2016 Literary Round Up

There's something amazing about disappearing into a book and not coming up for two or three hours, or days. I read for enjoyment quite frequently this year.

SPRING

Good Dog, Happy Baby: Preparing your dog for the arrival of your child - Michael Wombacher. My mom picked this up at the library for my sister. I was bored and read it in under two hours. Not recommended unless this is a particular concern of yours.

The Name of God is Mercy - Pope John Paul. I made the rare decision to buy a book at the airport and I had no regrets with this excellent book by the Pope.

Off the Leash: A year at the dog park - Matthew Gilbert. A $1 Goodwill find about a dog and his owner and their daily visits to a Boston dog park. Entertaining, light read and I liked the local connection.

Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden - Another $1 Goodwill find, this New York Times' bestseller was an interesting read, but you can understand why it's been accused of cultural misappropriation.

Outlander 1-4 - Diana Gabaldon. I received the first half of the series for Christmas and once I picked up the first book, I promptly disappeared and did not re-emerge until finishing the 4th book. I need to track down books 5-8. Fun reads with a reasonable amount of suspended belief.

SUMMER

When Invisible Children Sing - I picked this up from my favorite nearby Little Free Library, a mailbox conveniently located between JP Licks ice cream and Jamaica Pond. It's the first person narrative of a doctor who took leave of Harvard Medical School during his fourth year, and with funding from Park Street Church, provided medical care to street children in La Paz, Bolivia. It's more of a missionary's diary than finely crafted prose, but Dr. Chi's reflections on making a difference in the life of just one child, despite the futility of ending poverty and evil, make you want to pick up a sword and tilt at windmills, too. Almost twenty years after his first trip, he spends half of each year there leading the Bolivian Street Children's Project. A little preachy, but another neat Boston connection.

I moved to DC and discovered a number of Little Free Libraries, including two in my neighborhood!

Marlow and Me - John Grogan. I knew the dog was going to die at the end, I read it anyways, and I cried.

The Wedding - Nicholas Sparks. vom. I knew exactly what it was going to be, and I read it anyways, and it produced all of the stupid feelings I knew it would. A waste of a week's reading while commuting on Metro, which is to say, not really a waste of anything. Skip.

FALL

Fall of Giants, Winter of War, and Edge of Eternity trilogy - Ken Follett.  Combining for 3,084 pages, this trilogy follows Welsh, English, German, Russian, and American families from 1914-2008. Mildly gratuitous sex keeps the historical plot moving along through all the major revolutions, wars, counter-revolutions, and movements of the 20th century. Long and excellent.

I discovered my neighborhood (Rosedale) DC Public Library!

My Beloved World - Sonia Sotomayor. My reaction- how could I be a female public interest lawyer without having read about Justice Sotomayor's experiences? I'm so grateful my book club chose it. Excellent memoir, highly recommended.

12 Years a Slave - Solomon Northup. Just as moving and heartbreaking as I expected.

A Dangerous Fortune - Ken Follett. Similar to the trilogy in writing style, but without the historical background, it's a long book with lots of forbidden fantasy. Average.

The Last Man - Vince Flynn. Another Little Free Library find. Let's just say I wasted a few days of my life reading the male equivalent of chick lit, and I'm appropriate embarrassed. Someone put another book in Flynn's series in the LFL and I'm probably going to read that, too. Not recommended.

The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison. A haunting book of poetry. The first thing I've read by her, which tells me I'm missing out on a lot.

My reading dropped off a bit in a flurry of baby-blanket making that took over my daily commute and my free time at home. 19 books isn't bad for one year, though. On to 2017!

IRONMAN

People sign up for all sorts of reasons. For me, it was because I was sitting on a couch nursing a partially torn MCL and meniscus that had just interrupted my most successful rugby season ever. After a few weeks of PT, I was bored of my at-home exercises. I needed a plan, something to train for - I'd do PT now and real training later.

Enter a timely email from Piranha Sports advertising triathlons for next year. It was October 16, twelve days after blowing out my knee. I clicked through and looked at the races for next year. Sprint tris annoy me, and doing a race in July with the bar exam was out of the question. I scrolled to the bottom and saw the incredibly named PIRANHAMAN.

Anyone who has ever done a triathlon has thought about what it takes to do an Ironman. Many people say That's Crazy and move on. That was me for the first five years. The same way I teased my sister and roommate as they trained for marathons, asking why anyone would ever want to run 26 continuous miles, before finally getting the bug a decade later and running my first in October 2015.

New Year's Eve has been my reckoning day for the last couple years. Race prices increase in the new year, and in Dec  2013, two friends agreed to run a February half-marathon with me as part of my training for a June half-iron. That February half turned into a May half (PR) and October half to complete the trilogy, and I completed the challenging, hilly White Mountains Half-Ironman. I'd say I have the shirt to prove it....but that's a long story.

Next year I was more thorough in my search. Keeping the price reasonable and the race nearby-ish were still priorities, and I went with Musselman in Geneva, NY. Best race ever - check my review. I picked a flat bike and run course that suited me, and crushed it. Sprint on Saturday, half-iron on Sunday for a total of 88.7.

The step from a sprint (1:45) to an international (3 hours) to a half iron (7 hours) has been a pretty logical progression (actually, I started with the international/olympic after trying a sprint distance tri at my gym and believing I could do more). Jumping from half to full is a big adjustment. I trained 5-6 days/week for six months for both half-irons, and I've always been someone that undertrains. Most serious triathlon plans call for 9 workouts per week, 3 in each discipline. I aimed for 2+, and sometimes did less. I wasn't sure if I'd ever make the jump up to a full Ironman. But this is the right timing, and the right course, and the right price ($404 including all fees!). I had to register by 12/15 to lock in the price, so I have a head start on this resolution.

I took 2016 off in a lot of ways. First it was recovering from the fall marathon, and then it was winter cold and laziness, and then it was BostonBucketList, spending my weekends with friends exploring New England before I moved away. Returning to rugby reminded me how good it feels to work out, and how bad it feels to be slow. I'm excited. Training begins today.