After a very overly indulgent and delightfully lazy weekend, I was craving some hardcore cardio yesterday to kick my lazy bum back into gear.

Mondays I usually reserve for one of my favorite barre classes, but I was in the mood for something more intense than that. I'd been toying with the idea of a spin class, but I haven't stepped foot into a spin studio since some point in the summer or fall when I was dealing with really bad hip pain.



At the time, hinging over a bike seat was excruciatingly painful. But since things have been pretty Ok on the hip front lately, I wanted to test the waters.

I got to the studio a bit on the earlier side, and asked for some help getting my bike set up since it had been so long. Figured it doesn't hurt to have one of the people actually trained in it make sure my seat was at the right height and distance from the handlebars.

I hopped on the bike and started doing some easy pedaling to see how things would feel. If it wasn't comfortable at all, I could leave before the class got started.

But everything seemed to be feeling OK, and I was looking forward to doing the class.

The class itself wasn't one of my favorites. The music was meh and the mix of climbs and sprints was only so-so, but my hip didn't bother me once the entire 45-minute class.

I'm hoping that my focus on cross-training this winter will help knock out my hip issues once and for all.

I realized that after I wrote my favorite books of 2017 post I never ended up doing a recap of the books I read in December.

Between the holidays and a couple bitterly cold weekends that left me hunkered down under lots of blankets, December was a good month of reading for me. I finished seven books and most of them were pretty good too!



Better late than never, here are my December book reviews.

The Rooster Bar by John Grishman
Based on the description of this book, I thought the story was going to be a lot different. This book is about students at a for-profit law school that realize they are drowning in student loan debt and have no job prospects since they attended a diploma mill. They set out to get back at the school. I didn't like the way the book went or the outcome for any of the students. It was a good, fast read, I just think didn't like so much of what happened.

Firefly Lane by Hannah Kristen
Kristen Hannah tells an amazing story and though this book was nearly 500 pages, I couldn't put it down and by the end I was sobbing. Firefly Lane tells the story of two best friends from when they meet in the 70s as middle schoolers and follows them through their lives through into the early 2000s. Each section of the book is broken down by decade and both characters just felt so rich and real.

Emma: A Modern Retelling by Alexander McCall Smith
I picked up this book since I really enjoyed Curtis Sittenfeld's modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice, "Eligible." I think I expected this book to be something like that, but it wasn't. It was the general story of Emma, but with text messaging and Emma's budding interior design business thrown in. It didn't feel overly modern. It wasn't a bad book, it just wasn't what I had been expecting.

Hope in a Jar by Beth Harbison
This was a light and fast read about two friends who were ripped apart by rumors in high school and reunite at their 20th high school reunion. Neither is where they thought they'd be in life, but when circumstances at the reunion throw them back together, they realize it's time to stop living in the past. This is a good book for when you just want a fun story to take your mind off real life.

The Christmas Train by David Baldacci
This was a light and fun holiday read about a group of passengers traveling across the country by train for the holidays. It was the first non-suspense Baldacci book I've read, but there was still a touch of mystery mixed in to the story.

The Pink Suit by Nicole Mary Kelby
I was intrigued by the premise of this book -- the story of the seamstress -- Kate-- who replicated the Chanel design that would become Jackie Kennedy's famous pink suit. I think the book told a good story, but it lacked a bit in character development, and some of the divergent plot lines were a bit distracting.

Artemis by Andy Weir
After loving the Martian so much, I was eagerly looking forward to Andy Weir's second novel. Artemis brought back all my favorite things about Weir's writing -- a sassy narrator who pauses for asides to make sure the reader is clued in to what is actually happening or as is often the case to make sure the reader understands her sarcasm, a fast-moving plot, and all the twists and turns of action taking place in almost-zero gravity. If you liked the Martian, you'll like this follow-up novel that takes place on the surface of the moon.

In my post on cross-training through the cold winter months, I mentioned that I had been swimming a lot more and really enjoying my time in the pool. Usually when I swim, I follow a workout from a book or use one from my mom's swim group.



But that can get kind of boring and monotonous after a while when you're by yourself. So when two of my friends suggested I join them for SwimWOD workouts hosted by Old City Swim School, I was intrigued.

I attended my first class two Saturdays ago, and really enjoyed the structure of the workout. Classes are taught by former division one competitive swimmers and divers and remind me a ton of my old swim team workouts from high school.


Please enjoy this throwback yearbook photo of my high school swim team.

I've only been to two classes so far, but it appears most are typically structured in a way that starts with a warm-up followed by some drills to focus on form. Then we get into the main set. Sometimes the main set is entirely swimming in the pool. Sometimes it's a set of pool work followed by drylands (basically strength work done outside of the pool). Then class ends with a cool down swim.

I love having this kind of structure in my swim workouts. First, there's a coach figuring out the workout for me, so I have to do zero thinking. Then there's the general camaraderie that comes with everyone in the group being "in it together." Even if we're swimming at different paces, we all share collective groans when the coaches surprise us with especially torturous workouts.

I actually liked the workouts so much that I signed up for a ten class pass and plan to make SwimWODs a regular part of my weekly workout routine this winter.

Here's what my first two SwimWOD classes entailed.

First swim class workout

200 warm up
100 kick set

Main Set
12 x 50
3 kick on 2
3 swim on 1:20
3 pull on 1:50
3 swim on 1:20

Strength Work
Tread water for a minute, get out of the pool, do 10 squats, repeat 8 times (my legs felt like jello after this)

150 cool down

Total yards: 1050

Second swim class

This workout featured the sprint set from hell. It was a pyramid sprint set, with active recovery, instead of just regular rest. I was pretty gassed by the end.



Warm up and drills
200 warm up

50 kick

4 x 75 breathing drills

4 x 50 breathing drills

Main set: Pyramid sprints with active rest

200 hard
100 easy

4 x100
Alternate 100 sprint, followed by 100 recovery

4 x 50
Alternate 50 sprint, followed by 50 recovery

2 x 25 hard
50 easy

Total yards: 1800

I know when I first counted this up right after the workout when it was still fresh in my mind it was 1800 yards. But somewhere between then and when I wrote it down, I lost 100 yards. Maybe we swam a 100 after the breathing drills before the main set.

The coaches also wrote our times down for the sprints. I haven't been timed for real since high school, and I have to say I was surprised the numbers were not slower than they were. (Note: The time for my 200 in the picture above is definitely wrong because I shared a lane with a girl who finished before me and according to that picture, she has a slower time than me).

While I normally swim 2000 yards if I'm just going to the pool by myself, I like the structure these workouts provide. I like having coaches and focusing on different things rather than just straight swimming. I'm definitely excited to see improvements in my form and my times from more structured coaching.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you've seen it go through many iterations: New designs, different writing styles, different posting cadence, super oversharing to zero oversharing and everything in between.

The world of blogging has changed a lot since I first started back in 2006, and as my life has gone from college student, to navigating my first job in my early 20s, to going back to school for my MBA, to hitting my career stride in my early 30s, what I've used this space for has changed so much.


Me in 2006 and me in 2017. Digital photo quality also improved in the last 11 years.

The Early Days

When I first launched this blog back in 2006 (how has it been that long), this space was basically my virtual training journal. I wrote about every run I did in excruciating detail while training for my first marathon.


Baltimore Marathon finish line 2006

I analyzed the weather and the distances. I questioned my really slow pace (at the time I was running around 12-minute miles). I wrote about when my motivation waxed and waned. It was all running all the time with maybe the random post thrown in about how college or my internship was impacting my training.

And then I ran that first marathon and basically stopped blogging for three or four months because I didn't know what to write about anymore. This space had served its purpose.

The Blogging "Boom"

Blogging -- especially health and fitness blogging -- wasn't "the thing" back then that it would become sometime around 2009-2010.

There was certainly a community of people back on those old blogger blogs doing the same thing I was -- training for races and tracking their progress -- and we built a little virtual running support community. Many of those people stopped blogging or moved their adventures over to other platforms. I sometimes miss that little community (Wes, Jess, CJ, Marcy, Lisa, you all know what I'm talking about). It was easier to sit down and write about the trials and tribulations of training when you had your people virtually cheering you on.

When health and fitness blogging blew up a few years later, the landscape changed and my writing style changed too. I was trying to crank out a post every day, which led to some really crappy posts. Food pictures became super popular so I tried that too, and quickly learned that was not a thing I was any good at or cared about enough to become good at.

As confusing as it was to figure out what to write about, it wasn't all bad though. Blogging blowing up this way earned me some fun blog friends that became IRL friends.


Megan and I when we met in-person in 2011.


Then again at her wedding this past June.

Life was busy and full. I was racing a ton and didn't have a bunch of injuries so I had plenty of things to write about in this space.

The 2011 Slump

Then there was the backlash against lifestyle blogging and the emergence of the school of thought that bloggers should only churn out useful content (similar to what the health and fitness magazines were writing) because that would make your content show up in Google, which would drive pageviews and earn you more money (if you were running ads or had corporate partnerships).

Around the same time, in the summer of 2011, I had the natural inclination to pull back on some of the random life updates and personal content anyway. I had gone through a traumatic breakup, and I had no desire to share the details of that publicly -- even though up until that point, I'd shared a lot of my life pretty publicly.

It was a stark pivot, and I knew readers could tell something was up, but I had no interest in figuring out how to share any of that story in this space.

So I just pulled back and refocused my writing on health and fitness stuff.

It was a weird, tricky place to be, and it left me super confused about what exactly I should be writing about here.

Grad School, Injuries and the Future

Somewhere after that slump in 2011, I rebounded and found a somewhat normal writing groove again. But when I went back to grad school in 2014, my free time tanked. Trying to balance work, classes and homework didn't leave me a lot of extra time to write. I was barely publishing a post once a month.


Flashcards were my life.

When grad school ended, I seemed to battle an on-going series of injuries. Since I had pretty much eliminated my random life updates, I didn't have a lot to write about. It's hard to write a running/fitness blog when you can't actually workout.

At some point, I introduced my book reviews, which seem to be super popular, even though they have nothing to do with the main subject matter of this blog. I've re-introduced a random life update post here and there (most recently talking about some holiday stuff), and I really enjoy blogging about my travels when I go fun places.

One of my goals in 2018 is to better figure out what to do with this space. It's evolved and changed so much over the years. I want to write more and hopefully find a good balance of things worth sharing. There are some new topics I'm interested in writing about and maybe some former features I want to bring back.

I'm sure it will take me some time to settle into a new groove with this space. I like the focus that running and fitness bring to my writing, but I also like having the flexibility to write about other things.

If you have thoughts on what you'd liked to see me blog about feel free to leave a comment below or drop me a line (jess@jessruns.com).

The last several weeks it has been cold and grey in DC. So cold that even being outside was painful for any exposed skin.


The Potomac River totally frozen over.

That meant I was largely trapped inside with limited human interaction.

If it weren't for a few strategically timed workouts and hangout sessions with friends, the cabin fever would have destroyed me. As it was, by Sunday, I was already going a little out of my mind from being so confined.

When it's this cold, I can't bring myself to run outside. I'm a wimp and need it to be at least in the high 20s or 30s before I consider an outside run. Otherwise the cold air stings my face and burns my lungs.

Since running was off the table, I doubled down on swim workouts. I went to pool a bunch of times in the past couple of weeks knocking out 2,000 yard swims. I'd forgotten how great of a workout swimming is, and I've enjoyed being back in the pool. It makes me feel strong in a way that's different from running.



I've also been to a bunch of barre classes, which I've really come to appreciate lately since they do an awesome job of incorporating my PT exercises.

Between the swimming and the barre classes, my hip has been feeling kind of awesome. I'm not sure if this is because I haven't attempted a run since the week before Christmas or if all the cross-training and strengthening work is slowly starting to correct some of my muscle imbalances.

It's supposed to be pretty warm here by the end of the week, and I'd like to attempt a run to see how it goes and how my hip responds. No matter what happens, I plan to keep up a steady level of cross-training through the winter. If I can stay on top of that, maybe by the time spring weather rolls around, I'll be able to run pain free on a regular basis.

At brunch on New Year's Day, one of my friends asked everyone what their goals were for 2018. At the time, I admittedly hadn't given too much thought to it. In the past, so many of my yearly goals focused around races I wanted to run or PRs I wanted to set.



Though my hip has been doing better lately, I'm still not in a place where I can be setting major running goals. So when it was my turn, I didn't really have a good answer.

But over this first week of 2018, I've been thinking about things I'd like to accomplish outside the running sphere -- things that I think will make me a happier, healthier person.

Here's the list of things big and small that I came up with.

1. Take a daily vitamin. I suck at this, but I know it's something I need to do since I'm routinely vitamin D deficient. I'm not beneath buying Flintstone vitamins if that's what it takes to convince myself to take them.

2. Strength train at least once a week (and make sure to do my PT exercises).

3. Find a workout schedule that leaves my hip happy. I'd like to be able to slowly start rebuilding my running and see how my hip responds, but I also want to have a good mix of workout options in that routine. I think that's going to help prevent future injuries.

4. Read more books. In 2017, I read 57 books. In 2018, I'd like to try to read at least 60.

5. Write regularly. Whether that's here on this blog or on other writing projects, I want to make sure I am being more intentional in my writing this year. Last year I was very ho hum about it and would go really hot and cold on writing. This year I want to make sure I'm setting aside at least two hours per week for writing.

6. See new places. Day trips to new cities. Visits to our national parks. Long weekends. Adventures overseas. I want to see more of the world this year.

7. Set aside time to decompress each week. I like having a full social calendar, but I've noticed that the older I get, the more time I need to recharge before the start of a new week. I want to make sure I'm leaving time for this and not having every minute of every day packed from when I wake up until my head hits the pillow.

8. Make quality sleep a priority. Sometimes I'm good about this, sometimes I'm not. But I'd really like to focus on making sure I'm sleeping enough so I can be a high functioning human.

So those are my goals. Nothing too crazy and over the top, but what I think and hope is a realistic set of things to work on.

What about you? What are you hoping to accomplish in 2018?