.: December 2022

Friday, December 23, 2022

November Reads (Friends we are so close!! We're gonna make it!!)

Happy holidays friends! Hope you are doing well!

So help me, I am going to finish out these 2022 book posts if it kills me. Which given that we're now down to one to go with a solid week-plus left in the year, I think we'll probably manage to avoid.

Not a ton of reading in November but there were at least a couple of winners! As always, feel free to share any favorites you've read this year (or before this year) in the comments. :)

In case you missed it:

January 2022 Reads
February 2022 Reads
March 2022 Reads

(73) The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain (1934, 170 pages) (crime drama, classic). Paper book. Another classic by a master of the genre. Set in the early 20th century in rural California, a drifter and the disenchanted wife of a Greek diner owner begin an affair and conspire to murder “the Greek.” Alas they may have both bitten off more than they bargained for. A dramatic tragedy in the most Greek (no pun intended) sense of the word. No mystery here, just hard-boiled crime drama.

Stacking Solid Weeks (& avoiding overtraining...)

Christmas Relays Team 246 (minus one)!

Happy holiday season, friends! I hope you are doing well and getting some time for rest and relaxation.

I'd still count this most recent week as "solid," but will *also* admit that I probably got a bit overexciting when my calf stopped seizing up and overdid the miles. (Jumping from a month+ at ~10 miles/week or so to 28.5 is something my 31-year-old self could get away with; my 41-year-old self, on the other hand, maybe not so much.) Plus there was "racing" two events in two weeks when my body is very, very, VERY much not in racing shape. I'm still feeling healthy and injury-free (🙌), but my body and mind have been absolutely ***exhausted*** this week, I've slept over nine hours on several consecutive nights, and my numbers in the gym (even upper body stuff) have completely fallen off a cliff.

My strength coach has informed me that this proooooobably indicates a mild case of overtraining (or what the fitness pros refer to as "nonfunctional overreaching") these past two weeks, to the extent that it's causing central nervous system fatigue (hence why all my lifting has been poopy and not just leg stuff). This is not a huge deal but apparently it does indicate that I haven't been fully recovering from what I've been putting my body through, even though I've been getting plenty of sleep and food.

But hey, it's the holidays, so great timing I guess??? We are heading out to Spokane this week so I'll definitely have time to get plenty of sleep and a break from work & the grind of daily life.

~*~*~ Week of 12/12-12/18 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 22.5 miles

October Reads

A few solid reads from October for ya!

In case you missed it:

January 2022 Reads
February 2022 Reads
March 2022 Reads

(68) All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers (2022, 320 pages) (crime mystery thriller). Audiobook. This one brought to you by the host of the popular true crime podcast Crime Junkie. Margot Davis has always been haunted by the sensational and unsolved murder of her childhood friend and neighbor, January Jacobs. Twenty years later, grown-up journalist Margot has returned to the small town where it happened to care for her deteriorating uncle. When another little girl from a nearby town goes missing under eerily similar circumstances, Margot can’t help but investigate, and in doing so may uncover more than she’s bargained for about her hometown and old neighbors. A reasonably clever & entertaining read, though the ending felt unfulfilling and sort of off.

September Reads

Rounding the corner, folks! Are we gonna make it by the end of the year??? I know the suspense must be killing you!

In case you missed it:

January 2022 Reads
February 2022 Reads
March 2022 Reads

(58) The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James (2022, 341 pages) (mystery/crime/thriller). Audiobook. Crime blogger Shea Collins manages to land an interview with Beth Greer, suspected but never convicted of two famous murders forty years ago. As one interview with Beth at her home turn into several more, Shea starts to since that something is wrong here in ways that go beyond Beth's being a murder suspect. A perfectly entertaining modern crime read.

On the Upswing, Fingers Crossed!

Where did we leave off friends? Ah yes, with dipping my toe back into pain-free running with a 12-mile week between 11/28 and 12/4!

Still taking things pretty easy and being cautious with my various finicky body parts, but dare I say it was a pretty solid week for the first time in a looooong time:

~*~*~ Week of 12/5-12/11 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 28.6 miles

Carbon Plate Shoes I Have Known: Altra Vanish Carbon

We are once again gathered here to continue our exploration of carbon plate running shoes.

If you're like me and struggling to remember what happened even yesterday, here's what we've covered so far:

Some background on why the heck carbon plate running shoes & where did they come from
A little editorial about my experience running in the New Balance RC Elite carbon plate shoe
Another covering my experience with the Saucony Endorphin Pro carbon plate shoe

Today, we are looking at the first carbon racing shoe from Altra: the Vanish Carbon, which you can get here ($240).

You might ask, "Angela. You already had two pairs of carbon racing shoes. WHY OH WHY another?"

Race Report: USATF Club Cross Country National Championships 2022

The deets:

Every December USATF holds club cross country national championships, and every so often it's in San Francisco. Since this is one of those years, my team wanted to pull together teams for as many of the five races as possible (open women, masters women, open men, 40+ men, and 60+ men). The races were all in Golden Gate Park, & the masters women's race was 6K (about 3.6 miles). Originally I was planning on running CIM the weekend before so I thought I'd probably skip it, but since CIM didn't work out but I felt like I was on the upswing, I thought I could probably get through 6K without completely embarrassing myself.

Why did I sign up for this race?

Honestly, just for the team vibe and to have the experience. Our women's masters team had eight women signed up (five are required for a team) so we ran two teams -- our five fastest runners on the A team and the other three of us on the B team. I was injured this time last year and while I am only just *barely* not injured this year, I am in fact NOT injured, so I was excited to show up and participate in this special event!

And then what happened?

O hai, perhaps you want some running-related content...

Who wants to date themselves by explaining the photo? Go on, I dare you. 🤣

Lately this has been more of a book blog than a running blog, but to be honest there hasn't been much of note to write about running-wise, unless you include one running-related injury after another "content."

So, yeah. It's been quite the month, with at least three distinctly different injuries, and I can't say I've had a single week in all of November that's felt like it warranted its own training journal. But perhaps a quick round of highlights (and lowlights) to catch us up to the present day??

Saturday 11/5: 14 miles at Indiana Monumental Half Marathon! This was my last running-related post. You can read the race report if you want, but the tl;dr is that I went ahead and went, though I was not even remotely fit and was still getting over a bad cold. People kept going on and on about the weather in dramatic fashion and how horrible it was, but friends. I was at CIM 2012. I was at Boston 2018. Both were much, MUCH worse. The only issue at Indy was some rain and some admittedly forceful wind in hours 3/4/5 (so, I feel a lot worse for the marathoners than the half marathoners). But the rain was more a drizzle than a downpour, and it wasn't even cold. Now, was it perfect PR weather? No, so I felt much less bad than I would have about the fact that I had an asthma attack around mile 6 and had to run the rest of the race a mile to a half-mile at a time with lots of breaks.

August Reads

The slog continues!! If my math is correct we are now two-thirds of the way through the year. Have you picked out anything from my first even months for your own list??? If not, August offers a couple of good ones (plus several that are fine enough)!

In case you missed it:

January 2022 Reads
February 2022 Reads
March 2022 Reads