Challenge (mostly) Completed!

 November is officially over and that marks the end of my birthday challenge month. The last day of the challenge began with a four-mile run at 8:00 a.m. and ended at 9:30 p.m. when I posted my last review. 

I intended to plan out a four-mile run in the shape of "42" but ran out of time so I ran a small "42" at the beginning of my last run (can you find it?!)

Things didn’t go exactly according to plan, but since it was still a challenge to complete everything, I’m going to count it as done. 

The physical part of my challenge (running a total of 42 miles during the month) went pretty well. I did my last four-mile run yesterday morning. It felt like the hardest run I did all month. This is probably because I was exhausted from lack of sleep and not enough rest days (I was running almost every other day for a good part of the month). Here’s my running log: 

November 1: 2 miles (29:34)

November 5: 2 miles (27:13)

November 7: 2 miles (27:10)

November 10: 2 miles (27:02)

November 12: 3 miles (43:32)

November 14: 4 miles (58:39)

November 17: 4 miles (56:31)

November 19: 4 miles (54:05)

November 22: 4 miles (57:56)

November 24: 4 miles (58:45)

November 26: 3 miles (40:49)

November 28: 4 miles (54:54)

November 30: 4 miles (57:07) 

I don’t think I mentioned it in my last post, but all of my running was done pushing my daughter in her stroller. No wonder I was getting exhausted. Whew. I’m glad to be done and get back to running with sufficient rest days. 

Now for the reading and reviewing part of my challenge, I wandered astray a little from the challenge I set myself. I wanted to review 42 picture books that released this year. But I ran into some trouble with this in terms of obtaining this many books. I reached out to more than enough authors to secure my goal, but I didn’t hear back from all of them and not everyone had digital copies to share. Faced with not having the chance to read and review 42 books, I decided to make a few small tweaks. I included a few books that aren’t picture books (still all children’s books though), a couple of books that released last year, and I reviewed a few books that I was able to get at the library from people that I hadn’t reached out to (I did try to connect with them on social media without any mention of reviews). 

It was getting down close to the wire, but I did manage to finish without even having to stay up late. Here’s my list of books: 

1.     1.     Mac and Cheese and the Personal Space Invader by Jolene Gutierrez and Heather Bell

2.     Bionic Beasts: Saving Animal Lives with Artificial Flippers, Legs, and Beaks by Jolene Gutierrez

3.     Dance Like a Leaf by AJ Irving and Claudia Navarro

4.     Bedtime Daddy by Sharon Giltrow and Katrin Dreiling

5.     Numenia and the Hurricane by Fiona Halliday

6.     The Passover Mouse by Joy Nelkin Wieder and Shahar Kober

7.     Catching Thoughts by Bonnie Clark and Summer Macon

8.     Taste Your Words by Bonnie Clark and Todd Bright

9.     The Fort by Laura Perdew and Adelina Lirius

10.  Lloyd Finds His Whalesong by Skylaar Amann

11.  Guess Who Is Behind the Door: A counting book in 4 languages by Susan S. Novich

12.  Grama’s Hug by Amy Nielander

13.  Raja’s Pet Camel: the Magic of Hope by Anita Nahta Amin and Parwinder Singh

14.  Benny’s True Colors by Norene Paulson and Anne Passchier

15.  Brown Sugar Babe by Charlotte Watson Sherman and Akem

16.  Two Dogs on a Trike by Gabi Snyder and Robin Rosenthal

17.  Help Wanted: Must Love Books by Janet Sumner Johnson and Courtney Dawson

18.  Furia by Yamille Saied Mendez

19.  A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat

20.  The Ugly Doodles by Valeria Wicker

21.  Soaked! by Abi Cushman

22.  No Fuzzball! by Isabella Kung

23.  Dozens of Doughnuts by Carrie Finison and Brianne Farley

24.  Evie’s Field Day: More Than One Way to Win by Claire Noland and Alicia Teba

25.  Digging for Words: Jose Alberto Gutierrez and the Library He Built by Angela Burke Kunkel and Paola Escobar

26.  I Am Goose! by Dorothia Rohner and Vanya Nastanlieva

27.  Emily’s Idea by Christine Evans and Marta Alvarez Miguens

28.  The Elephants’ Guide to Hide-and-Seek by Kjersten Hayes and Gladys Jose

29.  Sometimes People March by Tessa Allen

30.  Any Day With You by Mae Respicio

31.  A Bowl Full of Peace by Caren Stelson and Akira Kusaka

32.  The Stray by Molly Ruttan

33.  In a Jar by Deborah Marcero

34.  Ducks! by Deborah Underwood and T.L. McBeth

35.  Speak Up! by Miranda Paul and Ebony Glenn

36.  Lotte’s Magical Paper Puppets: The Woman Behind the First Animated Feature Film by Brooke Hartman and Kathryn Carr

37.  National Regular Average Ordinary Day by Lisa Katzenberger and Barbara Bakos

38.  It Will Be OK by Lisa Katzenberger and Jaclyn Sinquett

39.  The Knife in the Shadows by Bekah Berge

40.  Snow Day in May by Christine Evans and Patrick Corrigan

41.  Dream Flights on Arctic Nights by Brooke Hartman and Evon Zerbetz

42.  Just Like Beverly by Vicki Conrad

I really had such a good time reading all of these books and connecting with most of their authors. All in all, this was a great challenge. I enjoyed running, but the reading was a lot warmer. And a lot less painful.

 

Well, that’s a wrap for my birthday challenge. Stay tuned next year for more of my adventures

A Pandemic Birthday

Don't mind the dust around the edges of this blog--it's been neglected for a couple of years now.

I skipped my 40^th birthday challenge due to a knee injury. I wound up getting a tattoo on my birthday instead.

Then last year I skipped my birthday challenge because I was eight months pregnant.

This year marks my 42^nd birthday. Having been a fan of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy since I was a teenager, I’ve been looking forward to this birthday for a long time. I also was really looking forward to being able to do a proper challenge this year. But between having an 11 month old (not to mention the almost-five-year-old) and the pandemic, I just couldn’t make a full-day challenge a reality.

So instead I’ve planned a two-part month-long challenge involving two things I wanted to do anyway: get back into running and give back to the writing community.

For the running part of the challenge, my goal is to run 42 miles during the course of the month. I started out slow because I had surgery to repair a hernia at the beginning of October. November 1^st was my first run post-surgery. I did a two-mile run (which I wound up doing as a run/walk) to kick things off. I didn’t plan out the runs very well (OK, I honestly didn’t plan them at all until today) in terms of balancing rest days and miles per run, so now I pretty much have to do four-mile runs every other day to finish my goal. I’ve run 23 miles so far and I’m really hoping I can finish strong.

For the giving back part, I decided I wanted to read and review 42 picture books that have been released this year. In addition to this, I’m connecting with the authors of the books to build my writing community and help support my peers. This part of the challenge has been making me so happy. My fellow writers have been so warm, kind, and generous. It’s been an absolute pleasure to read so many wonderful books. I’ve read and reviewed 25 books as of today.

While I’m happy with running and reading, I’m a little disappointed not to have a created an elaborate challenge related to Hitchhikers like I had initially been imagining. So maybe tomorrow (which is actually my birthday) I’ll just grab my towel and try to find a cow that’s willing to be eaten…

Belated Birthday Challenge

Pre-challenge

My birthday came and went over six months ago and with it went an un-attempted birthday challenge. A few days before the big day, I tweaked my shoulder doing a workout. I took two months off from climbing and when I went back to the gym in February, my shoulder was still a little sore. But I kept climbing one day a week for an hour and trying to build my strength back.

Last week marked my half birthday and I decided I couldn’t leave my 39^th birthday challenge undone any longer. My husband had Memorial Day off and my mother-in-law comes on Mondays to watch Baby Z, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Being a holiday, traffic was light, but the gym got busy quickly. I started my three-hour timer and picked out my first V0 of the day. My strategy was to warm up on mostly V0s and V1s, do a few V2s, and then knock out all nine V3s in a row. This strategy worked well. After the warm up, I did three laps on a slightly crimpy V3 with an abundance of handholds. Then I moved on to three laps on another V3. This one challenged me at the end of my first go and I almost came off. But I pulled it together thanks to my husband pointing out an unseen foothold. I had flashed both of these problems on a previous gym session and I was fine with repeats, but it seemed like it would be a better challenge if I could also do some new V3s. I dug deep and was able to climb three new V3s.

At this point, I started to feel like the challenge I was attempting was too easy. I was feeling fine, had about half of the time left, and only had 19 problems to do. That’s when my husband said that the only logical thing for me to do would be to attempt to have 10 each of each grade V0-V2. Initially I thought that the V3s would break me and that I’d only have strength left to do easy climbs, but since I was doing OK I agreed to the new constrictions.

I had only done two V2s for my warm-up, so with eight to go I searched the gym for problems that looked doable. I wound up with several repeats, but I also flashed three new V2s. I kept thinking about my friend Sarah and a blog post she once wrote about marathon training: running is easy, running is hard. I found that it translates to climbing. Every few problems, I’d find myself sitting on the mat thinking either: climbing is easy or climbing is hard. It’s weird how exhaustion (both physical and mental) can come and go so quickly.

Post-challenge

I ticked off the V2s and moved on to finishing the V1s and V0s. I began to be inspired to finish early so that my husband and I would have time to get lunch before going home for Baby Z’s nap. And wow, does food motivate me. I finished with 14 minutes and 18 seconds left on the clock. And we had time to dive into some delicious Korean food.Despite being six months late, I’m so happy and relieved to have had the opportunity to attempt my challenge. And I’m delighted that I was able to finish it too! I was also really pleased that I didn’t fall off a single climb.

I was so thankful that my husband was able to come and support me. I may have been able to do it without him, but it was really useful having someone try new problems for me and help me out with beta and unseen footholds.

Now it’s time to start planning the Big F birthday challenge. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate turning 40. Although getting an ice cream truck also sounds pretty good…

Revving Up for 39

November is here once again, which means that my birthday is right around the corner. I’ve been thinking about how I want to do another challenge for months now, but I didn’t come up with the details until yesterday. This probably doesn’t bode well for me actually completing the challenge. However, I’m not willing to throw in the towel yet.

I finally settled on a traditional (and uninspired) challenge: climbing the same number of boulder problems as the age I’m turning. There are a few restrictions and limitations that are providing the parameters (and perhaps making it impossible to complete). I have three hours to do the challenge (my mother in law will be watching Baby Z for this amount of time and three is part of 39 so that works well). I’ll have to make it home in order to put Baby Z down for his afternoon nap. Aside from climbing 39 problems, I want to have 9 of them be rated V3 (which is currently the hardest grade I’ve been climbing in the gym. I’ll climb as many different problems as possible, but there will certainly be repeats.

Adding to the challenge is the fact that I’m a *little* out of shape with my climbing. I’ve only been going to the gym a few days a month and climbing for around an hour. So I’m pretty unprepared for what I’ve got lined up. But I do feel like I have a chance of completing it, which means that it fits the bill for being a good challenge.

I’ll be bouldering solo, which is a bummer since encouragement is always nice, but my husband has to go to work and I don’t have any other climbing partners in the neighborhood. Even if it doesn’t go well, at least I’ll have given it the old college try! Carpe Diem.   

Stair Master

In the weeks leading up to the challenge, I had managed to write up a series of turn-by-turn directions for the routes and had them on my phone. In addition to this, I had the map with pins on my Google maps app and photos of the maps with the hand-drawn routes.

Rain was in the forecast for my birthday and unfortunately the predictions were accurate. It rained overnight and was gray and drizzly in the morning. After breakfast, I got my things together and we loaded the little one into the car and drove the short distance to the start of the first route. Since it was only drizzling, I decided to risk not bringing an umbrella or wearing rain boots.

That's Baby Z under the red hood

 I put Baby Z into the baby carrier and covered him with an extra rain shell. Then I put on my rain shell and started up the first set of stairs. The route I started with (which I had labeled Route 2) pretty much follows one street and has multiple sets of stairs that lead up to the next two streets uphill that run parallel. So there was a lot of going all the way up and all the way back down to get to the next set of stairs.

The drizzle got heavier as I walked and Baby Z fell asleep. I was happy with my choice of rain shell coverage since it never actually rained properly and wearing rain boots for a long walk sucks. As I was heading for the last stairway, I realized that I had neglected to include turn-by-turn directions to it. Thankfully I was able to use my map to figure out where to go. After an hour and seven minutes, I had finished the first route which wound up being 2.2 miles long. My husband drove over to pick us up and take us back home.

After resting for about an hour and a half, which coincidentally overlapped with a huge downpour, we set off in the car again to drive to the next route. My husband suggested that if things seemed like they were going well that I could combine the next two routes (Route 3 and Route 4) because they were both short. The finish for Route 3 and the start to Route 4 are very near to each other. In order to link them I had to add one extra trip down the first set of stairs on Route 4. But it seemed like a good way to save some time, since dealing with the baby and car trips was very time consuming.

When we arrived at the start of Route 3 it was pouring, so I started putting on the carrier and checking my gear inside the car. To my dismay, I realized that I had left my phone at home. So we had to drive back to get it since all of the route info was on it. At this point I was a little worried about how long the rest of the routes would take and I was not sure I’d be able to finish before dark. When we got back to the start of Route 3, it was still pouring, so in addition to the two rain shells, I wore rain boots and carried an umbrella.

First stairway of Route 3

I was feeling good when I finished Route 3 so I decided to continue on to Route 4. It took me one hour and 16 minutes to walk both routes which had a combined distance of 2.5 miles. Then my husband came to pick us up so we could go home to rest and have some lunch.

After sitting down for a while, I started to feel tired. The last route I had to complete (Route 1) was the longest and I wasn’t sure how long it would take. I thought it would probably take about two hours and so if I started it by 3:00 p.m. I’d be able to finish before it got dark.

The rain stopped during the afternoon break, so I didn't have to bring any rain gear for the final route. We drove to the start of Route 1 and I started up the first set of stairs with Baby Z in the front carrier. My brother decided to join us and met us at the third staircase. I had sent him my turn-by-turn directions, but then I did a bad job of reading them to myself and told him to meet us at the wrong staircase. We were just about to head up it when I realized my mistake. Then we had to backtrack to the correct staircase.

 

First stairway of Route 1

Most of the last route just felt like a total slog. Up a set of stairs. Turn around and back down. I found another error in my directions and had to check the map to figure out where to go. But despite the delays, we finished just as the sun was setting. We decided to walk back to my place instead of getting a ride from my husband. This added an extra trip down the last set of stairs as well as a 15 minute walk, but we still made it back before dark. It took two hours and five minutes to walk the 4.89 mile route.

By the time we got home, I was feeling pretty beat and Baby Z was more than ready to get out of the carrier. I took a much needed shower before heading out to a celebratory dinner.

I expected to feel sore the next day, but I was in for a nasty surprise when the soreness in my calves lasted for four full days. Every step up or down made me cringe. Who knew that carrying a 23 pound baby around all day as you slog up and down staircases would wreck you?

  

Time: 4 hours, 28 minutes

Distance: 9.56 miles

Stair steps: 4,215 

Preparations Continue

For the last few weeks I've been working on revisiting the stairways I chose in order to count how many steps each one has.The grand total is 2,381 steps. I've also spent a lot of time plotting the stairways on a map which you can look at here. The map includes two extra stairways that I won't be doing as part of the challenge (Claremont Path in Berkeley and Unnamed #7). I wound up miscounting as I found stairways and in the end I had 40 on my list. So I cut out the two shortest and least inspiring ones. The complete list with steps counted is at the end of the post.

After plotting the stairways on the map, I printed out paper copies of different sections in order to work on planning a route. After a few days of staring at the maps without being able to figure out where to start to do it easily and simply, I asked my husband if he knew a clever way to do it. His answer was not only that there isn't an easy way to do it, but that it's one of the most difficult problems to solve. It's a version of the Traveling Salesman Problem (a computer science algorithmic problem, see here if you're interested) and it's NP-hard (see here if you want an explanation of that because I can't say I completely understand what it means).

While I was happy to learn that I wasn't overthinking the problem (I was apparently under-thinking it), I was disappointed that there isn't a good solution. But it did make me realize that I should just plan a route and not worry too much. I planned four separate routes because going out and doing all 38 stairways in one go just isn't going to happen with a baby. Since I'm set on ascending all 38 stairways and they are the most direct way to walk through the neighborhoods, I will wind up descending 24 of them as well. As you can see below, the routes are a total cluster. The stairs are each marked with a blue marker and a red arrow shows where the stairs go. The routes are marked in blue and green ink with arrows along the lines to show direction.

So now the planning stage of the challenge is complete. Just a few weeks left before it's time to see if it all works out.

1. Upper Belap Path (Buena Vista to Contra Costa: 70 steps)

2. Lower Belap Path (Golden Gate to Buena Vista: 76 steps)

3. Erba Path (Broadway to Contra Costa: 80 steps)

4. Lower Arbon Path (Broadway Terrace to Buena Vista: 67 steps)

5. Upper Arbon Path (Buena Vista to Contra Costa: 132 steps)

6. Lower Chaumont Path(Golden Gate to Buena Vista: 48 steps)

7. Upper Chaumont Path (Buena Vista to Contra Costa: 76 steps)

8. Brookside Lane (Brookside to Ocean View: 62 steps)

9. Claremont Path, Oakland (Brookside to Ocean View: 66 steps)

10. Unnamed #1 (Broadway to Margorido: 112 steps)

11. Unnamed #2 (Golden Gate to Buena Vista: 55 steps)

12. Arollo Path (Golden Gate to Buena Vista: 64 steps)

13. Gondo Path (Golden Gate to Buena Vista: 31 steps)

14. Unnamed #3 (Modoc/Morpeth to Proctor: 83 steps) 

15. Oakridge Steps (El Camino to Oak Ridge: 124 steps)

16. The Cutoff Path (The Plaza to El Camino: 37 steps)

17. Park Path (El Camino to Oak Ridge: 49 steps)

18. Ridgeview Path (Rock Ridge to Ocean View: 47 steps)

19. Unnamed #4 (S Rock Ridge to Margorido/Mendocino: 55 steps) 

20. Quail Lane (Margorido to Acacia: 42 steps) 

21. Upper Prospect Steps (Margorido to Manchester: 76 steps)

22. Lower Prospect Steps (S Rock Ridge to Margorido: 51 steps)

23. Unnamed #5 (N Rock Ridge to Margorido: 80 steps)

24. West Lane (Manchester to Ocean View: 41 steps)

25. Claremont Path, Berkeley (Hillside to El Camino 9 steps)

26. Willow Walk (Alvarado to Alvarado: 76 steps)

27. Unnamed #6 (Claremont Hotel parking lot to Alvarado: 45 steps)

28. Eucalyptus Path (Alvarado to Alvarado: 140 steps)

29. Oakridge Path East (Domingo to Oakridge: 21 steps)

30. Pine Path (Russell to Avalon: 51 steps)

31. Avalon Walk (Palm to Avalon: 43 steps) 

32. The Steps (Hillcrest to Hillcrest: 65 steps)

33. South Crossways (Roslyn to Hillcrest: 50 steps)

34. Unnamed #7 (Parkside to The Uplands x2=1)

35. The Footway (The Uplands to Hillcrest: 37 steps)

36. Lower Verona Path (Romany to Mathieu: 52 steps)

37. Upper Verona Path (Mathieu to Acacia: 21 steps)

38. Lower Locarno Path (Cross to Acacia: 51 steps)

39. Upper Locarno Path (Acacia to Alpine Terrace: 62 steps)

40. Andeer Path (Romany to Yorkshire: 43 steps)

Ready...Set...

I’m gearing up for my birthday challenge this year and I’m getting pretty excited. Last year for my 37^th birthday, I was eight months pregnant. I had initially wanted to do a challenge, but as my birthday approached I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to. My knees were shot from running a 12K when I was seven months pregnant (damn relaxin!) and I had pregnancy-induced carpel tunnel syndrome.

So…fast forward to my 38^th birthday which is looming in the near future. With just a little over two months to go, I still have plenty of time to work out the difficulties I’m encountering with the planning process, as well as work at getting my knees in shape for a whole lot of work.

The challenge this year, unlike previous years, has a name: The Secret Stairs Challenge. Every time I say it I think of Nancy Drew which makes me giggle. I’m a huge Nancy Drew fan so I’m happy to give a nod to that super cool girl sleuth.

I live in North Oakland close to the Berkeley border and while I don’t live on a hill, the Oakland/Berkeley hills are just up the street from me. Since having a baby last December, I’ve spent many hours walking around the neighborhoods near my apartment carrying the boy in the Ergobaby carrier. After too many laps on the same loop, I started wandering around and exploring. And to my surprise and delight, I discovered that there are numerous “secret stairways”: short cuts connecting the long, winding neighborhood streets.

So to celebrate turning 38, I’ll be attempting to ascend (and probably descend some as well) 38 different secret stairways while carrying the little darling. The pre-challenge challenge has been finding 38 sets of stairs near me (check!) and then mapping them and creating a route to follow. I’m very thankful I still have some time to work on mapping the route because everything takes SO much longer to do with a tiny helper.