Sometimes You Just Need a Bair Hug

     Yes, it's been five entire days since I wrote. It's been a long week, but no real complaints. Thankfully, Monday was a day of "work" at a golf tournament. For all of those who "know me", you can stop laughing now. Yes, I did say golf. I am proud to say that I actually made contact with the ball several times AND my team won the tournament. You heard that right: WON. We definitely got the MOST POINTS of any team, and by a landslide. Representing our anesthesiology group real well over here. But all in all, we had fun driving the golf carts all over and a beautiful day in the 80's, both of which beat a day at the hospital for sure!      Overall, it's been a pretty busy but uneventful week. Not much to report. Lots of hospital time, so much so that I haven't run since my last long run Saturday! While I'd love to be running a bit more during the week, I don't-even on days where I'm lucky enough to get out early enough to. George doe...

    Downtown Dayton view from Mad River Trail:      Yesterday I ran. I was scheduled for a long run, 20 miles, so I knew I needed to head out early enough to beat the heat. I both look forward to and dread my long runs. On one hand, they give me "me" time-time to just focus on being healthy, thinking about everything, and without any distractions of home. On the other hand, they take up a good 3 hours of my day when I could be sleeping, or hanging out with George and the kids, or cleaning, or any number of a million things I need to to.....which is also part of the reason WHY I run. Because if I didn't, I'd find another excuse to do a million other things that NEED to get done, but aren't in any way related to self-care. And then there's that whole knowing that I'm going to be sore as shit after a long run....that's a bit of a deterrent as well, but clearly not enough of one because I keep going back.      I was always an intermittent, casual ...

     Yesterday was decent-not a busy day on L&D, but I got a few spinals and epidurals. And on a high note, I got to head out early at 4pm which allowed me to go for a run. I normally reserve running for early morning because it's hotter than satan's ballsac around here, but 4:30am wakeups have me not the happiest. And like hell if I'm waking at 3:30am to go run (plus, it's dark and kinda creepy because 3:30am isn't "early morning", it's still "middle of the night"). So I decided on an easy pace trail run because it's 99% shaded and hopefully a little cooler (it was 85* yesterday afternoon when I started). Most of the run, I just felt sluggish. I know part of it was the heat, part humidity, but I really just think that I'm not meant to run much in the evenings. It's like I've exhausted my energy reserve the first part of the day and I'm running on empty, quite literally. But I slogged through 5.5 miles and made it home...

     Hallelujah! While at work today, new appliances were delivered! I have to say, as much as I LOVE this new house, I am really sad that we had to leave our beautiful kitchen in North Wales and a little disappointed in the kitchen here. To tell the truth, we didn't find a house in our price range with a phenomenal kitchen (hell, we even looked at homes nearly DOUBLE our target range and were let down by the kitchens, so it is what it is), so we knew coming in that no matter how great the rest of the house was, the kitchen wouldn't be amazing. However, we're not undertaking major renovations this time around, so neither one of us wanted a complete gut job. Our kitchen really isn't a bad layout, it is just kind of dark and "old lady" style. The cabinets are a dark cherry, appliances were black, and countertops are black granite tile (UGH...tile). And it's not a super open kitchen, so it kind of felt like a black hole. Then, when we moved in last month, we ...

    Monday mornings....definitely made better by the absence of 5:30am didactics and 4:30am wakeups. I decided to choose the healthy option of still getting up a bit early and running. Awoke at 5:15 and got up to run a few miles. I discovered that I'm really not a fan of running in the dark. Houses around here generally have some outside lighting, but it's still not enough to really illuminate the sidewalk very well and I'm paranoid about catching my toe on an uneven break in the sidewalk. We have one on the path from our driveway to the front door and I've damn near broken my toe on it several times and we've only lived here a month! However, running in the crisp, cool morning air is so nice. It was a balmy 65* when I ran this morning and was so comfortable. Anyways, long story short: I actually only ran a slow turtle-pace mile. One measly mile. Afterwards, I kinda wished I'd have just slept in that extra time because, even though I know intellectually that one...

     I survived my first week of intern year/residency AND my first HO shift! One day of "rest" and then back at it again tomorrow morning. Thankfully, our program director for anesthesiology approved dropping one didactic session per week (meaning we get to sleep in an extra hour), so we all chose Monday. Because nobody likes Mondays and showing up at 6:30am instead of 5:30am makes Monday *that much more* bearable.      I haven't run AT ALL since my long run last Saturday. I had planned to do 7-10 miles on Wednesday, but dropped it and rested since I felt like crap. I was scheduled for 8-9 miles today and figured I'd head out whenever I got up.....I needed one day of waking without an alarm. After coffee (of course), I headed out from home to The Narrows Reserve, literally just outside our neighborhood. I talked with one of the attending OB/Gyn's who was on L&D Thursday/Friday who also runs. She gave me several good areas to check out for trails, and ...