A few weeks ago, I was hanging out with my friend Emily-Anne when she asked if I wanted to swim across the Potomac River with her in the Washington's Crossing Swim.



I was a little apprehensive at first. I haven't done an open water swim in ages (probably since my triathlon in 2012). And the Potomac River is not known for being clean.

But I mulled it over, and two days later I was texting her to ask her to send me the registration info.

So now we're both registered to swim about 1.4 miles from Alexandria, Va., to National Harbor, Md., in early June.

I'm trying to figure out the best way to train for this sort of event. I looked at some half Ironman training programs to see what sort of swim workouts they recommended. I Googled "how to train to swim a mile" and found a "coach to one-mile" swim program.

But I haven't found any program that I've been particularly drawn to. So if anyone has suggestions, I'm open to ideas.

So far my training has been two swims.

Last week I did an endurance swim where I just tried to cover 2500 yards. I broke it down in to a 1,000 and a 1,500 because I was worried about losing track of the distance. That was mentally exhausting, but probably some good practice for an open water swim where I can't rest on the walls.

Then today I did what I consider a more traditional swim workout broken up in to shorter sets. In total, I did about 1,700 yards.

I'm also desperately in need of a new pair of goggles, so if you have any favorites to share, leave them in the comments!

It’s cherry blossom season in DC, which means it’s also peak tourist season and that makes running anywhere on the Mall more challenging than normal.



Typically during cherry blossom season, I try to find alternate running routes because I don’t have the patience to spend my whole run dodging people.

But this year, I hadn’t yet made it to see the cherry blossoms. They are at peak bloom, and the weather was pretty perfect today. I couldn’t resist killing two birds with one stone after work. So I braced myself for the madness and went for a run to the cherry blossoms.



As expected, everything from the White House down the the Tidal Basin was a complete disaster. There were people everywhere. Honestly, I don’t know how so many people were able to cram on to some parts of the sidewalk.

I played Frogger with the crowds and eventually got myself to the Tidal Basin, where I stopped running and let myself just be a tourist like everyone else.



The trees looked beautiful and I enjoyed my time walking around and taking pictures.

On my way home, I was eager to find a route that was less crowded so I actually felt like I got somewhat of a workout. After several blocks, I managed to have some open running room and enjoyed a slow and steady run back home.

The crowds and the people-dodging were worth it to get to see the trees at peak bloom in such perfect weather.

I don't know what I was doing with myself in February and March this year, but apparently it was not a whole lot of reading. And the books I ended up reading definitely tended to be a bit on the heavier/harder to get through side. They weren't all bad books, just not super easy reads.

February Reads

Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan
I finished up the Crazy Rich Asians series, but while I overall enjoyed reading this trilogy, I didn't love the last book as much as the second. At times it felt long to me.

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
This book was good -- sad -- but good. It's another one that was I on the waitlist at the library for forever, and I was really excited to finally read it. It follows two characters, one a gay man set during the 1980s at the height of the AIDS epidemic in Chicago. The other, set in modern times, follows the sister of one of the men who died during the 1980s AIDS epidemic. While the storylines don't intersect in a neat and tidy way, both characters end up dealing with similar struggles that have long-lasting implications.

Cherry by Nico Walker
I think I had really high expectations of this book because it had so many excellent reviews, but I really struggled to read it. It felt slow and while parts were interesting, I just couldn't get in to it. I felt like I was forcing myself to finish it since I'd been on the waitlist for such a long time.

The High Season by Judy Blundell
This was one of the lighter books that I picked up lately, and I think I appreciated it for that. It's set in a beach town and tells the story of a family that lives there year-round and how they are impacted by the summer visitors during the "high season." Some of the main character's helplessness was a bit tiresome, but overall enjoyed this read.

March Reads

The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
I think I read too much heavy stuff in February and March because by the time I picked up the Mars Room after being on the library waitlist for ages, I wasn't sure I was ready for another book set in prison. But this book was more enjoyable than some of the other books I'd been reading lately. It followed a woman sentenced to prison for life -- perhaps questionably. There were parts of this book that I thought were very gripping, but other parts felt too long, and the ending was a little rough. However, if you're an Orange is the New Black fan, I imagine you'd enjoy this book.

Becoming by Michelle Obama
I feel weird saying I didn't OMG LOVE this book like basically all my friends did. There were certainly parts I enjoyed and spent a long time discussing with my book club, but there were other parts that I felt were a little bit slow. I appreciated learning more about Obama's upbringing in Chicago and how she tried to balance her own career and life goals with her husband's political ambitions. But there were also parts I felt she glossed over and wished she would have delved deeper. I imagine it's probably hard to write a memoir and also keep some semblances of privacy about certain aspects of your life, and I get the need to balance that. But as a reader, certain parts just had me wanting more.

The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
This book was really beautifully written and the breath of fresh air I needed after so many heavy books. It follows two high-schoolers through out the course of a single day. One is facing almost-immediate deportation, while the other is trying to find his place and push back against his parents' lofty expectations for his life. The entire time I was reading, I couldn't believe the entire book basically took place within a 24-hour period. The author packed in so much rich detail and flowing dialogue that by the end of the book, I felt like I had spent much longer with both characters than just a brief 24-hour stint.

What have you read lately? Anything good?