Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Books! And a Tiny Bit of Running! And a Link to a Sweet Giveaway!

I like the mail woman this week!

First, she brought me A Year of Adventure: A Guide to the World's Most Exciting Experiences. Thanks to a giveaway from Abby** I now have a year-long guide to all the fun stuff I'd rather be doing this year.

The book is organized month by month, each month featuring outside funness in season throughout the world. At first I thought the book would make me sad as I clearly won't be able to do the more than 250 trips, adventures and outdoor endeavors in my lifetime, let alone in 2011.

Until I read adentures for the first week of January -- suggestion number two was bobsledding in Lake Placid. We've actually done this! Ok, just Bill, but I was there so it counts! He rolled in 2010 with a ride around the old Olympic bobsled and louge track. I was going to try skeleton (somehow they let you do this on your own with basically no training) but got a tiny bit nervous and didn't do it.

And then, yesterday, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Geography. After realizing I know even less about geography than I thought I hit up Amazon and decided to brush up on my world geography skills. So far I haven't even opened it but my one and only New Year's resolution is to learn all of the countries on Africa and Europe and their major landforms. What do I plan to do with this knowledge? Nothing, other than to hopefully feel a bit less dumb.

Unrelated: I finally managed to get in my first few runs of 2011. First up was 4 miles on the beautiful treadmill at the gym. I decided to go hard and felt like I was running at the speed of sound. Unfortunately my average pace was terrible for me. My marathon endurance is gone but unfortunately I have retained my sluggish marathon pace. Awesome.

Today I did 5 or so miles on the trails. I felt okay and was having fun until I got home. The clock said it was 11:54. On Wednesdays I work from noon until 8. Six minutes to stop being a sweaty mess, shower, get out the door and to work? Didn't happen. Not even close.

**Also unrelated, but way more fun than me rambling about running: Abby at Have Dental Floss, Will Travel is having a sweet giveaway, guaranteed to get you outside even on the snowiest and iciest of days. If you hate being outside in the cold, you can use the spikes to defend your home in case an intruder gets in.

3 comments:

Mallory said...

Haha oops! We are all a little late to work sometimes!! Sounds like a great run though!

Abby said...

So glad the book arrived!

Natalia said...

Sweet! Yours is an exciting plan, and I totally agree with you, knowledge does not always need to have a purpose....the Ancient ones extolled knowledge for it's own sake and pleasure....enjoy!
I am also sure you will find a good running pace when you get back into the swing of things. I feel tired, lazy and slow most times, but then I have sparkling moments that give me hope that I can have more of those - sparkling moments I mean!