What I Read in June 2022
July 11, 2022 By laura Leave a Comment

I read 10 books in June - another big reading month! While I gave a bunch of books four stars, I would highly encourage you to check out Options are Power, which teetered for me between 4 and 5 stars. 5 stars: Thank You for Listening, by Julia Whelan: Sewanee is a former up-and-coming actress who was just on the verge of becoming a household name when an accident claimed her right eye, and ruined her career as she was forced to permanently wear an eye patch. Instead, she becomes a star audiobook narrator (not being into audiobooks myself, I didn't know this was a thing). While attending a convention in Vegas, she has a one-night stand with a book editor, Nick, which is super steamy... but then she's paired up to record an audiobook with the mysterious Brock McKnight (another audiobook narrator who goes by a pseudonym and has never been public about who he really is) and starts bantering with him via text / email. She feels torn between the two - how can she be interested in Brock when she can't forget Nick? No spoilers, but I loved this funny and sweet rom com, which was extremely satisfying, and also really enjoyed seeing behind the scenes of rom com audiobook … [Continue reading]
Filed Under: news / reading Tagged With: books
Race Report: Superior Mile 2022
July 4, 2022 By laura 2 Comments

Today was the annual Superior Fourth of July celebration, and it was quite a whirlwind this year! I had rebooked my COVID-delayed Run the Alps tour to do a trail running camp with champion ultrarunner Mimmi Kotka starting on July 5, and scheduled a flight to Europe as late in the day as possible... but that meant a very busy day before my flight. While I hoped to sleep until 5:15am, I instead woke up at 3:40am and pretty quickly realized I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep. I tried to instead spend the time productively resting, and ended up finishing a hardcover book that I wasn't going to bring with me on my trip, so that didn't work out badly. Finally, I got up, got dressed, and had a power bar and a cup of (caffeinated) coffee to prep me for the race. Let's do this! Although I only had one cup of coffee, within about twenty minutes, I was feeling the effects of the caffeine - I was definitely very jittery! The coffee had the usual advantage of helping me hit the bathroom one more time before I left the house (an especially good thing when I had some GI issues with dinner the night before), but I hadn't ever had just one cup make me this keyed up before. I hoped it … [Continue reading]
Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: race report, superior, travel
Cultivating Caring
July 2, 2022 By laura Leave a Comment

The last year has been rough. Burnout, depression, a massive wildfire, heartbreak, and the incredibly awful IVF experience that I still feel has ruined my life. I've been trying to come back from all of that, but for so much in life, I'm finding myself just not caring. There really hasn't been much keeping me going; I'm just focused on getting through each day without any end in sight. I was catching up on email this morning, and finally got to read Emily Halnon's July 2021 post, From the PCT to the Siskiyou Out Back. Emily describes going into the race without having real expectations for her performance: "I couldn’t remember the last time I started a race with a real time or place goal burning in my head and my heart. And with the intention to run my very best run that day trying to get it." But by the end of the race, her attitude had changed: "As I pushed up that climb, I felt how good it felt to try. And to care about what happened." I miss caring. I miss the feeling of wanting something so badly that I will work my hardest to get it. I miss waking up in the morning excited about my plans for the day, and bouncing out of bed with my brain full of all the stuff I get to … [Continue reading]
Filed Under: goal setting, travel Tagged With: goal setting, travel, vacation
Race Recap: Reunion 5K
June 30, 2022 By laura Leave a Comment

Earlier this month, I headed to Ithaca, NY for my fifteen year Cornell reunion. I cannot believe I have been out of college for fifteen years already! My five year Reunion was a ton of drinking. Makes sense... we were in our 20s. My ten year Reunion, though, surprised me by also being a lot of drinking. (Though that year, I at least made it to the Saturday morning Reunion 5K, whereas I woke up still drunk and skipped it at the 5 year.) This year, I figured that most people would be at Reunion with spouses and kids in tow, and assumed that it would be a lot more tame. Well, I was partially correct. I got to Ithaca on Thursday morning and took my work calls from my dorm room. But most people didn't arrive until Friday - which meant Thursday night was pretty quiet. As I was already coming off a work conference Monday through Wednesday that involved a lot of drinking, I was pretty strict about keeping Thursday low key, and had about half a glass of wine while meeting some new friends from my graduating class at dinner. The dinner (some wraps) was nothing to write home about, but a half dozen of us ended up wandering around North Campus and crashing the ice cream social … [Continue reading]
Filed Under: running, travel, weekend Tagged With: albany, cornell, race report, running
What I Read in May 2022
June 24, 2022 2 Comments
Oops, a bit behind in getting this post up! I read a lot in May once again - 15 books - keeping me well ahead of my 100 book goal for the year. 5 stars: Mad Honey, by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan: I LOVED this thought-provoking novel and read it in one night! Teen hockey player … [Read more]
Race Report: Bolder Boulder 10K
June 3, 2022 2 Comments
After my last post, I thought I was on the mend. My business trip was mostly successful, and for about a week, I got my crying time down to 1-3 hours a day. That may sound bad, but I thought it was amazing compared to what it was before. Crying for only a few hours today meant that I could work, … [Read more]
What I Read in April 2022
May 19, 2022 Leave a Comment
Well, I hit a record in April, reading 20 books over the course of the month! It was definitely an unprecedented month - I didn't go back to work until the end of the month, and I had to isolate at home for several weeks for my IVF procedure, so there was a lot of bored time where I buried myself in … [Read more]
Stuck in a Liminal Space
May 16, 2022 4 Comments
I'm now more than a month post-egg retrieval, but the truth is that I've spent several months feeling like I'm in a "liminal space", just sitting and waiting for things to happen. It's not my usual MO - I'm someone who likes to be busy, busy, busy, and it's taken a lot of urging from my therapist to … [Read more]
Planning for More Time Doing Nothing
April 9, 2022 Leave a Comment
I recently read and loved this article by Nir Eyal on how Planning Ahead Is the Key to Living With More Spontaneity. The title is intriguingly contradictory, but it's something I've known about myself for a while: if I can strictly plan everything I have to do (with the help of a to-do list or … [Read more]
What I Read in March 2022
April 1, 2022 Leave a Comment
In March, I finally got back on track with my reading, and read 10 books. I've really enjoyed carving out more time for reading, and I was happy that I included a few nonfiction books instead of all light escapist novels (even though I still love those). Looking forward to keeping up with these … [Read more]
Reacting to Another Fire
March 27, 2022 1 Comment
Yesterday started out well. First thing in the morning, Sadie and I stopped by Red Rocks Park for a trail run. I've spent the first three months of the year either focused on fire recovery and not working out, or up in the mountains to ski, so this was actually my first trail run of the year. And it … [Read more]
Bonus Content: Ali on the Run Podcast
March 24, 2022 2 Comments
Last week, I was lucky enough to get interviewed by Ali Feller for her popular Ali on the Run podcast. It was so much fun, and I was delighted to see it launch today! You can catch the show yourself here. However, the conversation flew by too quickly for me to get everything perfect; I sometimes … [Read more]