Like I said in my March running recap, March was a weird month for me -- the first half dominated by moving stress, the second half dominated by quarantine stress.

Quarantine stress made it especially hard to focus, so my time spent sitting down and reading took a hit in March. But March was also the month I really started embracing audio books to keep me company on my quarantine walks. The addition of the audio books helped bolster what would otherwise have been a pretty sad month of reading for me.

Aside from the two more serious books I read at the start of the month, a lot of my March reads were intentionally lighter, easier reads that would take my mind off everything going on the in world.



Here's a look at what I read/listened to in March:

Five Stars

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
Growing up in an Irish Catholic family, I heard stories about the Troubles and how it wasn't safe to visit Northern Ireland when my parents were growing up. When I visited Belfast a few years ago, it was eye opening to see what had changed and what hadn't since the cease-fire. This book added a level of depth and color to my understanding of the Troubles that I never had before. It tackles the subject of people who were "disappeared," the hunger strikes by famous IRA prisoners, the rise of Sinn Féin, and leaves you wondering about how things ended. The Troubles wasn't a "war" so the crimes committed during it are not considered war crimes. The book leaves you wondering who should be held accountable, how do families get any sort of justice, and since Northern Ireland is still part of the UK, was it even worth it?

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Five stars! What a great, creative, twisty-turny book. I listened to this book on all my social distancing walks around the neighborhood and every time I got back home, I hated turning it off because I just wanted to know what happens next. Aiden Bishop arrives at Blackheath for a celebration, but he finds himself continuing to live the same day over and over as he tries to solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle. The catch is, each time Aidan wakes up, he's in the body of a different person at the party. Seeing the same events play out over and over from different people's perspectives make it very unclear who you can and can't trust and hard to know what is true. A fun mystery that I highly recommend.

Four Stars

American Royals by Katharine McGee
This was a fun book to read. Like the title says, it tells the story of the American Royal family. But we don't have royalty here you might say. Well this book assumes that we do -- that when Washington beat the British he become a monarch instead of a president and his blood line has ruled ever since. This follows the story of the modern-day royal family and their non-royal friends and the antics they get up to trying to cope with their fame and responsibilities. If you need a light-hearted read for tough times, I highly recommend this.

Matchmaking for Beginners by Maddie Dawson
This was the book I didn't know I needed during the first weekend stuck at home during the coronavirus lockdown. It was light and fun and took my mind off all the nonsense going on in the world.

Anna K by Jenny Lee
I listened to this as an audio book on my long walks at the beginning of the covid-19 outbreak. It was the perfect audio book to take my mind off everything going on in the world and whisk me away to the troubles of high schoolers struggling with their relationship problems. This book is an updated take on Anna Karenina and I enjoyed it for it's fast paced take on modern high school drama.

The Jetsetters by Amanda Eyre Ward
I've been having a hard time concentrating on books lately, and this was the light and easy book I needed during all this social distancing. It follows the story of a mother, who enters an essay contest to win a luxury vacation, in an attempt to reunite her adult children. The children all have their own challenges and baggage and when trapped together on a cruise for a week, it all comes bubbling to the surface. I enjoyed this book immensely because it didn't make me think too hard.

Three Stars

A Woman Like Her: The Story Behind the Honor Killing of a Social Media Star by Sanam Maher
I learned a lot while I read this book about honor killings and how prevalent they still are in Pakistan. I found the parts of the book that focused on Qandeel and her life really interesting and also incredibly tragic. I didn't so much love some of the other parts of the book that I felt wandered too much away from her story. I found some of those chapters harder to get through. Overall a good book, but wish there had been more time spent on Qandeel's story.

Are you reading (or listening to) any good books during quarantine?

Through quarantine life, running has been one of the few things keeping me sane. It gives me an excuse to get outside, get some fresh air and get some endorphins flowing.



When I look back at the calendar, it's crazy to think the first half of March was actually not spent in quarantine. But the first two weeks of March were definitely a hectic time because we were getting ready to close on our house and move.

I still managed to stay fairly close to my goal of three runs per week leading up to the move. But many of those runs didn't feel great. With packing and the move hanging over my head, a lot of times I felt like I should be focusing my energy on that instead of running.

These notes from the week right before my move sum up the general feeling I had on most of my runs in the first half of the month.



Right after the move, the official quarantine stuff hit and after taking a couple of days to settle into the new neighborhood, I was itching to get outside for runs and walks.

I'd say in the second half of the month, I got out for a walk or run basically every day that the weather was nice. Most of my runs were along a nice three-mile loop I found in the neighborhood.

I've also started re-introducing long runs on the weekends. So far my long runs are only five (very hilly) miles, but I'm excited to be reintroducing the concept of the long run. And honestly, quarantine feels like the perfect time to do it. I have no other plans competing with hour+ runs these days, so I don't feel forced to push the pace too much. I can just take my time and enjoy the miles.


Flowers along my running route

The other big thing I'm doing is wearing my Garmin again on almost all of my runs. Sometimes having the real-time data is great, but sometimes it also reminds me how slow I'm moving.

Walking is also become a staple in my life these days. Several days I'll run over my lunch break and then go out for a walk around the neighborhood after finishing work for the day. It's been a nice opportunity to explore the neighborhood. The one downside is that all the time on my feet is starting to add up to some tired legs. I can definitely feel the fatigue in my legs on runs these days. So I might need to reassess just how much I'm running and walking in the coming weeks.

In April, I'm hoping to slowly start to increase the distance of my long runs. My plan is to do this gradually so that I don't increase my risk of injury.

In these crazy quarantine times, I'm really glad to have running.

Once of the best/worst parts of moving to a new neighborhood is finding new running routes.

It can be the best if your new neighborhood is runner friendly. It can be the worst if that's not the case.

My previous neighborhood was not super runner friendly. You may remember how much I complained about it when we first moved into that apartment. Mainly I hated all the traffic lights and how generally unsafe I felt for a while.

My new neighborhood on the other hand is a million times better for running for a whole bunch of reasons.



First, it's actually a neighborhood. I love running through it and seeing all the really cute houses here. Some of them are old and historic and some of them have been totally modernized. But they all have personality.

I also love all the green space. There are yards here and lots of parks and open space. It makes for some really pretty scenery.



We used to live right downtown, which was super convenient for so many things, but meant I was trapped between two really major roads and all the traffic lights and high-rise buildings that came with that.

One of the other awesome things about being away from the high-rises is that my Garmin doesn't take a million years to find satellites anymore. I had basically stopped using it in part because I was injured all the time and trying to not worry about pace, but also because I hated waiting around for 10 minutes before I could even start running while it tried to find a signal.

Since discovering that it works normally here, I've taken it on almost all of my recent runs. I'm still not worrying too much about my pace these days, but I like having the data.

Plus without all the traffic lights, I'm not constantly having to pause my watch every time I get stuck at a red light. Now when I set out to do a three mile run it only takes me about 33 minutes door-to-door, whereas it used to take me 45-50 with all the traffic light stoppages.


Slow and steady data!

The other thing that is I guess a positive when thinking about my ability to build endurance and stuff is that there are hills everywhere here. Sometimes I hate it, but I'm trying to appreciate that the hills will help me be a stronger, hopefully less-injury prone, runner. I don't think I realized how flat it was downtown until I noticed all the long, steep climbs here. I'm sure I'll be cursing them when it's a million degrees out this summer, but for now, trying to think of them as a positive.

I'm still spending a bit of time figuring out where I feel safest when I run. It's not like we moved to a utopian neighborhood with no crime, we still live in DC, and I want to make sure I'm picking routes where I'll generally feel safe running when it's dark and I'm by myself.

Right now, I'm doing all my runs during lunch time because it helps break up my quarantine days. I'm trying to do a bunch of different routes so I get a sense of where I'd feel most comfortable. I generally try to pick routes that are well-lit by street lights, have a decent amount of traffic and where I'm never incredibly isolated.

I think I've found a fairly safe three-mile loop. I've done a five-miler that I really enjoyed on a Saturday morning, but I don't think it'd be a good contestant for an early morning run because a good chunk of it was on a pretty isolated stretch of road. I also found a four mile route that also seems to have some promise.

Overall it's been really fun exploring this new neighborhood and finding new places to run. And since running is about the only reason I have to go outside these days, I feel like we moved at just the right time and I'm super grateful for that.