41st book of 2011...

Miles to Go by Richard Paul Evans

From Goodreads.com:

The second installment in an inspiring new series about an executive who loses everything and embarks on a walk that takes him across America.

My take:
4 out of 5 stars. Good book. Not a hard read. Read in two nights. I'm looking forward to the next installment but I'm going to have to wait a while since it won't come out until April 2012.

I've read quite a few books since I last posted so I'm going to post them one at a time over the next few days until I'm caught up. At least when you have a family disaster you can still hide from the world in the written word. Anyway, on to the book!

The 40th book, I've read this year...

Mile Markers; The 26.2 Reasons Most Important Reasons Why Women Run by Kristin Armstrong

From Goodreads.com:

In Mile Markers, Runner’s World contributing editor Kristin Armstrong captures the ineffable and timeless beauty of running, the importance of nurturing relationships with those we love, and the significance of reflecting on our experiences. This collection considers the most important reasons women run, celebrating the inspiring passion runners have for their sport and illustrating how running fosters a vitally powerful community. With unique wit, refreshing candor, and disarming vulnerability, Armstrong shares her conviction that running is the perfect parallel for marking the milestones of life. From describing running a hard fought race with her tightly-knit group of sweat sisters, to watching her children participate in the sport for the very first time, Armstrong infuses her experiences with a perspective of hope that every moment is a chance to become a stronger, wiser, more peaceful woman. Running threads these touching stories together, and through each of them we are shown the universal undercurrents of inspiration, growth, grace, family, empowerment, and endurance.

My Take: 5 out of 5 stars. I read this when I was out for my knees. It helped me keep my spark for running alive while I was on the injured list. I love this book. It not only connected with me on the level of being a runner but also on the level of being a woman. Kristin is very rooted in family and finding time for herself. Honestly, I'm still not sure how she does it all. There were several quotes from this book that made me stop and think about my own self but one inpaticular really connected with me since I was injured at the time I read the book. "Runners are an inherently spiritual crew, having first hand experience with the concept that the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. " I love this. I have it posted on my board at work and look at it almost everyday. This is a fabulous book and I recommend it to everyone.

Gosh, I've been gone a while. Didn't mean to dissapear for that long but let me catch you up on what happened. It's been so crazy.

Hubbs and I left on Friday, May 20th in the morning to go to Sequoia National Park for four days. It's a four hour drive to the campsite and we got there around 2pm. Got camp set up, hung out for a couple of hours and then cooked dinner. Sometime around 9pm my husband noticed that my dog Rex had thrown up his dinner. It happens some times so we weren't alarmed. But then he began to attempt to vomit with nothing coming up. I tried walking him around the camp ground to see if he would just walk it off but nothing was helping.

When we went back to our trailer I noticed that Rex's abdomen was extremely swollen. I got on the internet and started looking up his symptoms. The internet was saying that he had bloat which is life threatening. We called our vet at home and they said it sounded like bloat and to find an emergency vet hospital where we were and take him in immediately because he could die from this.

The closest Emergency hospital was 40 min's away from where we were camping. We drove like mad to there. Turns out that Rex did have bloat and was rushed into emergency surgery around 3am on Saturday morning. We spent the majority of the rest of our vacation going back and forth between where we were camping and the vet hospital.

We weren't sure if they were going to release Rex to us before we were scheduled to head home on monday but they finally released him late on Sunday afternoon. We left camping early and picked him up at about 5:30pm and drove straight through to our vet, 4 hours. Our vet kept him over night on Sunday for observation. We finally were able to bring him home on Monday night around 10:30pm.

I ended up taking 2 extra days off of work to be home with him. He doesn't really need that much observation but after almost losing him I'm not ready to leave him.

This has been the most stressful week of my life. This dog has been with me through some of the worst times of my life and the best times of my life. I just couldn't let him go without trying everything we could to save his life. What started our as a fairly inexpensive vacation turned into the most expensive 4 days of my life. But I have my dog which is what matters the most to me. We can always make more money but there is only one Rex and he's not replaceable.

I was supposed to go back to work last Thursday and then wouldn't you know it...I got sick. Really sick. Turns out it's pretty common to get sick after you've been under so much stress like I was when I was dealing with poor Rex. I ended up staying home for the rest of the week and I'm still not feeling myself today.

I logged into Sparkpeople but I didn't really track my food. We had to eat out a lot while were dealing with Rex being in the hospital and I was so upset that I just let Hubbs pick where he wanted to eat. Most of the time he had to order for me because I kept saying I wasn't hungry but if you put the food in front of me I would eat. But I'm back on track today. I'm not looking forward to weighing in anytime soon. But I will just do what needs to be done after the weigh in. I haven't run since wednesday before we left for vacation because I'm too scared to leave Rex home alone for more then a few minuets (more of my fear then his need of me) and then getting sick. But I have to admit that I'm really missing it. I'm so glad that Rex is home with us now. June 1 he will get his staples out and we can go forward from there.

Things have been so crazy. I'm looking forward to getting back to normal...whatever that is.

Yesterday was ugly weather wise. The wind was blowing, it was in the low 60’s and very cloudy all day. Yesterday was also very stressful work wise and I was dying to get out for a run since I opted for the weekend off from running since it was Hubby and I’s 5th wedding anniversary. It sprinkled on me a tiny bit on my way home, not even enough to run my windshield wipers. When I finally got home, I was informed that the dogs were completely out of food and we needed to either go to Costco and get a bag or hit the grocery store for a little bag. I opted for a run and then to the grocery store for a little bag.

By the time I changed my clothes and got out the door it started to sprinkle. By the time I finished my warm up it was starting to rain. By the time I was about 5 min’s into my run I was wet, totally soaked. At one point there was so much rain on my glasses I considered just taking them off but I know from experience that driving rain in your eye can hurt, so I just wiped them off as best I could and kept running.

Week 5, day 2 of Couch to 5k really threw me for a loop. Day 1 was run 5, walk 3, so that was what I was expecting for Day 2. As I rounded the corner by the creek my phone dinged and said something I couldn’t understand. I assumed that it was telling me that I had 2 min’s left in my run. A few min’s later as I headed up the hill to cross Elk Hills, I turned to Hubby who was on the bike to tell him that it seemed like I should have reached the next walk section by now and either 1) I was super fast today or 2) I missed the ding that signaled the walk section (which has happened before). Right about that time my phone dinged and said, “2 minuets remaining.” What?! So here I am thinking this is a 5 minuet run and I’m fast…like Kenyan fast but no, Day 2 has pulled a fast one. It’s warm up, 8 minuet run, 5 minuet walk, 8 minuet run, cool down.

I couldn’t figure out if I accidently skipped a head to another week or what was going on. But I figured since I breezed through the first run section, I was just going to keep going. As I’m running the 2nd 8 minuet section, I’m joking with Hubby about being Kenyan fast and showing ‘em how it’s done. Yeah right, but it kept my mind off of how wet and cold I was. Mostly my hands were cold, the rest of me was nice and warm. I actually couldn’t wait for the warm up to be over so that I could run and warm up. I love runs like this. I feel twice as awesome running in the rain as I do when it’s not raining.

By the time I finished my run, my shirt was completely soaked, my hat too. My running tights weren’t all that wet but after splashing through the puddles, having muddy water and rain running down my legs my socks were soaked. The weird thing was that despite my shirt being totally soaked my sports bra was completely dry. You’d think it would have been wet too. My shoes were pretty wet but not as wet as my shirt. For some reason it took most of the rain. Also note to self: When there is chance it might rain, consider not wearing a white shirt.

Over all it was a great run. Nice pace time of 11:19, which is pretty good for me. I’ve been running in the 12’s and am looking for a 10 minuet mile when I finish the Couch to 5k program.

The 39th book I've read in 2011...

A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle

From Goodreads.com:

funny--and often hilarious--month-by-month account of the charms and frustrations of moving into an old French farmhouse in Provence and adapting to a very different way of life.

My take:

3 out of 5 stars. It was good but I didn't love it. I've never been to France so I'm not sure how close to true it was. But over all not a bad book

Yesterday afternoon, right after a very long day from work, I immediately changed into my running clothes when I got home. Since I injured my knees 2 weeks ago, I haven’t run a step and barely walked further then absolutely necessary. But I haven’t had any knee pain in a few days, so I figured I’d give it a go. I really needed a stress relief from work so I figured no better time then that afternoon to give it a shot.

So I quickly changed, got Hubbs up from the computer and out the door. Normally he would have run with me but neither one of us was really sure how this was going to go so he opted for the bike in case I made it a ways and then needed a lift home. I decided to do week 3, day 2 of Couch to 5k again. Last time I did this day I couldn’t run more then 5 steps and I ended up crying. It was bad. I couldn’t run, could barely walk and felt so disappointed that I couldn’t really function. It was more like grieving for a loved one that’s passed away. It was really bad but it did finally motivate me to call the doctor instead of trying to push though the wall of pain I was experiencing.

So anyway, I put on my favorite running skirt and my pink and white top (it always makes me feel pretty no matter how sweaty and red faced I am), I laced up my running shoes and grabbed my pink watch. I also grabbed my phone which has my C25K app and hit the road. I was nervous, very nervous about how this was going to go. 5 min warm up so no problem but when the phone dinged and said, “Run.” I’m pretty sure I almost had a heart attack. If I’d been wearing a heart rate monitor, I would have had critical over load. I was cautious with my first steps; is it going to hurt? Any pain? How about now? Left knee? Right knee? Hmmm, no pain…and then the grin. I was running with no pain. I was liberated. I’m pretty sure you could have seen my smile from space it was that big. I was laughing, running, trying not to cry from joy. It was awesome!

C25k, week 3, day 2 is 90/90, 3/3 and then repeat. I ran the first set of 90’s and the first set of 3’s no problem. Big grin. Running like you see little kids run, full of the joy of it. I missed the second set of 90’s because some guy had exhaust sooooo loud on his Harley that I couldn’t hear my phone (which was in my sports bra – in a plastic bag) ding. I kept thinking I’m ready to run, this walk is taking too long. So when the app dinged for the walk portion of the second 90, I ran for about 60. Then walked and waited for the ding for the second set of 3’s. I wasn’t able to run the full run portion of the second 3 but it was pretty warm out and it was my first run in two weeks so I didn’t care. And I only walked for about 15 seconds.

All and all the run was awesome. I can not wait for the next run. I want to close out week 3 and move on. I can’t wait.

This must have been the week of finishing books...

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

From Goodreads.com:

Prentisstown isn't like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts in an overwhelming, never-ending stream of Noise. Just a month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd and his dog, Manchee - whose thoughts Todd can hear too, whether he wants to or not - stumble upon an area of complete silence. They find that in a town where privacy is impossible, something terrible has been hidden - a secret so awful that Todd and Manchee must run for their lives. But how do you escape when your pursuers can hear your every thought?

My take:

4 out of 5 stars. Good book, very engaging. I've requested the next book in the series from the library already.