOT, at least every other weekend. I hated 5Ks (too short and painful) and the half marathon, while definitely a thing, wasn’t the wildly popular race distance it is now. I liked the 10K races and marathons. One of my crowning achievements was a sub-48 minute 10K. Me! A girl with very few fast twitch muscle fibers… I ran a sub-8 minute mile pace for a whole 10K. And my other big achievement was a sub-4 hour marathon. I worked hard for those PRs. Fast forward many years… I had my kids… my body decided to fall apart with multiple injuries. Then, several years ago I managed to string together enough months of training to achieve some post-baby PRs. A 5K at an 8 minute mile pace, and a sub-2 hour half marathon. It was a big notch down from my previous PRs, but I still worked hard for them. Fast forward several more years… ugh. What the heck happened? My foot fell apart and it seems that I’m running slower and slower. Now I’m struggling to hold a nine minute mile pace for a 5K. For a while I was getting really discouraged… but you know what? All this shows is that speed work WORKS. And that’s the beauty of running- no matter where we’re at, we can always get faster than we are right now. I definitely don’t run as fast as a lot of people, and I don’t run as fast as I did a few years ago. But I can start where I am right now, do those 400 repeats (why not? they worked in the past!) and see how much improvement I can make. No pressure- just for the fun of it. And now… here’s my playlist for the race on Sunday! I think you might call it… “eclectic” or, possibly, “dorky.” A few weeks ago, Nicole talked about the middle-aged-woman phenomenon of hearing a current pop song and saying “Oh yes- I know this from Peloton!” Ha ha… I’m definitely not up on what’s current. Clearly. And as you can see I’ve included one of the most bizarre songs ever, “Turning Japanese.” What in the world do the lyrics mean? Is it even politically correct? I suspect not. But, remember I was a teenager in the 80s, and every time I hear that song it makes me laugh. I’m linking up with the Fab Five- Jenn, Darlene, Zenaida, Renee and Michelle for their Fit Five Friday! Are you currently doing speed work? Are you still working towards PRs? What would be on your “fast running” playlist?
Race Recap- Mother’s Day 5 Mile
On Mother’s Day I ran a very HOT 5 mile race. I mean, I live in Florida, so it’s always hot. This one just hit us a little hard, because normally we run first thing in the morning and are done running by 7:30, which is the time this race started. We’re also just getting acclimated to the intense heat that will be here for the next six months! I know- excuses, excuses. I had tentatively planned to run the race at a 9:15 (or so) mile pace, but due to poor pacing ended with an average pace of 9:49. Of course that was according to my Garmin. The official race results had my time at a 10:05 mile pace- the discrepancy is due to The Incident in mile 4. Read on to find out all about it! This race had a 5k and a 5 mile option, and I felt pretty sure that the 5 mile distance would not be popular. My husband was surprised to see me making a playlist the night before, because I normally don’t listen to anything during.a race. I told him I had a funny feeling I would be running by myself a lot, and thought it would be more fun to have music (even though my husband was also doing the 5 miler, we run at different paces.) Turns out my suspicions were correct! We got up at 5:30 am and I drank a large glass of water with LMNT. The race was about 30 minutes away, and on the way there I ate an orange and drank more water. When we got there we got our bibs and did a short warmup run, and I used the bathroom TWICE (foreshadowing.) We were chuckling because we overheard people saying things like “Apparently there’s a 5 mile race too- I wouldn’t want to do that, would you?” “No!” Finally we lined up at the start and they went over the course. They described where the 5 milers would split off from the 5k runners, and explained that at one point the 5 milers would be running on the sidewalk for a while “since there are only about 100 of you, so we didn’t want to pay to close that road.” Ah, okay. The race started at 7:40-about ten minutes late- and I could feel the sweat trickling down my body as I waited- yep, it’s going to be a hot one. I decided to run the first mile by feel instead of checking my watch. Bad idea, because my first mile was 9:01, almost 15 seconds faster than my planned pace. Oops. Why is it so hard to start a race at the correct pace? My second mile was slower, and the third mile even slower. We parted ways with the 5k runners and ran our section on the sidewalk, and at the beginning of mile four, our route took us onto a trail. Nowhere in the course description was there any mention of a trail- I don’t mind, but one thing my husband had said that morning before the race was “I’m just glad this isn’t a trail race.” He’s not a fan, and I knew he was somewhere behind me, cursing. (And yes- on the way home I was treated to a nice rant about that mile on the trail. “It’s not like I MIND running on a trail, but there were so many rocks! I mean, it’s like someone went and dumped a bunch of rocks ALL OVER THE TRAIL! Couldn’t they clear those rocks off before the race, or something?” Yes, let’s have someone clear every single rock off the trail for this race, ha ha.) Anyway, it was during this mile that I realized my stomach was not happy. I had gone to the bathroom twice already, but apparently the third time’s a charm for me- at least on this morning. I figured that, although it wasn’t ideal, I should try to pull off the trail and find a place to go. I surmised (correctly) that once we left the trail, we would be in a much more populated area until the end of the race and I would regret not going when I could. I felt like I was running all alone, but when I veered off to the side I realized that no- there were several runners coming up behind me. Arg. I got back on the trail and started running again, but a few minutes later decided I REALLY needed to go, so I pulled over again. The runners behind me were now in front and I had about 30 seconds or so of privacy, and did what I needed to do. I stopped my Garmin for both these little pitstops, which is why there was a discrepancy between my Garmin time and official race time. Oh, my stupid stomach. Luckily after this I felt much, much better. The last mile of this race was a long, hot trudge. I gave up any pretense of running fast and just kept myself moving forward. And- yay! I finished and came second in my age group! One thing I really love about getting older- if you can just show up and hang in there, you can do pretty well. Picking a smaller race also helps. But no matter what, it’s always fun to win something. We hung out for a little, and an older woman- I would guess she’s around 70 but looked to be in amazing shape- came up to me and said “how do you run in this heat?” Turns out she came down from Cleveland- yes, if you just spent the winter in Cleveland it would be pretty hard to suddenly run in the Florida heat. She was actually here for a triathlon next weekend and decided to run this race just to see what the weather would be like. Well, now she knows! Here’s a picture of me with my AG medal. I love the