This is the first Read Momma Read online book club selection. You can get it here on Amazon. If you’re just joining us, you might want to read the intro page to our club. We’d love for you to join us anytime. If you’re local to Eugene/Springfield area, we’ll meet up and chat about the book. Stay tuned on FB for that info.
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Hi again readers! We’re still picking our way through Mile Markers. Don’t know about you, but I still love it. As I mentioned in my last post about it, I don’t plow through, but savor, relish and take my time. I am almost done, but wanted to talk about the next set of chapters… 10 – 20. There’s a lot here we could chat about and I welcome any comments about any of these chapters or topics. Here’s a few of my favorite areas and some questions to ponder.
And, let’s hook up in person! I will update the event date/time on the FB events page. I tentatively have it set for May 24th at 7:00. Location to be announced once I get a bit of a head count.
1. I love this line from chapter 10, Freedom, page 112-113 “Shake it Off”…”Running is one thing that allows me to be everything I need to be for everyone else and not resent it.” She offers a list of reasons why running helps her ‘shake off’ tough situations or challenges in her life. I can relate to just about all of them. But, the idea that there is nothing selfish about wanting to make yourself “clean” as she says, to shake off the bad so you have good to offer the world, really resonated with me. It’s sometimes a hard concept to explain to those who think my running is a selfish pursuit. (Although, I’m happy to say I don’t have any friends who don’t understand at least in part, my love of running.) Have you come across folks who think your running is selfish?
2. Giddyup from chapter 11, Identity, is awesome! Pg 123-4. In this chapter she discovers another side to her running friend and her love of horses. Throughout the book she shares many instances why she enjoys her friendships and the qualities she appreciates in her friends, but this chapter was so fun to read. I remember when I discovered that my running friend and exercise extraordinnaire, Dani, was a scientist and science teacher. “My maiden name was Petry, like the dish, she said. What was I gonna do?” I love hearing her stories about her middle school students and their projects. As the miles tick by, we discover so much about each other. How have your running friends evolved into deeper friendships?
3. Chapter 13, Fear, posed some good questions. In Your Antartica, page 143-44 Kristin discusses the amazing swimmer, Lynne Cox and her book Swimming to Antarctica. Cox says about cold, open water swimming, “It’s pain. You just have to get used to it and eventually stop fighting it.” Her book club talked about what their fears were by posing the question that I’ll pose to you…What is your Antarctica?
4. Alot of chapter 18, called Hills, is about going “up and over” an emotional hill, overcoming a fear, facing a life-related, not necessarily running-related obstacle. And some of it is about really running hills. I, too, have a love/hate relationship with running hills. I can usually muster enough mental wherewithal to get up them when I am alone. Sometimes when I run with friends or in a group or when I’m in a race situation, I have a harder time of it. It’s that mental part that doubts, that is worried I will look weak, that I will be the only one walking, that I will slow others down, that I will tire out and be too sluggish on the remainder of the run. I tell people hills scare me and they are surprised seeing as I run them often including trail races with lots of altitude. Inside though, I’m a wreck. As Armstrong says, the middle of the hill is not the time mess with definitions or change tactics and that, like in life, it’s the little ones that prepare you for the big ones. Do you tackle the hill running like you do getting up life’s hills?
5. The Wall! This discussion hits at chapter 20, of course, as it corresponds to the proverbial marathon wall. Similar to the hill chapter, her questions surround the issues of how to handle tough moments in life and in a race. Whether you’ve run a marathon or not, what gets you through the “wall” on a tough run.
As always, feel free to answer 1 or all of these questions, pose your own or chat about a different topic/chapter of the book. Hope to see you on May 24th at 7:00pm !! I’ll keep you posted on where.
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