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…