Run the World: Becky Wade's 3500-Mile Journey through Running Cultures

Review originally ran in Shelf Awareness for Readers. Reprinted here with permission.

Champion marathoner Becky Wade travels to nine countries to explore running cultures.

In 2012, NCAA All-American star and Olympic hopeful Becky Wade received a Watson Fellowship to travel around the world to explore her passion: running. "Seventy-two beds, eleven pairs of running shoes, and 3,504 training miles later," Wade has since become an elite marathoner, drawing on her experience of cultures in nine countries to perfect her sport. In Run the World, she tells about her travels--and the lessons she learned along the way--in precise detail. 

European Adventures | Scotland | Edinburgh | Book Bloggers, Harry Potter's Birthplace, and Arthur's Seat

Continuing my photos from our month of European Adventures, September 2014.

Our second day in Edinburgh started off with something really special: tea and breakfast with Tanya of 52 Books or Bust. She reached out to me before my trip when she saw I'd be in her town, and you know I won't pass up an opportunity to meet another book blogger.

I saw Tanya read drink tea in real life!

European Adventures | Scotland | Edinburgh | Royal Mile, Literary Pub Tour

Continuing the photos of our European Adventures, September 2014.

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After a week in Ireland, we took a very short flight over to Edinburgh, a town we originally planned to visit just so The Beard could have his fair share of whiskey (whisky) tastings. It ended up being our favorite stop of the trip, and someday, I promise, I will go back.

The view from our apartment window. I only had to lean out a semi-dangerous amount to be able to see the Sir William Scott monument (the spire-like building just to the left of center).

The first day we landed fairly late in the afternoon, so made our way to our apartment. We stayed right on The Mound, which proved to be perfect walking distance to most anything we wanted to do in town. We walked around Old Town a bit to get our bearings, then headed out for food:

Royal Mile

St. Gile's Cathedral

Our first meal was (shocking, I know!) whiskey with haggis, neaps and tatties, not pictured, with whiskey, also not pictured. But it was delicious.

Perusing a whiskey menu the size of most diner menus in the U.S. at Whiski Rooms (near The Mound--great food, great whisk(e)y offerings).

After a rousing meal of booze and strange food, we decided to dive right into a literary pub tour to see the city. (We did a similar tour in Dublin on our last night in town, and decided we'd prefer to do it earlier in our stay to get the lay of the land and make notes of places to go back to after the fact...)

Cider seemed the smartest choice for a tour with 6+ pub stops.
Also, if you're in Edinburgh, The Edinburgh Literary Pub Tour was great.
Good entertainment, good trivia, good tour of Edinburgh and its literary history.

Our Literary Pub Tour starting point: The Beehive Inn, in Grassmarket

And the last stop of the night, The Queens Arms in New Town.
Slightly blurry photo taken by a slightly tipsy (very nice) friend from the pub tour.

Seeing as I could barely keep my slightly tipsy eyes open, off to bed we went. But look at the view on our walk home!

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See the rest of our trip (or rather, what I've posted photos of so far) here.

European Adventures | Ireland | Newgrange and the Hill of Tara

We spent our last full day "in Dublin" actually on a bus tour outside of Dublin, booked through Mary Gibbons Tours. Unfortunately, Mary Gibbons herself--who comes highly recommended by Yelp, TripAdvisor, and the Rick Steves Ireland: 2013 book we found in our AirBnB--was in the hospital that day, so we had a stand-in. Actually, a stand-in for a stand-in; I understand Mary Gibbons' husband sometimes stands in when she can't conduct tours, but he was (understandably) tied up that day.

Unfortunately, the tour guide we did have, nice as she was, didn't have much to offer in the way of actual Irish history (but did you know that you can tell how old a wooden staff is by cutting it open to see how many rings it has?), but the bus tour was a) smooth sailing and b) arrived at all sites on time and in one piece.

So who can really complain?

The Newgrange Tomb.

Spring! at Monocacy National Battlefield

Spring has officially sprung here in Maryland, and we took advantage of this weekend's sunshine to head over to Monocacy National Battlefield. On the ranger's recommendation, we opted to wait to do the Worthington Farm Loop until the bluebells bloom (because that sounds amazing, no?), and instead walked the Thomas Farm Loop, pictured below:

European Adventures | Ireland | Kilkenny | Smithwick's, Kilkenny Castle & A Round Tower

I've been remiss in posting these photos from our trip to Europe in freaking September, so I'll be trying to work through one day's worth of photos per week from here on out. That means I should wrap up this series of travel photos in about six months (within a year of our trip!). Fingers crossed.

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Because we (namely, I) didn't revel in the terrors of renting a car in Dublin city proper, with all of its strange traffic patterns and driving on the wrong side of the road, we opted instead to take a train to Kilkenny and rent a car from there. After a day spent driving around to see the Rock of Cashel and the Jameson Distillery, we spent a night in Kilkenny and had most of the next day to kill before catching the train back to Dublin.

Looking over the River Nore in Kilkenny.

European Adventures | Ireland | Rock of Cashel and The Jameson Distillery

It's been nearly three months (three!) since we left for our month of European adventures, and I'm still (slowly) working through all the photos of our trip. It's taking longer than anticipated, but it's an delightfully meditative process; going through each day in photos is like reliving the very best parts of each day, and then picking the best of the photos is picking the best of the best.

And so, the best of the best of our day in a rental car, spent driving through County Tipperary (to see the Rock of Cashel) and County Cork (to visit the Jameson Distillery, of course):

The Rock of Cashel

I've been known to read while walking. In this case, Rick Steves.

Right about here is where I exclaimed, "I'm so glad we rented a car!" Old stone things and I get along.

Isn't it picturesque?

I honestly might not have been surprised if a leprechaun had come frollicking out from behind that tree.

The town of Cashel. That hot pink cafe -- Grandma's Kitchen -- is where we had lunch.

The Jameson Distillery

If I'm perfectly honest with myself, 99% of the reason we rented a car was to go visit the Jameson Distillery, and we just happened to stop at the Rock of Cashel along the way. Maybe that's not such a bad thing...

Like the Guinness brewery, the Jameson distillery does not allow you to tour the actual working facility--though you can see its sage green towers behind the old distillery buildings. Instead, it's a tour of the old distillery buildings as they used to be--which contain the world's largest pot still--and a museum to the history of Jameson and Irish whiskey.

The most important room of all?

The home of the Master Distiller.

Someone was excited...

European Adventures: Dublin, Ireland | Dublin Castle, St. Stephen's Green, a Literary Pub Tour

Another day in Dublin, another day of siteseeing: Dublin Castle, which is a surprisingly mismatched collection of old medieval walls, an early 19th-century church, medieval foundations, and staterooms that have hosted everything from Taioseach speeches to JFK visits. And then, in case that didn't hold enough Dublin history in one place, we ventured over to St. Stephen's Green, where I promptly started reading Joyce's Dubliners, because how could I not?

Oh, yeah, and we went on a literary pub tour. Because beer + books = best.

Dublin Castle

The only remaining tower from Dublin's original medieval city walls. It's now a police museum.

Old medieval walls pressed up again modern buildings... a thing about Europe that will never cease to surprise me.

This carriage wall was actually built in the mid-19th century, but designed to look like part of the medieval castle.
Note: That green is not retouched. It's really that shade of green.

The Chester Beatty Library, because: free library with exhibits on the history of books. Duh.

One of the "new" wings of Dublin Castle, from the courtyard.

My uniform for all of our stay in Ireland: hiking/walking shoes, raincoat, jeans, sweater, bun on top of my head (none of our apartment rentals had a hair dryer...), Strand tote bag.

The kinds of photos one finds on one's camera when one lets one's husband use the camera.

Underneath the modern Dublin Castle, medieval foundations from the original city walls.
Interesting side story: There is a river that flows underneath of Dublin city, and pools of water can be seen from that river here under the castle. The river's name? Dubh Linn (pronounced "dove linn", which means "black water" in Irish Gaelic); the now-buried river is what gives the city its name.

For contrast: one of the staterooms in the castle above (this is where JFK was hosted when he visited Dublin). This is a mere three stories above those medieval walls, but centuries away.
All of the rooms are about this decadent, though we realized after a few photos that we weren't supposed to be taking photos in there. 

St. Stephen's Green

You know how you hear about how green Ireland is? Well, yeah. Those rumors are true. (Even more true in the countryside, but even Dublin is remarkably green.)

The husband and his authorly idol.

Quite possibly the best sandwich I have ever, ever eaten. That bread is called a blaa (not a typo), and I am making it my life mission to learn how to make it. 

Because it's not self-explanatory: The Famine Memorial. 

Seriously, those colors though.

No really. That ivy.
Believe you me this is what had me breaking out Dubliners as soon as we got back to our apartment.

Literary Pub Tour

I'll admit I didn't take many pictures on this tour (too busy drinking beers and soaking in the literary trivia), but if you ever find yourself in Dublin, I can't recommend this pair enough. 

Trinity College at dusk.

European Adventures: Guinness Brewery and Kilmainham Gaol

It's taking me longer than expected to sort through all of our several thousand Europe photos, but working through the trip in chronological order... I've made it to day 2: a tour of the Guinness Brewery, and a walk over to Kilmainham Gaol.

The Guinness Brewery

Unfortunately you can't tour the actual functioning brewery, but they have made quite an impressive museum out of the build that housed the old brewery. I'm just as fascinated by old architecture as I am by beer-making, which made for an excellent seven-story walk through the old factory building.

Plus, we got to pour our own Guinness pints, and I was able to cross another thing off my 30 by 30 list: drink a Guinness in Ireland.

Drink a Guinness in Ireland: check. (And at the Guinness Brewery, no less.)

From the top of the Guinness Brewery (starting our tradition of climbing to the tops of things in every city we visited).

Kilmainham Gaol

This prison was built at the end of the 18th century, replacing the old jail nearby (both were technically outside of Dublin city limits at the time). Kilmainham staged public hangings and executions in its front courtyard, but truly became famous during the Famine--when people would commit crimes with the intent of being thrown in jail so that they would have something to eat (prisoners were crammed several dozen to a cell, and the hallways functioned as overflow "storage," but at least they were fed every day, which was more than could be said of the outside)--and again during the Rebellion in the 1920s, when it housed political prisoners--and saw many of them shot.

For those familiar with (or interested in) Irish history, an interesting series of facts: Eamon de Valera was held here after the 1916 rebellion, but released by the British forces because he was not believed to be a threat (little did they know). He was later held here again during the Irish Civil War, so the famous Irishman has not one but two cells with his name on a plaque over the door. And because history likes to take things full circle, when the prison was officially re-opened as a National Monument, guess who cut the ribbon? Eamon de Valera, Taioseach of the Irish Republic. 

If you've seen In the Name of the Father, this should look familiar to you.

The prison's stoneyard, historically where prisoners would break stones as work during the day.
In 1916, however, it was where 14 leaders of the Easter Rebellion were executed by British Forces. 13 of them were shot at this end of the courtyard, marked by the cross.

Before the executions, public opinion had not been in favor of the rebellion. But after 14 young men were killed in rapid succession, the tide of public opinion began to shift.

James Connolly, the 14th and final prisoner to be executed here, was shot on the opposite end of the courtyard. Because he had been injured during the Easter Rebellion, he was held in a hospital, not at the prison itself. He was brought by ambulance to the courtyard for execution, and, unable to stand to face the firing squad, was tied to a chair for his execution.