Book Review: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Hello readers!

I've decided to do a bit different format for the blog from now on than how I used to do it. To be honest, my life is kind of boring and if I were to stumble onto the blog and read a few posts, I'd probably quickly click off. I figure if I get bored writing about it, you all probably get bored reading about it. Although, this format may be just as boring, but we'll see. 

If you remember back for my New Year's resolution, one of my goals was to read 40 books this year. I'm already eight books in but I thought it would be kind of fun to pass on suggestions of what I've read by doing a book review every time I finish a book (there will still be a little bit about my life if interesting stuff happens, don't worry). I figure people are always asking for suggestions on books so why not give them an honest review of ones I read.

The first book to hit this list is Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen.

It probably helps that I am in a running phase right now but even if I wasn't, this book is really motivational. It took a lot of time, and a little research, to convince myself that this isn't a fiction book. It's based around a tribe called the Tarahumara who live in Mexico's Copper Canyons but also talks about other ultra running events that led up to a group of Americans racing the Tarahumara over 100 miles in the canyon. The Tarahumara pretty much live to run, they'll run for hundreds of miles just for the fun of it and one of the big things in the book was that they don't suffer injuries, even though they only run in sandal-like shoes.

One of the major things I took from this book (other than the motivation to try and figure out how people can get in shape to run 100 miles over "ultra" hard trails) is the science behind the gear modern day humans use for so many things and how it can also be hurting us. Lastly, the author took a look back at our caveman days and found that after the ice age, we were built to be marathoners. While I don't think I'll ever be able to run 100 miles in a few days (or even want to for that matter), it amazes me that there are people fit enough out there to go that far and motivates me to continue with my jogging even though I'm slowly working my way over humps that aren't making motivation easy.

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. I will read it again at some point and couldn't put it down when I was reading it. Even if you aren't into running or even science, this book is an awesome story that you can definitely think of as a fictional tale. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a book to read.

In life news:
Like I said before, not much is going on. My life has massively settled down since the beginning of the month and that's a welcome sight. I am currently writing stories catching up with the Derby winners from the past 20 years that you can see on followhorseracing.com but that's about all I have for you right now.

Have a great day everyone. 
-Mel

Looking Forward Instead of Back

Two days ago when I started this blog, I was going to make it into a pity party. As that is not me, I decided to step back and wait for my emotions to calm down and I'm glad I did. All that I will say is that it has been a very bad few weeks and I have everything crossed that it is over. 

But today I made the decision that it just isn't worth it to have a pity party anymore. I can't change what happened and that's that. Instead, I focused on the positive and made some more decisions. For the positive, I have an awesome job and can afford to live in a place that not many people can (or are willing to try for that matter). I have a support team behind me and even though my personal life isn't exactly where I want it at this moment, that's something that I can solve if I put my mind to it.

Farther down the list, I have also decided that it's time to get ready to return to the part that got me into the equestrian world. I've set a goal of having a horse here by this summer and I intend to see it through. Horses are my sanity and even though I've been able to play with some of the top horses in the industry in past weeks (see below), I haven't been able to get on one or have goals for one in months.

Spending as much time as I want with PG has been a dream

I'll admit I wasn't a Brownie fan when he was racing but he's growing on me ...

This of course means cutting back on other things to afford not only to board a horse here but to possibly ship one here. Although, the possibility that the second part may not be as easy as it sounds has crossed my mind and I'm going to cross that bridge when I get there. While my student loans are also coming due soon, I have planned that as well.

First, I've cut out nearly all fast food from my diet (I do have a Subway addiction that I'm not willing to break but I've cut that back dramatically too) and it's amazing not only how much better I'm feeling only 5 days after my "last meal" but it's also been nice not to touch any plastic cards and see the money leaving my bank account with every bite. I still don't cook much but the meals I did buy when I went grocery shopping the other day are healthier than any meal I can get from Dairy Queen or Sonic and are leaving me with more energy and I'm not feeling bloated like I used to. Plus, as I am well behind on my 5k training, it's also making me more optimistic that I may be able to pull something off in three weeks.

Second, I've paid more money in the short term to save in the long term. When I started my job at Paulick Report, I bought a portable modem that let me have internet on the go. Since I was splitting bills with two other people at the time, the $50 a month wasn't a big deal. However, with my own apartment, that $50 was adding to the $45 I also paid for my apartment internet. It cost me a cancelling fee in the short term but that $50 will be nice in my bank account moving forward. I'm also working on cutting back on electricity to lower another bill but that is a work in progress.

Finally for the student loans... I am currently working on an application to consolidate all of them into one. If I get that, it will cut that payment down and make my life much easier. And easier is always better.

I'm a very goal driven person so hopefully all my solutions will work and I can reach this one... if not, there may be more bad weeks in my future.

Until next time,
Mel

Happy 200th Birthday Pride & Prejudice

When I planned my blog for this week I had no idea that we were approaching the 200th anniversary of Pride & Prejudice (bad me) so plans changed today when I was enlightened about the fact that my favorite book/movie/YouTube series is 200 years old (of course the movies and YouTube series aren't turning 200 but the book that made it all happen is).

Like millions of females around the world, Pride and Prejudice's story line sucked me in. I mean, who wouldn't want some ubber rich man with a house like Pemberley to fall in love with them? And here is where my blog turns into a thought provoking, yet probably rage inducing one sided discussion.

Jane Austen is one of my favorite authors and I have all of her books, both on my Nook and in paperback. But something that took me a long time to discover (I can be a slow learner when I don't want to see something) was that Jane Austen has screwed both men and women over. Women are waiting for Mr. Darcy to come into their lives while men are trying to overcome the battle with Mr. Darcy's image for the attention of women. 

As a woman, I won't lie, I have a romantic vision in my head of what my perfect husband should be and a lot of those characteristics include things that relate to Darcy (I personally prefer Matthew Macfadyen to Colin Firth but that's neither here nor there). Granted, I (nor any other woman, I would presume) don't want a man to tell me that he fell in love with me in spite of my family's fortunes but other than his snootiness, Mr. Darcy is kind of the perfect man. He falls in love with Lizzie despite all his insecurities about her and literally saves her family from that century's doom by paying for her sister's wedding to his arch nemesis. 

That's definitely perfect man material... it also gives false hope to all women that every man they find will be just like the fictional character. So thank you Ms. Austen for giving modern writers the idea of creating unattainable men with Darcy and your other male leads... and thank you for giving us men like Wickham so we know who to avoid. Now if only we could figure out how to create our own Darcys in our own real life stories.

And for those that are looking for a modern adaption of Pride & Prejudice that stays new and fresh... I present the Lizzy Bennet Diaries: 

Until next time,
Mel

Hola

Hey everyone,
 
I think it's safe to say that I had a blogging fail this month without even realizing it, as I just saw that I haven't posted on here since Jan. 1. For those that follow the blog for updates on me, sorry about that. 

Like usual, life has been extremely busy but there's not much to write home about as we're just gearing up for Triple Crown season at work and I've also been doing my communication internship at Three Chimneys. The internship involves a lot of press releases and research but I'm loving it. I'm currently only working one day a week there but if it gets especially busy, I may go to two days a week later in the season.

I also signed up for a 5k a few weeks ago but have run into a problem in my training. I thought that I'd be fine with 7 weeks left since I haven't gone the ~3 miles yet in training but now we're down to 5 weeks with the same problem. So I'm beefing up my workout playlist tonight and booking it around the track (or on the treadmill in my case right now) in the coming weeks with a no holds barred approach. I'm blaming most of my problem on a mental block so my goal is to get over that, which isn't as simple as it sounds.

And for my last bit of info... I have officially joined the cat lady club (I can hear my friends laughing now). In a move that I had been thinking of for a few weeks, I went to the shelter on Friday (with a friend that didn't plan on getting a cat when we went there but did) and brought home a 3yo female that looks a lot like my dad's cat. She's quite a bit nicer than my dad's cat (my mom will be glad to hear that) and is almost dog like and overall is pretty cool. And from all the comments I got about her from other racing people, it sounds like I'm not the only one in this club.

So without farther ado, here's Bella (although, she usually does not have that expression, haha).

Good night everyone.

Bringing in a New Year By Looking at the Past and Moving Towards the Future

During the beginning of each year, I find it fun to make resolutions and look back on what I wrote the year before. When I did this as a teenager I was usually disappointed to flip back in my journal or find my “resolution” piece of paper and see that I didn’t keep any of them. Thankfully, that doesn’t seem to be the case this year. So just for the fun of torturing myself by looking back to the beginning of 2012, here are my resolutions from last year.

1) Graduate- Check
2) Get fit- Somewhat check… see this year’s resolution for more info.
3) Eat Healthier- Check
4) Write more- Definitely check
5) Do something outside of my comfort zone- Check… my last semester of college definitely accomplished this.
6) Get back to me- Last year the last sentence of this goal read “I need to learn how to balance new and old and that's a big goal.” I did that in college but after I graduated, I kind of failed on this one, oops.
7) Get a kick butt internship- Check
8) Ride more- Check during school… not so much now
9) Blog more- Check

Overall, I did pretty good in 2012. I’d even venture to guess that this was my best year resolution wise. Of course, leaving behind one list of resolutions means that I have to create another. Thankfully for my sanity, this list is much shorter.

1) Meet more people – What kind of resolution list would this be without a self-improvement item? I’ve lived in Lexington for almost seven months now but during the first six I was afraid to really create a social life since I didn’t know if I would be staying and building a bunch of relationships just didn’t sound like fun if I was leaving again. Now that I am here for the long haul, it is time to act like it.

This is probably my hardest resolution because I am not a very social person when it comes to new people. If you know me, you know that I usually don’t shut up after I get to know you but before that, I am extremely shy. The one thing college and high school did not prepare me for was to meet new people on my own. All of my college friends came from getting to know them through hours of time together studying in the lab while most of my high school friends came from barrel races and my equestrian team. You don’t really have that as an adult. I think the first step here is finding a place to hang out where I can meet people but that’s much harder than it sounds.

2) Read 40 books – I’m pretty sure that I achieved this in 2012 but since my book list was stolen with my phone in May, I’m officially doing it. With the amount of books I read, I don’t think this will be hard but I guess I’ll find out.

3) Run a 5k- I’m four weeks into the Couch 2 5k right now and start week five on Wednesday. I was told that I would never be able to run a marathon or 5k when I was having back problems a few years ago but I am determined to prove those words wrong.

4) Visit another country – The past two years I planned on moving to another country. In 2011, I was going to study abroad in Toronto (Canada) for a year but that obviously did not happen. My plan just 12 months ago was to be in England right now attending graduate school and unless Kentucky is England, I didn’t do that either. With LH going to South Korea to teach for at least a year, I plan on visiting her sometime during this year. 

It’s going to be a bit hard since I have a wedding in Florida to go to in June and I am planning on taking a few days to move the horses here in the spring which is about a week trip, but I am determined to make my other country visit work. My long time goal is to leave the country at least once a year for a vacation or work but for now I’m just focusing on 2013.

5) Avoid petty arguments - I will full admit that I am an overreactive person. If someone tries to start an argument with me without making it into an actual discussion, I get fired up and jump in with both feet (although, I have gotten better on both fronts) This has got me into arguments that just weren't worth my time and in the new year, I'm going to let more stuff roll off my back or at least bring a roll of duct tape with me everywhere I go. It's much easier than wasting time on stuff that was said just to be contrary. 

Goodbye to the Old, Hello to the New

Happy last day of the year and congratulations for surviving the “end of the world”. I took a few weeks off of blogging due to the craziness of the holidays and the whirlwind trip to Washington for Christmas. But I’m back and decided to do a nice little “reflective” post on the year because honestly, there isn’t much else to talk about from the two weeks I was gone. So here’s a quick recap of 2012.

I started 2012 in the middle of a freak out. I was entering my last semester as an undergraduate student and when I left WT for winter break, I had convinced myself that I needed to stay an extra semester to get my minor. This was mostly due to the thought that I wasn't ready for the "real world" after spending 20 years in school. Thankfully winter break talked me out of that idea, even after my advisor and friends had failed. Just a few weeks into the new year, I landed my USEF internship, which went from three months to six after I decided that graduating in May was for the best. This definitely helped keep my worrying about the future at bay for a while, giving me time to freak about other things (like WT telling me I needed some more things to graduate the day that late registration for classes closed 4 weeks into the semester).

A lot of school things happened during the first half of the year but it was mostly a blur of college and friends that went way too fast (except for February, who knew the shortest month of the year could make itself so long). But I made it through it (mostly) alive and after traveling 5,400 miles in 2 ½ weeks after graduation, I moved to Kentucky after dropping my horse off in Washington.

While I came to Kentucky with one set of goals, they slowly formed to another set. Moving to Kentucky was definitely the best thing I’ve done career-wise as I found opportunities here that I wouldn’t have in any other place. I learned a lot from the USEF and in the fall made my move to the racing industry when I got my first real journalism job at the Paulick Report. Working seven days a week was a bit of an adjustment between PR and the USEF but I survived. During the last month of the year, I was hired as a full time employee at America’s Best Racing doing a job that I am passionate about by promoting horse racing.

There have definitely been some ups-and-downs this year but I can confidently say that it probably tops the list of years in my life. Now it’s off to see if 2013 can do the same.

It's Almost Christmas!

It is well-known that before December 1, I don't think Christmas deserves to get a ton of attention. Most of that comes from Walmart having decorations out in August but that's a rant for another day. As we are well into December, I feel like Christmas cheer is allowed here. Plus, Christmas time means that I get to see my girls. 

For most people, girls would be human but it's established that I'm not human so for me girls means horses.

Granted, I am excited to see my family and friends and I'll be spending a ton of time with them during the four days I'm there, but I can call and text them so I'm not really isolated from them while here. When it comes to the horses, I can't really see or talk to them when I'm here. And really, who could not be excited to see this face (ignore mine).

On the work front, I basically jumped right into work on Wednesday. I was trained on the CMS on Wednesday and Thursday and was doing some things that needed to be done video wise on the site only a few hours after I started. I also got to write my first story with ABR that day (ignore the date) and attend meetings going over plans for 2013 so overall it was a pretty successful first day. I've also got an exciting thing coming down the pike in 2013 with them but I'm in the preliminary stages of planning it out right now so I won't unveil it quite yet.

Tomorrow my boss (MC) is off so I am all alone in the ABR section of the office. I am a bit worried since I only have four days under my belt but I'm going in to tomorrow with some confidence that I can't totally mess the site up in less than 48 hours. MC comes back on Wednesday so I'll have support in my office again. Friday is my last day before Christmas and I get to book it up to Louisville after work to chill out at AG's house for the night before getting to the airport at 4am. It's definitely going to be an interesting flight schedule both this way and back with early morning and late night flights and drives but I'm the freak that thinks stuff like that is fun.

Before I leave you for the night, I want to share this picture of the European wonder Frankel's 3/4 brother Bullet Train. It's one of my favorite pictures from when I went to go see him since it's not the normal head on shot or have him centered type of shot. Playing around with weird angles is successful at times.