Brandice.net Blog

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow. Four stars instead of five because I feel a bit worn out from the stress of the almost constant struggling of every single character, and the intense description of cathedral construction was a bit much at times, but it was SO worth the read.

Several different passages at the end of the book brought me to tears, and overall this was such an epic, sweeping description of the struggle between good and evil, while also constantly detailing the grittiest and tiniest details of each significant moment. I don’t think I could go through it again, but I’m glad I read it this one time, and I loved the ending.

View all my reviews.

Here’s a final shot from the last race I did on July 5th. Jessica (right) did the 5-mile and I did the 2-mile and we both had to do some walking because it was over 90 degrees at 8 freaking a.m., but I was really happy with finishing at all.

Later though, last Thursday actually, I went out for a run and I did the entire 2-mile course plus an extra 1.1 miles to complete a 5K without any walking whatsoever, to prove that I could do it at 5:30 a.m. even if I didn’t run the entire thing the day of the race. I was pretty psyched. :)

I’ve been slacking a bit with the running for the past week though… It feels like I don’t have anything coming up soon enough to keep me sharp with the running, so it’s more of a push to really get me out there 3 times a week. Still pushing, though!

I’m also pretty sure that my “yay, I’ve lost 50 pounds!” milestone gift to myself is going to be a bike (of the bicycle variety, not a hog). Something to keep me active seems like it would be a good pick me up when I will still have 25-30 pounds left until I hit my goal weight. Only 5 pounds until that bike, though! :)

“We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are.” – Anais Nin

This is one of my favorite shots lately… such a neat shot to begin with and then I had fun playing with it in Camera+.

The quote is just one that I’ve been thinking of a lot lately. What does what you see in the world around you say about how you see yourself?

Absolutely my favorite feature of the new Flickr photo page. I hated having to click around to get the embed code from other screens. Woo!

Just finished an hour long voice memo out on deck. What a beautiful day!

Voice memoing to Laura = still a favorite thing to do, even on the NEW iPhone. :) More on my voice memoing adventures some other time. It’s a GREAT way to maintain a long distance friendship in an very sustainable way.

“Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.” - Muhammad Ali

So, I had planned to blog about my second 5k race a week ago, the Jackson Night Glow 5K, but it just didn’t go well and I think I blocked it from my mind after last weekend. I had wanted it to be my first ALL running 5k and it just didn’t happen after I forced myself to run a fairly steep hill and then just crashed multiple times. I ran at least 2.5 miles of it, but I was struggling so much at the end that I was nearly in tears.

I ran it in about 46 minutes (worse than my first by a couple minutes) and I’m just chocking it up to a really humid night and pushing myself way too hard at the most difficult point of the run. I had a popsicle, listen to Jim’s reassurances, and then moved on.

One thing that this 5k reminded me of, however, is a criticism that I have of the Couch-to-5K program, which I finished in May. The program is really great, and it really did ease me into running in a really positive way that felt truly manageable at every point (even when I was pushing myself it was never an impossible push), BUT…

I wasn’t able to run a 5k when I finished, because it doesn’t train you to truly run a 5k. The program helps you to be able to run for 30 minutes, which is only a 5k if you run just under a 10 minute mile, which might be possible for someone who wasn’t a true couch potato when they started, but it’s kind of unrealistic for someone who’s never run in their life (me) and had a lot of extra weight on their body at the start (and is still firmly in the overweight category, despite losing 40 pounds).

I signed up for a 5k back in May that was right after I finished the training and at my 14-15 min mile pace, I was completely unprepared for a 45 minute run with no walking, especially road running. The program was amazing, but calling it Couch to 5k is a little misleading. I’ve started the Bridge to 10k program and I know it won’t truly train me for a full 10k at my pace, but it might actually get me comfortably up to doing a full 5k with no fear of failure.

On a positive note with the 5k running, I did complete a 3-mile run to Jim’s grandparents’ house on Thursday night with NO walking for the first time. Google mapped it as exactly 3.1 miles, but my running app measured it as 2.89 miles afterward, so I’m just taking the difference and counting it as a great 3 mile run that DEFinitely gets me closer to an all-running 5k completion than I’ve ever been.

Stay tuned for results of my first 2-mile race on July 5th. I’m very comfortable with running 2 miles, so I’m really looking forward to it. :)

Here are the shots I took during the unboxing of my iPhone. A proper review might come later, but mostly I’m just enjoying the phone’s existence.

[Photo album if you can't see the slideshow]

Things I love:

1. Display quality (holy COW)
2. Camera(s) (HD, 5 MP, front-facing, all gooood)
3. Battery life (it is noticeably better)
4. iOS 4 (rocks)
5. iMovie (although I’m still figuring out how to use it)
6. Design (it’s substantial to hold, beautiful design)

Thing I want:

1. Qik and Ustream compatibility with iPhone 4 cameras (fix it!)