The Lost Hours

My weekend running did not go as planned. I woke up too late on Saturday to run. Alex had a swim meet and I would have had to start around 5:00 AM to have enough time, but it did not happen. On Sunday, it was raining so I did not run on the C & O Canal as planned. I did a 3 mile loop around my house. This turned out to be a good thing because I had a bathroom emergency and it was a good thing that I was near my house to take care of it before continuing. The loop is hillier than the C & O Canal and it had been several week since a did a long run. I ended up going about 15 miles instead of my planned 17. I was hurting the next day more than usual as well.

Alex is done with her swimming for the time being so I should be able to make my Saturday runs going forward. I made a renewed commitment to myself to keep to the marathon training schedule. On Monday I worked out on the rowing machine. I ran 5 miles yesterday in 43:20 and 8 miles today in 72:05. I do need to do a long run on Sunday and I am planning to go 17.5 miles. I have a 20k race the following week and the week after that I will do a 20 miler.

I went ahead and signed up for the Freedom's Run marathon yesterday. I read a lot of good information about the race and the course looks great. http://www.freedomsrun.org/

The Lost Hours

For our vacation, Virginia and I listen to a book while traveling. I had her choose between the The Lost Hours by Karen White and The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I picked both books based on excellent reviews. Virginia chose The Lost Hours. I am listening the The Help while running. Virginia made the wrong choice.

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Hours-Karen-White/dp/0451226496/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1248882067&sr=8-1

I found The Lost Hours to be slow and bland. The first half of the book especially did not hold my interest. The characters did not seem real. The part about Tucker's wife, Susan committing suicide because she found out the secret regarding Lillian seemed particularly weak. The way Lillian never reconciled with Anabelle even though she Lillian actually killed the baby did not make sense. Why not be friends later in life without focusing on this.

We listened to this book in large chunks while driving to Myrtle Beach and back. I find it is better to read or listen to books in smaller parts, but I don't think it impacted my feelings on this book. I don't understand why there is so many positive reviews for this book which is average at best. I give The Lost Hours a C-.