Book Review: "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

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This is the book I was supposed to attend book club for last night, however we have all been sick with the flu so I did not make it. I had a lot of difficulty with this book, but having finished, I am very glad I stuck with it. It's a powerful and compelling memoir where in Ayaan Hirsi Ali describes her childhood and upbringing as a Muslim and her escape from that life to becoming a politician and an activist and the ramifications that follow.

My Rating (via GoodReads): 4/5 stars
Kobo Price: $16.99

The reason I think I had so much difficulty with this book is that it was highly political and I've never been truly interested in politics so I found a lot of sections difficult to follow. However I think all of that was definitely necessary to the memoir itself, I just found the first half of the book dragged on. Anyhow there were so many compelling topics in this book that it was hard to ignore and walk away from, plus it was a book club book so I had to finish it. The detail spent describing her Muslim upbringing is truly fascinating and horrifying at the same time. I've only ever had a vague understanding of the Muslim religious beliefs and their treatment of women, this really breaks it down for you to a point where I was almost crying in some parts.

Now I should probably mention that I'm sure not all practicing Muslims behave in the manner of those mentioned in this memoir and I am in no way attacking anyone's religious beliefs. I can't quite possibly imagine going through the events that this author went through and the courage and strength it must have taken to escape from such a situation and further more speak out against the religion and the abuse that occurred. I really enjoyed the second half of the memoir where she talks about her journey to Germany and the Netherlands and her introduction to a more modern society.

I highly recommend this, though it is really deep and in some parts complicated it is worth the read for sure.

Work It Out Wednesday

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Wow that was quite the double workout! I started off by meeting Nikki to go do some hill training, we went for a short warmup before and also were hoping to run into the rest of the crew from the running room. From there we headed over to the hill, which I'm going to be honest, I have completely been hiding from since September. When we got there all the memories of that hill flooded back. We call this particular hill "marathon hill", typically the first week of hill training is 3 hills and the last week is 9... 3 was okay, 3 was good, it was hard though especially after Sunday. The total run was about 6.5km.
Next up -- I headed over to Equilibria for my session with Felipe. I have to say I felt a little down after last week, when we did the agility ladder it required so much coordination that I was much slower than I'd like to be (it all worked out though because I really didn't want to be sore for Sunday's race). Tonight, I feel awesome, I know I worked hard and I feel strong. Check out some really unattractive photos of me flipping the tire:

I still felt like there were lots of things I could improve on, specifically with the core and back exercises. We did a suspended plank with the TRX and holy moly was that hard. Perhaps I need to take up the plank-a-day challenge like my fellow blogger, Runner Leana. I also read about the Nike Training Club app on her blog, I just downloaded it yesterday and I already LOVE it, also it's FREE. With most of the exercises you need little to no equipment.

So that is all for this Wednesday because unfortunately I've fallen very far behind on my book club book, "Infidel" and now have 3/4 of the book left to read for Friday night. I'm also planning on baking something for book club, I was thinking almond croissants or coffee cake, any suggestions?