Treadmill Goals/Tracking

• Get on the treadmill (or equivalent exercise) daily
• Pace is fine at 30 min/mile, although I may up it on occasion
• Time range between 30 minutes and 1 hour per day
• Distance 1-2 miles per day
• Read the chosen book. I’m officially modifying my original rule of not reading the book-of-the-week off-treadmill. I’m usually going to look at length and try to divide it up somewhat evenly per day, even if that means either closing that book early (if it’s short) or continuing after (if it’s long).

Week 170: February 23, 2020 – February 29, 2020

DAY	PACE	TIME	DISTANCE
Sunday	30 min/mile	34:55 min:sec	1.1 miles
Monday	30 min/mile	32:32 min:sec	1 mile
Tuesday	30 min/mile	31:32 min:sec	1 mile
Wednesday	30 min/mile	30:14 min:sec	1 mile
Thursday	30 min/mile	30:22 min:sec	1 mile
Friday	30 min/mile	30:52 min:sec	1 mile
Saturday	30 min/mile	30:17 min:sec	1 mile

What I’m Reading

Note: Although I will try to avoid them, my weekly reading snippets may or may not contain spoilers, so read at your own risk.

What I #amreading: Tricks by Rick R. Reed

Tricks can mean many things: sex partners, deceptions, even magic … or maybe all three.

Arliss is a gorgeous young dancer at Tricks, the hottest club in Chicago’s Boystown. Sean is the classic nerd, out of place in Tricks, but nursing his wounds from a recent breakup. When the two spy each other, magic blooms.

But this opposites-attract tale does not run smooth. What happens when Arliss is approached by one of the biggest porn producers in the business? Can he make his dreams of stardom come true without throwing away the only real love he’s ever known? And … will it even matter if the mysterious producers realize their dark intentions?

My favorite lines this week…

✿✿ SUNDAY ✿✿

“Get out there, gorgeous! Shake your groove thing!” Emmett cackled and placed a hand on Arliss’s back to propel him forward.

Just as much to get the hand off his back as to get to the stage, Arlis threw open the door, plastered on a big smile, threw his shoulders back, and strode through the crowd, keeping his eye on the narrow strip of bar that would, for the next fifteen minutes, be his stage.

✿✿ MONDAY ✿✿

“Yeah, I think I can do Sunday.” Arliss scratched his head, wondering how this would go. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been on a proper date. Had he ever? Was he stepping into a foreign country where he didn’t know the language? Would he make a fool of himself?

✿✿ TUESDAY ✿✿

But what rankled him the most was sneaking out that back door into the relative calm of the early morning. He felt like a thief, like he was on the run from something he should be ashamed of yet knew in his heart he had no reason to be.

✿✿ WEDNESDAY ✿✿

The last couple of months had approached bliss. In his thirty-odd years, Sean realized, he had never really been in love. There had been lust, there had been infatuation, and there had even been need doing a damn good impersonation of love, but now that the real thing had come along, Sean knew he had never met it before.

✿✿ THURSDAY ✿✿

And now he was frightened of going out in that living room, of seeing Sean sitting there, sad, in the wan light of dawn…just sitting there. Arliss would know he was somehow responsible—justified or not—for his man’s pain. That fact tore him up inside. Hurting the one you loved was worse than hurting yourself, and that was a lesson Arliss was maybe just learning for the first time.

✿✿ FRIDAY ✿✿

He splashed some water on his face, thinking about going out on that balcony and smoking a few cigarettes before he hopped in the shower. Maybe he should even make another Bloody Mary. The hell with that, maybe he should just pour himself a nice tumbler of ice-cold vodka.

✿✿ SATURDAY ✿✿

He only wanted Arliss back in his arms. Home. Sean simply needed to set the clock back to before Arliss had left for work only the night before—it seemed so long ago, now—back to normal. They had been a couple, happy, in love. Could things ever be put right again?