Overall, 2019 was a so-so year of running for me.

It started out strong. I took advantage of the government shutdown last January to work on rebuilding a solid base. By the end of the month I was pretty comfortably running 8 milers as my weekend long runs.



In February, I continued to build on that progress as I hit the peak of my training for the MCM 17.75K. I ran that race in March, which earned me a guaranteed spot in the 2019 Marine Corps Marathon.



That was my first double-digit mileage race in a pretty long time, and I was excited to continue to build on the strong base I'd established and tackle MCM in the fall.

But life had other plans. In April, my appendix burst, which led to emergency surgery and basically four or five weeks of no activity. I could barely get off the sofa for the first week, and when I finally started to feel a little more normal in week two, I'm sure I overdid it by trying to go to work and lug my heavy work bag and set my recovery back. (I'm not patient. I'm also not always the smartest human).

I was finally able to go out for a few runs in early June. They were slow and were more walking than running, but it was something. And heaven knows I needed running back in my life so I could avoid 5 million anxiety attacks before my wedding. (I did not enjoy wedding planning. I've never been so glad to have something be over -- the planning, not the actual wedding. The wedding itself was a blast, would go back and relive that day any time).



By the time we got back from our honeymoon, it was time to dive right in to training for MCM. I made a valiant effort of training through July. But I just didn't have the endurance built up that I needed to start a marathon training plan. Every run was miserable, and after one particularly horrible 8-miler where I almost started crying at mile 6 as I walked back home, I decided I just needed to defer.



I felt so defeated and running was not something I was excited about anymore.

So I cut myself some slack and spent the end of the summer and early fall doing other things. I played softball. I hit up some spin and barre classes. I tried a trampoline class with one of my friends that was exhausting and a bit ridiculous, but a pretty great workout.





As the super hot and humid weather started to fade, and nice fall weather crept in, I got the urge to run again. So here and there I would throw on my shoes and go enjoy some nice short three-milers. I never wore my Garmin. I didn't care about my pace. I was just trying to enjoy running for running's sake again.

As I started running more regularly, I noticed some small amounts of running endurance coming back. Here and there some of my runs didn't feel too hard. Every so often, if I was feeling good, I'd stretch a run to four miles.



And that's about where I am right now. I just got home from an easy four miler to close out the year. It wasn't anything special. I broke no time records, but I managed to run the whole distance and feel fairly comfortable other than some calf tightness.

I don't have big plans or running goals for 2020. I don't want to put that kind of pressure on myself right now. But my hope for the year is that I can run healthy and run happy. There's a race or two I'd like to be able to do, but if I don't do them, that will be OK too. I just want to find the joy that running used to bring me. That will be good enough for me.

You might be surprised to know that after all these years of running, I had never run a turkey trot until last week.

There weren't any Thanksgiving day races anywhere near where I grew up, so I was always on my own for turkey day running.

This year though, I spent Thanksgiving at my in-laws. One of the first things I looked up after we figured out our holiday plans was if there was a nearby turkey trot.

I was so excited when I found the Give 'Em the Bird 5K, which was only about 15 minutes from my mother-in-law's house, and she agreed to do the run with me!



We got really lucky with the weather. Massachusetts in November is not exactly known for its warmth. But we woke up to a fairly sunny day and temperatures in the low-40s. Perfect running weather really.

The race started on a bike path behind an old mill that has been converted into some breweries and loft space.



The bike path wasn't super wide, so the early part of the race, things were a little crammy.

At one point, we crossed a bridge, and there were so many people on it that we were bouncing up and down and it felt like we were running on a more firm trampoline.

The course eventually turned off the bike path on to a neighborhood road and things opened up really nicely then.

I had found a pretty comfortable pace and everything was feeling good.

We took a turn just before the halfway point on the course and started a long, but not too steep climb, out of the neighborhood. The hill took it out of me a little bit, but not as much as I expected it too.

We made the last turn of the course on to another bike path. It was nice and flat, and with only a mile to go, I felt like I could try to push the pace a little bit.



I pushed harder for the last mile and was really happy with how strong I felt as I held a slightly faster than normal pace.

I crossed the finish line in 28:16, and was really excited when I checked my Garmin and realized I had run negative splits.

Mile 1: 9:22
Mile 2: 9:10
Mile 3: 8:49
Last .1: 0:56

This race was super well run, and it was such a fun way to start Thanksgiving Day!

Oh boy, I'm so far behind on this post. So let's get to it I guess.

I read a whopping 11 books in October. That's a ton-- even for me. I mainly blame the fact that I had bronchitis for two straight weeks and couldn't leave my house.


This pic is of a used book sale at a book festival I went to in the spring.

4 Stars

Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow
This book was good, though hard to read because of the material it covered. It covers how Farrow broke part of the Harvey Weinstein story and how NBC News tried to prevent the story from ever getting out. I thought the first part of the book that covered the early reporting was a bit slow. The book really picked up though when Farrow started diving in to the NBC cover up and everything they tried to do to stop his reporting. To hear it from Farrow's perspective was kind of mind-blowing.

Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller
What struck me the most about this book is how unreliable all of the narrators were. There were three main characters brought together one summer by a wealthy American to document the grounds of a dilapidated mansion in England. Frances is deeply self conscious and finds herself incredibly uncomfortable around the more outgoing Clara and Peter. As the three get to know each other over the course of their work, you as the reader never know who to believe as the story twists and turns. I tore through this wanting to get to the end to see what would happen.

The Marriage Clock by Zara Raheem
This was a fun and easy read that follows an Indian woman in her late 20's as she tries and fails to find a husband. She feels intense pressure from her family and eventually makes a pact with her parents that if she doesn't find a husband in three months, they can arrange a marriage for her.

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang
I've become such a fan of Helen Hoang and her books that feature main characters that are on the autism spectrum. She does a beautiful job of showing the depth of her characters as they grow and evolve over the course of the book. In this story, the main character's mother goes to Vietnam to hold a competition to find his wife. She brings a young, determined woman back to the U.S. to live with her son for the summer in the hopes that they will fall in love. This book follows what happens that summer as the two characters try to adjust to each other.

The Mother-in-Law by Sally Hepworth
Sally Hepworth's books are fast and fun reads, and this one leaves you wondering at every turn how Lucy's mother-in-law actually died. The story opens with Diane's death and jumps back and forth in time so that by half way through the book just about everyone has a motive for wanting Diane dead. The ending wasn't what I expected.

Verity by Colleen Hoover
This was much darker than Colleen Hoover's other books. But similar to her other books, this one sucked me in and I couldn't put it down. The main character, Lowan, is asked to step in and become a co-author on a very popular series of books after the series' original author suffers a debilitating injury in a car accident. Lowan plans to spend a night at the author's house digging through her research so she can start the work, but creepy things start happening and Lowan begins to question if the death of the author's two children and her own accident are more than coincidences.

3 Stars

The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth
I really enjoy Sally Hepworth's books, though I didn't find this one quite as compelling as some of her others. This book follows the story of a woman with early onset Alzheimer's. Her family puts her in a Rosalind House to ensure that she has someone to care for her. While there she meets Luke, another patient with early onset Alzheimer's. The two begin to develop a relationship, but as their memories fade they can't remember much in their day to day or easily communicate with each other. In the meantime their families are struggling with determine what is the right level of care.

The Half Life by Jennifer Weiner
A short (and not so-sweet) story from Jennifer Weiner about Piper, a consultant with a troubled marriage, whose travel plans get interrupted by the volcanic eruption in Iceland. Instead of taking off for Paris, she finds herself stuck in the airport lounge figuring out the next steps in saving or not saving her marriage. This was a fast and easy read, and a nice break for me mentally from the heavier book I'm in the middle of right now.

2 Stars

The Restaurant Critic's Wife by Elizabeth LaBan
This book follows the story of Lila Soto, the poor woman who is married to a restaurant critic. Her husband in this book is completely insufferable and treats Lila like trash. They've moved to a new city for his job and he refuses to entertain a conversation about her going back to work after having kids or even making friends with others in the neighborhood because he's worried he will be recognized and his career will be ruined. Basically he's a controlling jerk and I'm confused why Lila stayed with him. I kept hoping at some point they'd get to a better place, and maybe they sort of did, but this book made me too mad for too long to even appreciate that.

Normal People by Sally Rooney
This book just did not do it for me. I know it's gotten amazing reviews, but I felt such antipathy toward the two main characters that I couldn't get invested in their stories. This book was depressing and frustrating and honestly, there were many times I just wanted to give up on it. I especially couldn't stand Marianne and the way she refused to stand up for herself in any situation.

1 Star

How Could She by Lauren Mechling
Man this book was not for me. It's about three women trying to navigate life, their careers, etc. Basically based on the premise it sounded like a book I'd like. But the three main characters were horribly unlikeable and pretty much interchangeable. Plus nothing happened. The only reason I even finished it was because I was out of town without a lot of other options. Skip this.

As soon as I realized that Veteran's Day fell on a Monday this year, I was determined to find some cheap flights for a long weekend European getaway.

Paris seemed like the perfect destination because I have never been, and my husband studied abroad there and his French is still really solid. Our trip ended up being a wonderful blend of some of the big tourist things and revisiting some of his favorite places.



We left DC on Thursday evening, but things didn't start out on the most smooth note. Minutes after getting off the shuttle from the parking lots to the airport, I realized I had forgotten to lock the car. So we had to get back on the shuttle, ride back out to the car so I could lock it. That took a solid 20 minutes and of course, by the time we got back to the airport the security lines were long. (Aer Lingus doesn't participate in TSA pre-check, so we had to go through the regular lines).

After we took off, we had turbulence so bad the pilot said he had to descend to find smoother air. So we pretty quickly dropped from 39,000 feet to 32,000 feet somewhere between Boston and Halifax. (I know this because I was furiously monitoring the flight tracker on my tv screen, while death gripping the arm rests and praying we weren't about to die).

Thank goodness things improved tenfold after we got through that turbulence, and the rest of the trip was wonderful.



After landing in Paris, we made our way to our hotel, and even though we were very early, our room was available. So we checked in, dropped our bags, and debated the merits of a quick nap since neither of us had slept on the plane.

We ultimately decided to just power through and headed out for caffeine and croissants before seeing the sights.

We walked all over, and I was generally in awe of all the beautiful architecture. From the Opera, to the Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe, everything felt so ornate and regal.



Our first day included most of the traditional touristy things to do in Paris.

We walked from the Opera to the Louvre. We didn't go in the Louvre. Though I appreciate art, I wanted to spend our limited time in the city doing other things. We did spend some time admiring the gorgeous exterior of the building and walking through the park that the Louvre surrounds.





We then walked up the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe.



The Arc de Triomphe was probably one of my favorite things that we saw. It was huge and also incredibly beautiful. The sculptures on the exterior were so intricate.







And the view from the top was lovely.







I don't remember what this was a statue of, but it was inside the top of the Arc and made me laugh a lot.





After the inspiring views, we made a pit stop at a grocery store for some bread, wine and cheese. I knew French wine would be cheaper than what we can buy here in the U.S., but I didn't realize how much cheaper. We bought a great bottle of Cabernet for 3 euro! Our entire grocery bill was 6 euro!

We took our haul to the Trocadero and had ourselves a nice picnic at the Eiffel Tour. My favorite things about Paris were definitely the experiences like this.


Busy being the classiest person you will ever meet

We wrapped up our first day with a walk past the Army museum and ended with dinner at a classic French brasserie that came highly recommended.



I ate snails for the first time and they were surprisingly good. Would order them again in a heartbeat.



Day 2 was more about exploring some of the neighborhoods where my husband spent time while he was studying abroad.

We started the day with some touristy stuff on the islands. We couldn't get too close to the Notre Dame because of the fire.



So we opted to visit Saint Chapelle instead.







Then we spent the rest of the morning walking around the islands and down the right and left banks of the river.





We popped in to a few of the churches on the left bank. They were all gorgeous with that stunning old architecture.





We also detoured into some of the neighborhoods to find the apartment my husband lived in during his study abroad semester.

We walked through Luxembourg Gardens and past the Pantheon on our way to the Latin Quarter.



I loved the Latin Quarter. All the shops and street food and the delicious smells as you walked down these cute little streets. It was such a fun and lively atmosphere and definitely one my favorite parts of the trip.

I also really loved the Saint-Michel fountain. None of my pictures came out great, but there's a statue of St. Michael stomping on the devil. And the devil just had this ridiculous smirk on his face that I couldn't get over. Maybe I have a special place in my heart because I went to St. Michael the Archangel middle school, but I loved this fountain.





We also spent some time strolling through Le Marais, drinking mulled wine sold from a street vendor and wandering around the Bastille -- an area of town my husband used to spend time in while he lived in Paris.

We spent Saturday evening in Montmarte. After climbing a million stairs, I got to experience the charm of this bustling neighborhood. We visited Sacre-Couer. We wandered in to the cute shops and we grabbed some more mulled wine at a cute bistro. We sat outside under a heat lamp, and even though it was kind of chilly it was fun to watch all the hustle and bustle around us.


Sacre-Couer at night





We also walked into this chocolate shop where there were famous Parisian sites sculpted out of chocolate. My pictures didn't come out too awesome because of the reflection off the glass, but I was so amused by all of this.





We had a really open agenda for Day 3. We planned to visit Versailles in the morning and then leave the afternoon for revisiting any of our favorite neighborhoods.

The palace of Versailles was definitely cool to see, but since it rained, and it was really cold and grey all morning, I feel like I didn't get to truly experience the gardens. I took a couple of pictures, but it was just too raw to be outside for very long. It was a little bit of a bummer because I would have loved to spend more time walking around.











When we got back to Paris, we decided to grab some street food in the Latin Quarter. I had a crepe stuffed full of Nutella and was basically in heaven.

After wandering around the Latin Quarter some more, we ducked out of the cold into the pub where my husband used to watch NFL games while he lived in Paris. We thawed out over a drink that wasn't wine.

Because we had some free time, we decided to do one of those super touristy river cruises. The tour itself wasn't anything too special, but it was a fun way to see the city. Because we did the cruise later in the day, by the end, all the lights in the city had come on and everything was quite beautiful.


Construction at the Notre Dame



We wrapped up our trip with dinner at a family style fondue place that was a favorite from the study abroad days. This dinner was one of the highlights of our trip. The food was good, but the company was better. We had a great time getting to know the Scottish couple that we were seated next to. We spent the night laughing and eating and just enjoying the atmosphere.

Oh and the place served its wine out of baby bottles. I read a review that implied it was to avoid some random wine tax. No clue if that's true or not, but it was hilarious to see all these grown people drinking their wine from bottles.



It was the perfect dinner to wrap up a really fun long weekend getaway.

Three days in Paris seemed like the perfect amount of time. I felt like I got such a great taste of the city -- seeing some of the tourist highlights but also exploring some neighborhoods that I wouldn't have known anything about if not for my travel partner who had lived there.