Marvelous Monday: Week 40

Whoa. Typing "Week 40" feels pretty serious. And it's October, too. Wow!

Here are some marvelous notes to start the week:

1) Reading report: I finished In the Garden of Beasts, which felt a little slower-moving than Devil in the White City (the other book I've read by author Erik Larson) - but not in a bad way, just because each page was so full of research and detail that I felt like I had to mull it over slowly and carefully. It was a very interesting piece of the story of pre-World War II Germany, and again, I can't say enough about how fascinating I find Larson's method of combining letters and diary entries and other pieces of evidence into a smooth narrative. I mean, the footnotes section is 55 pages long. Can you believe that?

Reading that book so deliberately made for a strange transition to Gone Girl, a book I am absolutely tearing through because the plot is so crazy that I would like to find out what happens next.

2) It's Twin Cities Marathon week! I am loving the conversations I've been having with friends who are running one of the races this weekend. A couple of runners who I don't even know started talking to me about it when we were all waiting a stoplight on Summit over the weekend. The buzz is here for sure. And the weather for Twin Cities Marathon (and Chicago Marathon the same day) is - knock on wood - supposed to be dreamy.

3) I love October. I just love it. Nat reminded me today that I have a lot of exciting things happening in the next several weeks. I can't believe it's almost marathon time (in three weeks for me) - and time for my Montreal trip.

4) We started a new training class for Wish on Wednesday - well, by that I mean that I sent Josh and Wish to the training class by themselves because I had a meeting and couldn't go. (Oops.) Josh briefed me on what I missed, and we have been working more diligently with Wish on our walks over the last several days. I love to see how the training works (or at least is starting to resonate) and to see how responsive the pup can be, and I like the messages this class is sending. More on this later when I form more coherent thoughts. I am just happy about this class and am excited to go this week.

5) I went for a run early this morning and it was dark and oddly warm and windy. The leaves were swirling like crazy. I don't care much to consider that leaves are falling off some of the trees now at a rapid rate, but it was kind of eerie and properly October-like - but also fun because the wind felt warm instead of chilly. Also marvelous: now that I'm tapering and thus cutting back on my running to rest up for race day, my morning miles in the dark will start to dwindle.

What is marvelous about the start of your week, Reader? Anybody racing this weekend, in the Twin Cities or otherwise? What is the best part of fall for you, and what are you reading now? I'm almost ready for more book recs!