This is 43! (John Frank Memorial 10 Miler Week 3 of 4)

Hello! Here we are just a few days from the Johnny 10 and I am feeling particularly wise and sophisticated, having just completed my 43rd circuit around the sun. I spent the first part of the week frantically trying to meet work deadlines & then the last part chilling in Tahoe and blessing folk there with my hard-earned wisdom and life experience. Too busy skiing to take pictures so please enjoy these shots from a year ago:

Different year, same lake

 ~*~*~ 🌁 🌁 John Frank Memorial 10 Miler Week 3 of 4 🌁 🌁 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 38.85 miles

🐌 Easy: 25.51 miles
🏃🏻‍♀️ Moderate: 9 miles
🐎 Fast: 4.34 miles

⚖️ Easy miles vs. fast/moderate miles: 65.7% vs. 34.3%. 

Blue = daily strain, red/yellow/green = daily recovery

Two Weeks Till Johnny (John Frank 10 Miler Week 2 of 4)

Two weeks to go until we drive up to Redding and play in the hilllllzzz! Nothing too bananas to report this week, just chipping away. Some days feel better than others but over all I am feeling good and generally getting the training done more or less in the right vein. There is always the temptation to tack on a couple miles here & there, but sitting right in the low 40s has been working well for me for the last few weeks and I don't see a good reason to get greedy at this point.

 ~*~*~ 🌁 🌁 John Frank Memorial 10 Miler Week 2 of 4 🌁 🌁 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 43.1 miles

🐌 Easy: 34.1 miles
🏃🏻‍♀️ Moderate: 6 miles
🐎 Fast: 3 miles

⚖️ Easy miles vs. fast/moderate miles: 79.1% vs. 20.9%. 

Blue = daily strain, red/yellow/green = daily recovery

Back to Work (John Frank 10 Miler Week 1 of 4)

...And we're back at it. Next up on the schedule is John Frank Memorial 10 Miler in Redding in March 2, with the longer-term goal being the Eugene Half on April 28. (Did I mention I signed up for the Eugene Half? I signed up for the Eugene Half! #peerpressure). 

JFM10 is a PA race so I'm mostly doing that as a club thing. The course is a bit hilly so I think a PR (sub 1:16:45) is unlikely, but even if it's not particularly fast, it'll still be a good workout and a good chance to race double digits before Eugene.

This week was mostly about just getting back in the swing of things, plus a 48-hour work trip to Orlando:

 ~*~*~ 🌁 🌁 John Frank Memorial 10 Miler 1 of 4 🌁 🌁 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 42 miles

🐌 Easy: 33 miles
🏃🏻‍♀️ Moderate: 4 miles
🐎 Fast: 5 miles

⚖️ Easy miles vs. fast/moderate miles: 78.6% vs. 21.4%. 

Guess which day was my first full day of jet lag.

January 2024 Reads

...And here we are in February. People will talk about how January is such a garbage month, the Monday of the new year, but friends, I freaking loooooove January. The emptiness of it. The blissfully free evenings and weekends that no one is quite up to filling with social events this soon after the bacchanalia of the December holidays. SO. MUCH. FREE TIME. Honestly it just makes my little introvert heart glow.

Of course, this means more quiet winter nights for curling up with an actual paper book, which inevitably gets harder for me as the year goes on. I read four count 'em four full paper books this month! Unbelievable.

Also totally by chance, I had no work travel this month, which meant more time for running, particularly longer runs, which meant the audiobook count was also up there this month.

Check out this month's list and see if anything calls to you! (Also, I've decided to start starring my favorites every month just to make it easier to scan for which ones I particularly liked.)

(1) 📚🎭✨ The Magus by John Fowles (656 pages, 1965). Audiobook. In 1950s Britain, a disaffected and aimless young man takes up with an Australian girl, then breaks up with her when things get too serious. Soon after he pursues a job teaching English at a boys' school on the Greek island of Phraxos, where he meets the enigmatic and eccentric millionaire Maurice Conchis, who may or may not have been a nazi collaborator in the second world war and who is soon engaging our young protagonist in what I can only describe as a kind of dreamy LARP involving a pretty girl who is first introduced (impossibly) as Conchis's young lover from back in 1915 and also a lot of Greek mythology cosplay. It only gets more bizarre from there!

Womp Womp (Kaiser Half Week 13 of 13)

The big story of this week was definitely the weather. We've been in the path of an atmospheric river here in the Bay Area this week, with one pretty bad storm Wednesday night and another forecasted for--you guessed it! Sunday morning.

Starting around midweek, the group chat was full of discussions about what to wear based on how conditions shook out and the logistics of getting in a warm-up and cool-down but also not dying of hypothermia.

Then Friday afternoon, we got the news that race organizers were changing the course due to concerns from SF Parks & Rec around the possibility of falling tree branches in the Panhandle and Golden Gate Park. Instead all three distances (5K, 10K, half) would start together & run laps up and down the Great Highway.

Obviously this was disappointing, but falling tree branches in big storms have killed and maimed enough people since I've lived here that I completely understand the decision. (Back at cross country team nationals in December 2022, a big branch fell on the course during the race, prompting race organizers to move the race to the Polo Fields. Having witnessed that I'd definitely like to NOT witness something similar again.)