Great friends doing great work, part 2 (and some updates)

As I have mentioned here before, my awesome friend Kate Milford recently realized her life-long dream of being a published author. This would be exciting in and of itself, but its even more exciting because (a) her book, The Boneshaker, is amazing, and (b) lots of important people in the children's literature world have noticed that it is amazing. In fact, there are many blogs and websites out there, writtten by people who know what they are talking about, predicting that Kate will be nominated for awards like the Newberry Medal and the National Book Award for young adults.

Recently, these predictions caught the attention of a Massachusetts 6th grader named Emma. Emma and her mom run a book club for her friends every summer (how cool is that?), and this summer they decided to focus on books honored by Newberry. They chose to include Kate's book because they "know it is a contender" for this year's award. Recently, Emma saw that Kate was making some public appearances in New Hampshire and sent her an email to ask if she might consider visiting MA for the book club meeting. Kate got the email the day before the meeting, when she was already on her way back to her home in NYC. So what did she do? She turned around the very next day and drove to MA.

You can read about what happened next in Kate's blog post . Needless to say, she made a whole group of 6th grade girls very happy and had an amazing experience in the process. This story made me so happy. As someone who spent the entirety of my childhood with my nose stuck in a book, I can barely imagine how giddy I would have been if the author of one of my favorite books had come over to my house. Heck, that would make me giddy today. Good work, Kate!

Now, a few updates on what this blog is actually supposed to be about:

Training continues, and is getting back to semi-normal after several weeks interrupted by injuries and other committments. I re-joined the Annapolis Striders training group last Saturday after being away for three weeks. We ran 14 miles, which is the longest I've ever run. It felt pretty good, especially because we had reduced heat and a relatively flat course. I'm still not feeling as strong as I would like to at this point, but compared to the heat and hills of the Riley's Rumble course (see July 26th), just about anything else feels easy. Tomorrow, we go for 16 miles!

Thanks to my recent trip to NJ, I was away from the gym and took a week off from all of my usual cross training. I thought that this was enough to get over the pulled muscle in my lower abdominals. By the time I returned to Group Power this Monday, I hadn't felt any pain in that muscle for a few days. Everything went well for the first 50 minutes of the 60 minute class. Then, we hit the abs track. About halfway through, I literally felt the muscle rip back open. So, its back to square one on that injury. I'm still doing some of my cross-training, but I have to sit out anything that involves the lower abs. Frustrating.

Speaking of the gym, today is the anniversary of the day I joined! Its amazing to look back on everything I've accomplished since signing that contract a year ago. Prior to joining Annnapolis Athletic Club, I was always an inconsistent exerciser. I had run off and on for years, done a few races, and belonged to a few other gyms that I visited with varying degrees of consistency. In that past year, I have exercised a mininum of four times a week every single week. I ran my first 5-miler, 10K, 15K, 10-miler, and half-marathon. I haven't lost an ounce (in fact, I've gained a few pounds), but I feel the most healthy and fit I've ever felt, I've made new friends, and I've found all sorts of new healthy activities that I actually enjoy. So, hooray for me and AAC!