Books Read:
24. The Shadow of the Wind — Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Kilometres Ran:
this week — 46.08
to date — 425.12
Sometimes I’m reading a book and I think that it’s going to get better or at least I’m hoping that it’s going to get better and sometimes it does and other times it does not and then I get to wondering if I’ve wasted my time and if I just should have stopped reading this book that I’m not really enjoying and forego the sense of accomplishment that comes with being able to put down a book as finished rather than as abandoned. I wanted to like this book, but I just couldn’t get into it, and as a result it sucked up way too much of my time. Mostly because I tended to avoid reading it. And to say that I read it is a stretch. To say I skimmed the last half of the book is probably also a stretch. I don’t know what it was about it that I didn’t enjoy. Maybe it was that I didn’t find the attempts at suspense suspenseful. Maybe the mystery wasn’t very mysterious. I’ve disliked characters a lot more than I disliked this guy. Maybe I didn’t dislike him enough. I don’t think I found him emotionally engaging at all, like or dislike. And (I think I mentioned this last week) I found the dialogue mundane and pandering to the reader. Perhaps it was the translation. I don’t know. I’d wanted to be excited by the book about going to Barcelona next week. I am excited, but not because of the book. Alas.
Normally here is where I steal a running photo and insert some completely non-related quote from whatever I’ve been reading into the photo as a sort of mock motivational image, but I’m not going to this week. I did it last week, and I don’t think this book deserves two. And I’m feeling lazy.
Not too lazy, though, but perhaps a bit tired because this is one of the best weeks for running that I’ve had so far this year, including another half-marathon-plus at a decent pace that makes me think that the impending BMO on May 1 isn’t going to be so bad, though that’s still a bit away. But I’ve done two half-marathons now in the past couple weeks and if nothing else I have the mental side covered in that I’ve no doubt in my mind that I am going to be able to run it and finish it and maybe even finish in a decent time. We’ll see, since with this trip overseas looming I’ve a bit of a break from my running routine to get past, and then I have to get motivated to get back into it when I return. The head games that I play with myself seem to be my greatest obstacle.