March reads

 

This month I read three very different books and enjoyed each of them! I didn't have much time to read in February (and technically I finished Spare early in the month), but in March Matt and I got COVID for the first time and I found myself with lots of time to read. I finished two of these books in the week I was sick.

This month brought fantasy, romance, and good ol' literary fiction (which I don't usually like very much). Let's dive in!

A change in priorities

Look, I know February is only shorter than a typical month by ~3 days but somehow, it always feels like it's barely three weeks long.

whoops

My Better Half Half Marathon 2023

Well, that was unexpected.

It's been awhile since I've written a race recap like this, so bear with me.

The day before the race, as I drove home from packet pickup, I messaged Elizabeth on WhatsApp. I told her I had an inkling that a freak PR was possible – this would be my first half marathon run in cooler weather, and realistically I felt like I was pretty well prepared, even if my brain was in denial that I was running – but that I wasn't going to think too hard about it.

Given that I said it out loud, you wouldn't think I'd still be so surprised that it happened.

Let's talk training

I've got a half marathon looming this weekend, which I'm running with my friend Sarah, so it only makes sense to finally sit down and review my training...such as it was. This is actually kind of tricky because I can't pinpoint exactly when I started. I signed up October 5, so let's say that's when I intended to start training, but I didn't put together a plan right away. Actually, any nebulous plan I had in my head was sidelined by a week or two of persistent smoky days just four days after we signed up for the race.

It wasn't until November that I sat down and figured out the remainder of our long runs for training, but that was derailed by the holidays, vacations, the flu, and Zoe's arrival.

These interruptions and the slow start had the bizarre effect of me being in a state of denial that I'm training at all. This is the first time I'm sitting down and trying to get myself into the mental headspace for a half marathon, and the race is tomorrow!

January reads

I did not set resolutions this year, but one of my goals for 2023 is to read more. "Read more" is pretty abstract, but I think the plan is to aim for 10 books this year. I can average one a month, taking a couple months off if things get busy. 

These days I borrow ebooks from the library to read on my Kindle, which is very convenient although sometimes annoying because I have to wait for the books I want to be available. I miss collecting books — I got rid of approximately 200 when we moved, and now have only two small bookcases in the house. It was so hard to decide what to keep! There's something about holding a real book in hand, and it's nice to reminisce about what you've read by seeing the book on your shelf. (Don't tell Matt, but I think we could potentially install some floating shelves and expand my collection again, which I'd really love to do.)

Putting down roots

In May 2022, as I was getting ready to leave one job and start another, we closed on a condo.

The hunt was long and the market was working against us. Prices were inflated and the interest rates were climbing. The amount we sold our Florida house for – a 3-bedroom single family home with a garage and a pool – was the listing price for most small condos in Seattle. Depending on the square footage and the neighborhood, we could afford one or two bedrooms, but every time we put in an offer, someone else had a better one, and the place would get snapped up.

It felt like déjà vu. We bought our first house at the height of a housing bubble, too.

I'm running a half marathon

It's happening.

The last time I ran a half marathon was 2019, but it feels kind of like a fever dream now. I tend to forget that I ran it, even though at the time it was so important to me. I think when I ran that last half, I was trying to prove something (it was post-CECS recovery), but my heart wasn’t really in it. I remember being excited and hopeful – emotional – but I also remember being intensely unhappy during parts of the race. I wanted it to be over. I had a hard time finding the joy and beauty in the struggle.

Afterward, I reckoned with the truth that I had put a lot of pressure on myself for that race, and I made the decision to step back and not do any big races for awhile.

That was February 2019. The next year, the race organizers moved the race to January (because of football? I think?) and the appeal of that particular race has always been that it falls on my birthday weekend. So, I ran it as a “virtual” 5k and opted to run the Gasparilla 15k in February instead, and then the pandemic hit and races were put on hold.

Oh hey, it's 2023

I really thought it had been over a year since I posted here, and I guess that's true if we're talking regularly scheduled programming. I missed my usual "year in review" post, so let's pick up where I left off — March 2022 — and rundown the last year.