I was SO right not to read this sequel to The Hunger Games until the third and final installment was released! The second is just as good as the first and I can’t wait to see how the whole thing ends. I literally just finished the last page and paused only long enough to post this little blurb before I walk to the bookshelf and crack Mockingjay open. Seriously, if you haven’t read the Hunger Games trilogy it is well worth reading. Yes, it is a young adult series but that just means it reads fast. The Hunger Games happen once a year in Panem to remind the Districts that the Capitol is still in charge and can still make them pay for any disobedience 75 years after the civil war. Each of the twelve Districts must send one male and one female between the ages of 12 and 18 to the games to fight each other until there is only one left alive. Yes, it is a book – well, three actually – about kids killing each other but it is not gory enough to be considered horror and it is gripping to hear the story from the first person point of view of one of the “Tributes” inside the arena. I can’t say any more without including spoilers so just trust me and go read them!
Monthly Archives: September 2010
Love and Hate… and running
I wouldn’t be fairly depicting my running training if I only talked about the milestones I’m hitting successfully and not the downers of the whole experience. So, I am 35 days away from my half marathon and still mostly on track with my training program. “Mostly” meaning I am still successfully completing the prescribed long run distances on the weekend (7 miles at this point) and running at least twice more during the week. However, logging the prescribed distances on the mid-week runs is hit and miss. I had a week of inconsistent training when I tweaked my back and couldn’t run for almost a week – turns out my hips are out of alignment and “I’m weak” – got to love physical therapists and their tactful delivery of such news – so I had to start some physical therapy to strengthen my hips and core which has helped tremendously after only a couple of weeks.
I’m supposed to be running 4.5 miles as my “short” runs during the week but that means a full hour and 15 minutes on the treadmill which – added to the time necessary to stretch, cool down and change my clothes twice – doesn’t really fit so easily into my allotted hour of time at the gym during my work day anymore. Finding that kind of time twice during the work week regardless of where I run is a challenge since home life is just as demanding as it has ever been with an 8 month old and a competitive dancing 8 year old. This week I managed a 3.5 mile run in the gym and a 2 mile run last night… at 10:00 pm… in the dark…with my headlamp and flashing tail-light for safety of course! (Yes, I look like a fool but I’m a safe fool nonetheless!)
Last weekend the training plan called for us to run a 5K race. No big deal – that’s only half the distance of my last week’s run of 6 miles which I finished no sweat. Weeks ago my training/running partner and I had found a free race and registered. The only criteria at that point was a 5K on the specific date. Then we realized it was the same VERY hilly venue of the first 5K we’d run a couple of months earlier to celebrate the end of our walk-to-run program. Neither of us wanted a repeat of those hills – especially since we’re training solely for downhill since that’s what our half marathon is going to be. So, we came up with a brilliant plan to find a different race that would be flatter and easier. Great idea, right?
Well… all ideas are usually good in theory.
We picked a race that was being put on as part of the local high school’s Homecoming/alumni weekend. It was right by the house and thus part of the terrain I’ve been training on – piece of cake, right? And the price was right: $10 and included breakfast. What could be better? We show up and realize it is a very small event. And by very small I mean there are more people gathered to cook breakfast than it looks like are running the 5K. But that’s okay because the entire current cross country team is going to run. So, there are literally a total of about 40 people – 30 of which are twiggy 15-17 year old high school runners. We all line up at the starting line – us “just finish”ers in the back since we are definitely not going to win regardless.
The starting gun goes off, everyone dashes off – including me running a pace there is no way in hell I can maintain which I don’t realize for about a 10th of a mile until fellow runner checks our pace and says something (I love running with gadgets, by the way!). Now I’ve burned through all of my reserves by trying to run a 9-minute mile pace UPHILL and we’ve already been left in the dust by everyone – and I mean everyone. Oh, and did I mention that the welcoming and familiar terrain I thought was going to be so fabulous is exactly the reverse since we are running the opposite way I assumed we would and now almost the entire thing is a steady uphill run? Oh, I didn’t?
Welcome to my own personal Hell.
The next 2.6 miles was me in the very back of the small pack feeling like a complete failure. At the 1-mile marker, I had to stop running and walk because the uphill was killing me. Approaching the aid station for water, I saw the pre-pubescents directly in front of me actually point and say “she’s the last one” – to which I wanted to scream “FUCK YOU” and punch them in their faces, but I refrained. I ran the one flat spot in the insanely steep uphill 2nd mile and felt vindicated when the same little snots had stopped to sit on the curb because they couldn’t go on. (Teach them to disrespect their elders!) At this point I was so low mentally that I had practically convinced myself that I was not a runner let alone capable of any kind of distance and that I might as well just consider my registration fee gone because I shouldn’t consider even attempting a half marathon. Forgotten was my 6-mile straight run 6 days ago – I was a complete loser who had no business even owning a pair of running shoes.
Yeah, I was that low… and more than once close to tears. At one point we ran past an entrance into my neighborhood and I seriously contemplated just turning in and running home with my tail between my legs and hoping no one asked how my 5K had gone.
And then we hit the downhill portion – the final stretch. And I started gaining on the 12-year old and her Dad who had been walking most of the way up the bitch of a hill. And then I passed them while listening to her whine about how hard it was. All I could think was “I’m NOT going to be very last!!” Well, I wasn’t – barely. And I finished – which at the end of the day was all I had been aiming for anyway. However, I was still totally down on myself for being last for most of the way and for my slow ass pace which is completely normal at this stage of the game.
It has been a week and I’m still mired in self-doubt and wondering where this competitive nature came from since it has never been about winning for me. There is much to be said about participating in large events with lots of other people at all levels of fitness participating so you get lost in the crowd and can focus on running your own race, competing only with yourself. This is an individual sport and the only person I need to be better than is myself time after time as I build up my endurance. At this point speed doesn’t matter, hills don’t matter, it only matters that I have the ability to run 13.1 miles… all downhill… in 35 days. Everything else will come later.
Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself! We’ll see how I feel after another 5K – this time on verified flat terrain – slotted for tomorrow and a 7-mile DOWNHILL run I’m looking forward to on Sunday. Do I still love running? Yes – except for the days that I hate everything about it!
The House at Riverton
This book was an amazing little gem by author Kate Morton! In essence it is a mystery that at it’s core is based on a secret kept by a servant girl regarding the people she served at the time of WWI and beyond in England. It is told by the woman, Grace, at the end of her life as a flashback. This irritated me at times because from the beginning you know there is this huge secret that no one knows but her. I just wanted to know what the big secret was but it took until the very end – literally – to find out all the details. However, the journey to get there was filled with a great story and great characters and the secret was unpredictable and satisfying when finally revealed. I look forward to a re-read so I can fully enjoy the story rather than wishing for and hurrying toward the end. Highly recommended!
Look at me – reading more than a book in a month… I AM super woman at times!
Mr Monster… my first ARC
I know, I know… what the hell does ARC mean? First, this is a pet peeve I’ve been dying to vent out to the world and now here’s my chance! Have you ever noticed that groups of like-minded people (like authors) tend to create their own lingo complete with acronyms? And then they throw those acronyms and buzz words around like it somehow makes them cool? (Or am I just a total bitch and this bugs me way more than it should?) In my humble opinion this practice does little to endear “outsiders” to those who use the lingo and instead makes them look like uptight snobs who never grew out of having a secret club with a secret code for entry. I promise never ever to become one of “those” kind of people. And I give anyone reading my blog permission to call me on it if I ever do succumb in a moment of weakness. Deal?
So, an ARC is an Advanced Reader Copy. A copy of a book that hasn’t yet had all the mistakes edited out (OMG, published authors make spelling errors?!?!?) and isn’t ready to sell in bookstores or anywhere else. They are printed to send out to readers in advance of the publishing and release date and authors get copies to do who-knows-what with. (Now you get the name, right?) I admit I’m new to the whole industry – who knew writing was so much more than writing a story – and I’d never heard of these little gems. That is until Dan Wells – who I still can’t say enough good things about – made it possible for me to get one. Which is how I came to read a book already that is not available in stores until the 28th of September… as in two weeks from now. I’m giddy as a school girl when I think about how I, the most impatient person on the planet, did NOT have to wait over two months to read the sequel of what I have already decided is my favorite book of the year.
Mr Monster is the sequel to I Am Not A Serial Killer and is just as fascinating and unputdownable as the first one. How does one talk about a sequel and not ruin the original? I’m not sure which is why it is hard to do a proper review. The main character is still John Clever, a 15-year old sociopath obsessed with serial killers and who is still living his life with major rules so he doesn’t become one himself. Only now he is dating the object of his obsession – very bad and very good at the same time – and embroiled in working with the FBI to catch a serial killer without incriminating himself in the process. Dan Wells has done such an amazing job of creating a character who is so genuinely flawed and in any other book would be considered the antagonist but who finds himself the hero so we are forced to love him. This book is also classified as Young Adult Horror and it is dark in parts but not as graphic or violent as the first – it is more up in your head disturbing rather than blood and guts although there are bits of that as well. To say anything else would give things away and do injustice to the whole thing. So, please trust me and if you haven’t already read the first one, get on it so you can be in line for the sequel when it hits bookstores later this month! Personally I can’t wait for my daughter to be old enough to read them!
One Step At A Time
The hubby and I took a little mini-vacation over Labor Day weekend. We left both kids home with family and hit the road… for a 13 HOUR road trip to my sister-in-law’s wedding reception. We drove a total of 31 hours in three days to spend about 40 hours with them. It was totally worth it even when you factor in the TWO speeding tickets – one for each of us. The best part was all the time we had to spend together in the car, talking and bitching and brainstorming and getting inspired for new book ideas.
I came out of the weekend with two killer ideas for new stories to write and now I’m torn about which I want to do first after I get the initial draft of my current project finished. The daily writing… goal? Rule? whatever you want to call it, I’m on a total roll. I’m about 3 chapters into my re-write and finding less and less that I need to fix once I got past the prologue. I don’t want to jinx anything but at this rate I anticipate being finished with the first draft by Nov 1 when I get to start my new project as part of NaNoWriMo 2010. I’m looking forward to a new story – something fresh and new and exciting – and am kind of surprised that both ideas are just straight up fiction. No sci-fi, no fantasy, just regular old stories. I guess I still don’t know what “my” genre is so that’s okay, right?
All things considered, life is pretty damn good – I even set a new personal record for fastest mile tonight on my 4-mile run: 12 minutes, 18 seconds. Not too bad considering it was the 3rd mile of that run! Amazing… a 4-mile run is my “short” run during the week! I’m on track for a 6-mile run on Sunday… and I’m half a mile away from having logged 150 miles just since May 23rd. Like everything in life, it’s all happening by taking one step at a time.
Terra Luft - View From the Crystal Ball 