.

Thursday, December 15, 2022

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