Here is the list:

1. The Women by Kristin Hannah
2. James: A Novel by Percival Everett
3. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
4. Spirit crossing: A Novel by William Kent Krueger
5. The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
6. Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez
7. The River We Remember: A Novel by William Kent Krueger
8. The Wedding People by Alison Espach
9. Funny Story by Emily Henry
10. The Mighty Red: A Novel by Louise Erdrich

Ebooks

1. Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter (eAudiobook)
2. The Women by Kristin Hannah (ebook)
3. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (eAudiobook)
4. Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer (eAudiobook)
5. The Things We Leave Unfinished by Rebecca Yarros (eAudiobook)
6. Home is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose (eAudiobook)
7. The Women by Kristin Hannah (eAudiobook)
8. Shield of Sparrows by Devney Perry (eAudiobook)
9. The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens (eAudiobook)
10. 1984 by George Orwell (eAudiobook)

How did you do on this list?

The most popular book I read was It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover. 7 million people have it shelved on Goodreads.

The least shelved book was Risk: A Life Saved By the River by Susan Norman. Only 57 people have shelved it. I actually really enjoyed it, and I would recommend it. I heard about from The Ready State podcast. It is a true story of Susan (Sue )’s life and how rivers kayaking was a huge part of her life success and grounding.

1. HWPO: Hard Work Pays Off: A Strength Training Book by Mat Fraer
2. A Runner’s High: My Life in Motion by Dean Karnazes
3. Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger
4. The Heart is the Strongest Muscle by Tia Toomey
5. Chasing Excellence: A Story About Building the World’s Fittest Athletes by Ben Bergeron
6. Resilient: The Untold Story of CrossFit’s Greatest Comeback by Brooke Wells
7. Adrift: Seventy Six Days Lost at Sea by Steven Callahan
8. The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild Happy, Healthy Self by Michael Easter (finished the day after 75 Hard ended)

I also started the year off reading Along Came a Spider. This is the first novel in James Patterson’s Alex Cross series. I don’t know how it took this long to learn about Alex Cross, but my sister recommended the show Cross on Amazon Prime and that got me hooked! I made it through the first 10 books of the soon to be 37 books in the series. They are relatively quick reads and I enjoy them even if they aren’t high literature!

Salvage the Bones is a book you’ve probably not heard of but I’d recommend. The story is set over 2 weeks as a hurricane approaches and the realities of coming of age in a high poverty area of Mississippi. A variety of twists and turns will leave you feeling all the different emotions.

Of the non-fiction books I read during 75 Hard I would highly recommend The Comfort Crisis.

Randomly, at the start of the year, I saw a blog post from the Hennepin County Library of their most checked out books of 2024. I decided I wanted to read all of them!! The list was Top 10 books and Top 10 e-book so there was some overlap, resulting in only needing to read 14 books. I really enjoyed reading outside some of my typical genres, and surprisingly, I hadn’t read any of them yet, though we did have some at home. This project also required doing some pre-reading because you can’t just randomly jump into a series!

1. The River We Remember: A Novel by William Kent Krueger (also #5 ebook)
2. The Women by Kristin Hannah (also #1 ebook)
3. Tom Lake: A Novel by Ann Patchett (also #3 ebook)
4. Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel by Bonnie Garmus (also #9 ebook)
5. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
6. The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
7. Demon Copperhead: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver
8. The Exchange: After the Firm by John Grisham (also #10 ebook)
9. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow: A Novel by Gabrielle Zevin
10. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (also #6 ebook)
11. Don’t Believe It by Charlie Donlea
12. It Starts With Us: A Novel by Colleen Hoover
13. Funny Story by Emily Henry
14. Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez

It is hard to recommend only one of these since they were all so good!! I was surprised that I got into Fourth Wing (read the whole series and anxiously awaiting the next book). Demon Copperhead was powerful in how relatable it is and also the fact that Kingsolver donated proceeds to support the community she wrote about. Okay, fine I’ll go with Lessons in Chemistry with its slightly meta format and engaging story about feminism.

More bookish thoughts to come!

It takes some focus to get to the gallon and a lot of time in the bathroom!  The main water bottle I used was 25 ounces. So a little more than 5 of them! I usually wake up and drink a 16 ounce glass of water. Then I’d drink another 16 ounces with an Amino mix (not counting towards water intake). I’d usually drink another 20 ounces during my workout. And then a 24 ounce protein shake after (not counting towards my water). So all of that before work meant I went to the bathroom a lot in the morning!!

I tried to at least finish a bottle of water during work and then the second shortly after work.  So that’d be about 86 ounces of the 129. And then just try to finish the rest. Obviously the earlier I finished the better so that I wouldn’t wake up and need to go in the middle of the night.  But that maybe happened a quarter to a third of the time. 

I pretty much eliminated any other liquids from my routine (morning tea, kombucha or sparkling water). Because honestly who had room for any more! The few times we went out I’d have a non-alcoholic drink but I also just drank water out. Those were sometimes hard to estimate a quantity on. So I drank extra just to be safe!  I would sometimes throw some LMNT into the water and counted that towards my gallon.

Besides the constant need to urinate I liked drinking that much water.

Though some days it would’ve been easier not to read. Or it would’ve been more enjoyable to spend my reading time caught up in a fictional world. I was able to get this part done relatively easily.

At the beginning of the challenge I would read my 10 pages and stop. At some point I realized that I could read more than that and actually needed to so that I could keep up with returning the books to the library on time! 

By the end of my 75 days I’ve finished 16 books total and finished my 17th on the 76th day. And 7 of those were non-fiction, finishing the 8th the day after. I’m also about half way through a big 700 page book too.

I’ll follow up with a list of my non-fiction books soon.

I wrote on one of the first days that I wasn’t a fan of this task and didn’t really see the purpose in it. I’ve seen transformation pics from the 75 hard, but I had no desire to look at the pics daily.

Before writing this, I decided to look at Day 1 and Day 75. You can see some difference in my stomach area. But nothing too dramatic. I also recognize that for me most changes will be incremental since my lifestyle is fairly healthy to begin with.

Alot of challenges have you do a before and after and maybe a weekly. And for some people that’s motivating. Just not my thing!

During January it was really easy as a lot of people celebrate Dry January. It felt a little more challenging after that. But realistically every place serves non-alcoholic drinks, even if it’s just water. Almost every place we went also served some type of non-alcoholic cocktail or beer too.

Sometimes I enjoyed one of those mock-style drinks, but I really stuck to water a lot since I needed to drink a gallon of it and any other liquid was just extra!

Today was rather uneventful. I did yoga this morning and then did the Out in the Open 25.3 workout in the afternoon. I also did a 1 mile sandbag carry to get the full 45 minutes done.

Walking the shuttle runs was kinda lame, but that’s still where I’m at.  They were also a little hard to count. On the buy out part I decided to just count each length instead of each lap. The thrusters were hard but I expected that since I did so much upper body yesterday too. I finished in 18:23.

The morning was warmish but my afternoon ruck was windy and cold again. We didn’t get any of the anticipated snow so that’s good.