I started the year off strong with some fast-paced thrillers and some solid book club reads. I even got one blissful day where I finished an entire book in a day. I so rarely have the time for that these days, but my in-laws were in town and hung out with my kiddo while I mainly curled up with a book on the sofa. It was heavenly!

Here's what made up a mostly very good month of reading. 

Five Stars

The Irish Goodbye by Heather Aimee O'Neill
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I thought this was a really beautiful story about three sisters (and really a whole family) who are trying to pick up the pieces of a family tragedy decades later. They're all back home under one roof to celebrate Thanksgiving, and the way they've each tried to compartmentalize and move on creates some complex dynamics that erupt.

Four Stars

We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After a deep reading rut, I was so excited to pick up a book that I really couldn't put down. I loved meeting the new protagonist and getting to know her and her family, and the case to be solved was gritty and dark and spanned decades. I raced through this book, despite the length, and I had hunches about whodunit that kept changing as a new bit of evidence turned up. Highly recommend!

Parents Weekend by Alex Finlay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I finished this in a day! The first time I've read a book in a day in so long (courtesy of a snow day and my in-laws being in town to hang with my kiddo). It was so fun to get lost in a twisty, suspenseful story that kept me turning the pages. There were places were I suspected I knew it was going to happen next and sometimes I was right and sometimes I wasn't. Really enjoyed this book and look forward to picking up more things by this author.

107 Days by Kamala Harris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a book club selection and honestly I hesitated to pick it up because the thought of reliving last year was too hard. But I plowed through, and my takeaway is if you like her, you'll probably find the book interesting. If you don't like her, you probably won't, which says more about the reader than the book itself.

Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I knew what this book was about and had generally felt meh about the concept. But one of my book clubs picked it so I sat down and read it, and weirdly I enjoyed it more than expected. There were definitely some parts the annoyed me, and times when I thought Margo was being too oblivious to be realistic, but overall it was a fun book. If you're not familiar, the premise is that after an unplanned pregnancy, Margo turns to OnlyFans to make money and her former professional wrestler father, kind of cheers her on and helps her out.

Three Stars

Oh Crap! Potty Training: Everything Modern Parents Need to Know to Do It Once and Do It Right by Jamie Glowacki
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I mean how to write a review of a potty training book. It had helpful info. I hope it works when the time comes. I do wish it was a bit shorter, it felt like there was a lot in here that wasn't a lot about potty training, so I skimmed over those parts. I just wanted to get to the meat and potatoes of the method.

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I've officially crossed the halfway point of this training cycle, which is super exciting. I can definitely tell my cardiovascular endurance has increased. Longish runs feel not that hard, and even my harder and faster runs don't leave me as winded as the early weeks of training. 

What's less exciting is the absolute miserable conditions I've had to train in over the last two weeks. 

At the start of week 5, DC got hit with a massive snow/ice storm. We got like three inches of ice on top of six inches of snow, and the mess was so messy that DC coined the term "snowcrete" to describe what was left behind. A mix of snow and ice that's so heavy and impossible to move it may as well be concrete. 

On top of that, we've got unseasonably cold temperatures and windchills that make training outside a real treat. And outside is my only option since I don't have access to a treadmill. So yes, it's been a real adventure these last two weeks trying to find sidewalks that are sort of cleared and piling layers on layers so I don't get frostbite on my exposed skin. 

I skipped a handful of workouts because the conditions were just makings things tough, but here's what I managed.

Week 5:

No running until Wednesday, when I found quarter mile-ish section of sidewalk in my neighborhood that was cleared. I ran loops of that for 45 minutes. It was about as exciting as you'd imagine. 

By my Friday long run, a little bit more sidewalk had been cleared! I could combine the quarter mile loop with a half mile out and back! Did endless lollipops for 70 minutes. 

Only got in two runs, but was honestly glad I managed to get in any at all. 

Week 6:

I had to push the start of week six because my husband was out of town, and there's no way I could run with my kiddo in the stroller on Sunday. There's no clear sidewalks and it's just way too cold.

So I did a progression run on Monday. Started in heart rate zone two and worked up to zone 4 by the end. Felt really good during this workout, despite the cold and needing to run my same silly lollipop course over and over on repeat. 

Had big plans for the rest of the week since the temperatures were finally going to get above freezing, but I got a cold and some rough fatigue that knocked me out for most of the week. 

I rebounded for my long run, and imagine my joy when even more sidewalk was cleared! Now the out and back portion was a little over a mile! Still super monotonous when you've got 80 minutes of running on the agenda, but at least it was some slightly new scenery. 

And that's how two cold and rough weeks of training ended. Far from ideal, but I was happy to at least have managed one harder run and one long run each week. 

The forecast over the next couple of weeks is going to have us up in the 40s, and I'm really hoping that means we'll get some more significant melting. I'm in desperate need of some variety on my running routes. I need these sidewalks to clear!

I've officially made it through the first month of half marathon training, and I managed to fit in every workout in my training plan. There were plenty of times I had to get creative with the schedule and shift things around to accommodatemy husband's work schedule and childcare, but I got it done. 

Weeks three and four were cold, but manageable, except for the long run from week four. That fell right before the massive snow/ice storm that hit DC and was quite unpleasant. 

Week Three Recap

Sunday started with a tempo run with the jogging stroller. Nothing like starting the week off with a hard run while pushing an extra 60 pounds. Didn't have any trouble hitting the prescribed hard heart rate zones in this one, but did have a hard time keeping my heart rate at an easy enough level in the warm up and cool down. Celebrated with treats for both of us afterward. 

Monday was a 45-minute easy run, which felt delightful after Sunday's run. 

Tuesday was full body strength training followed by another dreadful hill workout on Wednesday. Hill sprints are just torture for me. 

Thursday was a rest day and Friday was my long run -- only 50 minutes, so still not super long. 

Week Four Recap

Week four was a cut back week and mentally it was just what I needed. The first part of January felt like a real sprint at work with everyone "circling back" after the holidays. So I was so glad to have a week of slightly shorter runs. Something about a 30-minute run just feels mentally so much easier than a 40-minute run.

Also we potty trained over the weekend between weeks 3 and 4, so I was glad to have shorter runs since it meant I wasn't gone for quite as long during the holiday weekend. 

Sunday was a tempo run, but sans stroller, I had to push a lot harder to get my heart rate into the appropriate zones for the hard sets. 

Monday was a 30-minute easy run. 

Tuesday was a rest day and Wednesday was just regular sprints! I hope that means evil hill sprints are behind me. 

I was able to squeeze in another long run on a Friday without too much schedule disruption or early morning wake ups because it was only 40 minutes. Have I mentioned I love a cut back week. It was in the teens on this run though and I had on so many layers I'm not sure how I managed to run. 

I also threw in a day of strength training somewhere in there, but I couldn't tell you what day it was at this point. 

I had debated pulling up a tempo run from week five and tackling it on Saturday since I knew the snowstorm that was coming was going to prevent me from running for a couple of days. But I woke up Saturday morning and my legs were feeling pretty heavy, so I didn't do that. Didn't seem worth it to risk an injury.

 Four weeks down, 8 more to go.