Stars & Stripes 5k

The Running Collective took over the Firecracker 5k from the city and revamped it. I was so excited about it because the city had really let the race go downhill in the last few years. Last year they didn't have water for after the race and messed up pulling tags off people's numbers so didn't even have results. The change meant a course change as well, with the course being all paved rather than at the golf course and partially on grass. That was exciting because it would likely mean faster times, but not as exciting for me because my bone spurs tend to do better on softer surfaces. The race started later than usual at 8:00 so it was pretty warm for the race, but I wasn't complaining about sleeping in. I got up at 6:45 so I'd have time to do yoga before the race and ran a warm up to the start which ended up being about 2 miles. I didn't feel great on my warm up and was still feeling some fatigue in my legs from running a 15 mile long run workout the Sunday before the race, but I was hopeful the race would go better than I was expecting. I did a few strides toward the end of my warm up to test things out and still felt a bit off. I wanted to run under 22:00 minutes again, but figured between the fatigued legs and the heat, I wouldn't be too disappointed if it didn't happen. 

I found Thomas before the race to put my phone in his car since I ran with it on my warm up. Then we headed over to the start line. The race took off and there were over 10 women ahead of me. By the half mile mark, I'd moved into 8th female and by the mile mark I was in 6th with 3rd-5th place females running together not too far ahead of me. My first mile split was 7:04, right around where I wanted to be. I passed the girls ahead of me and saw the 2nd place female was fading quite a bit. I focused on looking ahead and reeling her in, little by little. A little before the 2nd mile mark we came out on Centennial and had a slight incline for a while which I really felt in my fatigued legs. I kept telling myself to keep that 2nd mile close to 7:00 pace so I could close the last mile strong and be in a good place to get under 22:00. My 2nd mile was 7:07 and I told myself that was okay, I could still run under 22:00, I just needed to close really well the last mile. Around in here, I caught the girl running in 2nd place. I encouraged her to come with me, but she looked behind us and immediately slowed when she saw there weren't any other females close behind. 

I was picking off the men ahead of me and when we turned onto Ford with about a half-mile to go, the guy I passed encouraged me to pick off the 3 guys ahead of us. I had just looked down to see I was averaging 7:30 pace for my lap pace which meant that would be my split for the last mile of the race so I knew I had to get going. I took off and pretty quickly overtook all 3 of the men. I was working really hard to push my lap pace back down to 7:00, but I ended up running my last mile in 7:14. Turning the last corner to the finish, one of the guys passed me back, but I held the rest of them off with a finishing kick of 6:36 pace. My finishing time was 22:16 which I wasn't too happy with, but I also knew I went into the race with fatigued legs compared to fresh for the Aquarium Run and it was around 15 degrees warmer for this race than it was for that one. I've found as I've gotten older, the heat affects me a lot more than it used to. I was 13th out of 226 overall, 2nd out of 146 females, and 1st out of 40 in my age group. I saw Thomas who finished in 21:40, good for 9th overall and 2nd out of 17 in his age group. I grabbed a water and then headed out on my cool down. I watched dad finish in 27:17 which put him 52nd overall and 1st of 4 in his age group. I continued on my cool down out to mom and then walked back in with her. She finished in 1:00:52 which put her 215th overall and 6th in her age group.

Wordless Wednesday

Milo living dangerously while I was in the bath.

They found a good tree to climb at the playground.

Wildflower meadow I came across on a trail run.

Elise said she was feeling fancy so she made a fancy snack.

Ty walked by Elise's room as she was cleaning her room and saw Milo just hanging out like this.

Milo as a burrito

Ready for a week of Girl Scout Resident Camp.

Elise was at camp and Carter was at a sleepover so we went on a date night.

Telsa was staring at me and her face was cracking me up.

Doing my Zoom training from the hammock.

Things starting to come together in my classroom.

Elise's group at camp.

Picking Elise up from camp!

Trying out a limited release.

Kennel for Tesla when she's recovering from surgery, Milo was very interested in checking it out.

Making designs out of chocolate.

Morning walk with Elise on her hoverboard.

Elise got to have a sleep over.

What I Read: June

I had some really amazing reads this month! I had a few magical moments were I had an amazing book, an amazing ebook, and an amazing audiobook all going at once. That is really rare. There were quite a few books this month that I couldn't put down, ebooks where I couldn't stop swiping, and audiobooks where I came up with extra chores so I could keep listening. We had a week where Elise was at Girl Scout overnight camp and Carter went to a Coding Camp in the afternoon. I was able to work in my classroom, unloading boxes and organizing, for 3-4 hours each day that week. I was the only one in my area of the school, so I listened to audiobooks the entire time. Carter was shocked with how quickly I powered through a couple audiobooks that week. He likes to talk books with me and checks in on my progress with different books.

Books:

• Manslaughter Park by Tirzah Price- I had a hard time getting through the first section of the book, but it really picked up toward the end. I enjoyed the reimagining of Fanny Price. I didn’t like that it was so obvious from the start who the villain was and her being blind to it really started to annoy me! 

• Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid- Having read nonfiction books about the first female astronauts at NASA, I was so excited for this book. Reid masterfully weaved astronaut training and a love story together in a way that I was equally invested in both. The perspective of a same sex couple living in a time when they couldn’t be out was so well done and really made you feel the pain along with them. I loved everything about this book and cried when it was over, not just due to the emotional ending, but also because I didn’t want it to be the end.

I started this book while watching Tulsa Tough.

• Summer in the City by Alex Aster- This was such a cute book. I enjoyed the setting and what a large role it played in the story. It really made me want to visit NYC. I'm not a fan of the breakup just for them to have the big, flashy get back together at the end of the book, but this one worked. Fake dating is always a favorite for me. The reason why they couldn't be together was a bit of a frustrating stretch, but I'll allow it because the rest of it was so fun and cute. I also loved that they went on running dates together.

• This Great Hemisphere by Mateo Askaripour- I read this for One Book, One Tulsa and I'm excited for the author event and discussion that this book will provoke. The prologue pulled me in immediately and then the book lost steam for a bit and I struggled to stay engaged. About halfway through I couldn't stop reading and I'm unsure what happens after the book ends. I love books that end not all perfectly wrapped up and keep you thinking. The imagining of invisible people and the way they are controlled was well done and interesting.

• Every Summer After by Carley Fortune- I really enjoyed this book. Going back and forth with the past and present worked out really well. At the end of each chapter I would want to know more, but then the setting shifted. That kept me hooked! It was the perfect book to devour while at the pool. At the end, the characters annoyed me but I figured that was coming with the 12 year gap in their relationship. I kept wondering what the heck took them so long!

• V for Vendetta by Alan Moore- I've seen the movie so I had expectations for this graphic novel and it wasn't what I was expecting. I had a hard time, especially with the spellings of words they used to create accents.

• Lore Olympus: Volume Eight by Rachel Smythe- So much happened in this volume and I loved it! I'm so excited to see what she does with the next installment. One of my favorite parts of this series is stumbling across the fact that a new volume has been released when I didn't realize it. Reading V for Vendetta made me wonder if a new book in this series was out, since they are both graphic novels. I searched and, low and behold, this volume had come out in May. It made my day!

• The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center- Katherine Center is one of my favorite authors, but her last two books were a bit meh for me. I've had this one for a while, but was delaying reading it because I didn't want to be disappointed again. I loved this book. It had me laughing and loving the characters the whole way through. I normally am not a fan of an epilogue, just let me imagine what happens next, that's one of the best things about reading, but this one was so good with gems like this: "People say 'marriage is hard' all the time... But I disagree. I don't think marriage is hard. I think, in fact, if you do it right, marriage makes everything else easier." Which was exactly a conversation I was recently having with my mother-in-law. And then there was this: "There are endless human stories, but they all end the same way. So it can't be where you're going that matters. It has to be how you get there... It's all about the details you notice and the joys you savor. And the hope you refuse to give up on."

• Heartwood by Amity Gaige- This story about a woman missing in the woods gripped me from the start. I loved the multiple perspectives and how each time you felt like you were about to find something out, the POV shifted and it slipped through your fingers. I could not stop reading, especially at the end.

eBooks:

• Seas and Greetings by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone- This was a Christmas Notch novella. I've read all the books so far so I was excited for this one, but it was a mess. For some reason they veered from their typical romance style and tried to add a mystery into the mix that was incredibly lame. I found myself repeatedly wondering why they chose Addison Hayes of all the Christmas Notch characters to get her own story. I liked Krysta, but one character can’t pull the weight of the whole story. I really struggled to finish this which is saying a lot because it was a novella.

• Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells- This was the 6th book in the Murderbot Diaries. Watching the series made me want to read the next book in the series. I'm enjoying the show, but reading this book made me realize the humor doesn't come through in the show quite like the books. As always, this book had me giggling at multiple points. The show has yet to do that.

• Three Days in June by Anne Tyler- This was an odd book. I enjoyed it and wanted to read it, but I'm not quite sure what the point was.

Audiobooks:

• The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon- I loved Martha Ballard’s story. I also enjoyed the love story she shared with her husband which was an added bonus Lawhon created to go with the actual journal entries of Ballard.

• The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner- I was hoping for something similar to Daisy Jones and the Six with this one and it didn’t disappoint. I loved how she went back and forth with past and present. She did it so well, I was never annoyed with the switch. This was a complex storyline that kept me wondering and invested. 

• The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan- I'm loving this series. I actually liked this book even more than the first one. I'm excited to see what is to come in book 3.

• Wicked by Gregory Maguire- This book came highly recommended to me and left me wondering why. I can't decide what didn't quite hit for me in the book. Was it that it was too long and just kept drawing out until I go to the point where I was listening just to finish, with no enjoyment? Was it all the weird sexual stuff? Was it the lack of as many nods to the Wizard of Oz as I was expecting? I'm not quite sure. I liked the first portion of the book, but disliked it more and more as it wore on. 

• Red Rising by Pierce Brown- My expectations for this book were too high and left me disappointed. I saw it compared favorably to the Hunger Games and I did not agree with that at all.

• Kindred by Octavia E. Butler- Carter read the graphic novel adaptation of this book and when he described it to me, it sounded so fascinating, I decided to find the book. I loved it from the moment I started it. There was the scifi aspect with time traveling and the very realistic view of the brutalities of slavery. She masterfully showed how descendants of slaves today may have white ancestors through rape and we saw that as the tangled web of Dana's family unfolded throughout the book.

• The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery- I loved this book. It was nonfiction but read like a narrative. I learned lots of fun little facts, not just about octopuses, but other animals as well. I think the subtitle should have been dropped from the book because it was a bit misleading. This was more of a memoir mixed with information about octopuses and other animals. I came to it wanting a book about octopuses, but if you came to it wanting to learn about consciousness, you would be left disappointed.