2015 and 2016

Most years I generally do some kind of recap of my training and what I did over the previous 365 days. (Here is 2013 and 2014.)

But this last 365 days (or really 367, since it’s already Jan. 2) were a bit much — Steve jokes that if we wrote a Christmas newsletter it’d end with “oh, and Kelly also got her Masters” — and I didn’t really keep a detailed log of my training the whole time, so I can’t tell you how many miles I biked or how many yards I swam. I kept an approximate log in the spring, but it got a little loose after the L.A. Marathon fiasco. And after I handed the reins over to Hillary, I stopped thinking completely (I mean, for me). This, by the way, is my secret, if I have one. Stop thinking, be boring, get faster.

So I don’t really have a lot to say about this year. Or I don’t want to say anything, rather. I’m just going to keep doing what I do.

Instead, here is a list of the books I read this year:

• The Ten-Year Nap – Meg Wolitzer
• *Fate and Furies – Lauren Groff
• *Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon – Ed Caesar
• Atonement – Ian McEwan
• Leaving Before the Rains Come – Alexandra Fuller
• Funny Girl – Nick Hornby
• Reamde – Neal Stephenson
• *The Oyster War – Summer Brennan
• *Us – David Nicholls
• Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore – Robin Sloan
• The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.  – Adelle Waldman
• One More Thing  – B.J. Novak
• The Financial Lives of Poets – Jess Walter
• When to Rob a Bank – Steven Levitt
• Seige and Storm – Leigh Bardugo
• Shadow and Bone – Leigh Bardugo
• *Off Course: Inside the Mad, Muddy World of Obstacle Course Racing – Erin Beresini
• Man of My Dreams – Curtis Sittenfield
• *Run – Ann Patchett
• The Best American Sports Writing 2014

* means I’d definitely recommend it; some of the others I’d also recommend depending on who you are

And I re-read The Hunger Games (because, obvs) and I’m pretty sure some other books, but I don’t remember what. And now I sort of want to re-read all the Harry Potter series (because, why not).

I also wrote stuff, since that’s what I do. Some of it I liked; plenty I didn’t. Here are my favorite things I wrote this year, in case you want to read about sports that aren’t football or baseball:

• How Did the U.S. Women Get So Good at Triathlon (espnW)
• The Man Who Won and Lost American Ninja Warrior (VICE)
• Forced Upgrades: Make the Best Amateur Triathletes Turn Pro (TRS Triathlon)
• Inside Crossfit’s Weird, Cultish, Moneyed-Up Rival: The Grid (VICE)
• Obstacle Course Racing’s Unlikely Star (espnW)
• Who U.S. Women’s Soccer Wants to Be (Beacon)
• Women’s Triathlon is an NCAA Emerging Sport — So, Now What? (TRS Triathlon)
• Tips for Running an Overnight Relay Race (Competitor)
• How the 86-Foot-Tall Union Square Christmas Tree is Built (KQED)

I also liked a few of my blog posts this year (most of which are about triathlon, hah):

• I’m Not Getting Into the 50 Women to Kona Debate (Because It’s Not a Debate)
• The Slowtwitch Question
• The Case for Incivility
• Escape from Alcatraz: Let the Pros Race
• Why Don’t You Write More About Training
• I Do Not Understand the Kona Obsession

We’re in Tahoe right now, which I find slightly funny (and picturesque, etc), because I’m pretty sure four or five years ago I told Steve, “Of course, I don’t ski. Skiing’s for rich people.” And now I’m the proud owner of hundreds of dollars of ski clothes. (Not that I downhill ski more than once every four years. I am not the biggest fan. But after the last time we were up here and I was wearing Vans with holes in them and multiple sweatshirts as a coat, I insisted that I needed some actual winter clothes.)

This past year involved a lot of traveling places — living in L.A. for part of the year; racing in San Diego and San Luis Obispo and Clemson, South Carolina and Wisconsin; going to Ireland and Vancouver and Seattle and Eugene and pretty much everywhere in Northern California; Ragnar in Utah and family reunion in Florida; and weddings in Phoenix and Boise and L.A. (again) — so you’d think 2016 would be less hectic. But you’re wrong. Plans are already overwhelming. That’s OK, though. I’m just staying the course. The only thing I’m hoping to do differently in the next 363 days is ‘be more me,’ which sounds stupid, but basically means that I want to actually say the things I want to say and do the things I want to do. Which you probably thought I was already doing. So, hah.