The 15th Floor Overlooking Fenway

For several minutes today I considered running another 7 miles today, but realized I really didn't have much more than the 1.5 miles in me to get to 50 miles for July.

I walked......


Monthly wrap up:

2008 miles: 372.58

Across the street a Panera is being completed. Today we scoped out the plans visible through the window of the corner storefront in our building and couldn't believe it's going to be a Chipotle! Seriously?

We've been trying not to eat out EVERY night, but this is going to make it much harder.

In the push to get to 50 miles this month, I pulled off my 3rd straight 7mi run in a matter of 5 days. Today was significantly harder than the previous two. There are probably a number of reasons for that, but I was able to finish fairly strong. Not sure while mile 6 was easier than mile 4.

Compared to Saturday's treadmill run:

And Thursday's run in the pouring rain:

I'll have to admit that Thursday I took a ~20 min break after ~5 miles to pick up my glasses. Easier to run another couple miles if you stop for 20 minutes.

Now to fit in 1.6 miles tomorrow or Wednesday -- seems pretty reasonable!

....so that Ben could come to the gym with me. I'm feeling a bit behind my pace of 50mi/month because of the day my iPod didn't work. So I have 9 miles left for this week....

I set out this morning knowing it was going to rain, but not caring. I needed to run seriously. Outside. Sometime about mile 3 it started raining lightly and the clouds looked ominous, but I kept running further from home. It actually felt pretty good.

I didn't exactly start heading home once it started pouring, rather headed to pick up my new glasses. By the time I got there it was seriously raining. I wrung out my shirt before I went in to the eye doctor and apologized for being so wet, but they were more than happy to have me in from the rain.

I left and had 2.5 miles to get home. I hadn't been so wet possibly ever. As Scott was writing the other day, I couldn't have been more wet if I was in the shower.

About a mile from home I remembered that I own a very nice, very expensive, paper-thin, Gortex running rain coat. It even has a waterproof pocket for my iPod. It was shortly thereafter that my iPod starting freaking out a bit and again decided it couldn't find my Nike+ receiver. Fortunately, I only lost credit for about 3/4 mile.

By the time I arrived home it was sunny & not raining......

Here's the radar from 30 min after finishing my run. All the green over the coast? That's what I ran through as to moved from Worcester out to see.

My iPod's still freaking out, so I'm giving it some time to "dry" before I freak out. Though I'm beginning to think that maybe the problem is with my iPod & not with my Nike+ receiver.

A "consider yourself tagged if you read this" from one of the many blogs I frequent:

10 years ago: I spent the last summer without my not yet husband, living on a very quiet East Campus 2nd West. Oddly, I lived in his room. I worked full time, started working out for the first time in my life, and studied for the MCAT.

9 years ago: I started seriously applying to medical school, perfecting a personal statement that was all too personal, but who wouldn't ride the cancer survivor story if she could?

8 years ago: We graduated from college and had professional movers move us out of our dorm so it could be renovated into some strange, very Asian dorm for the summer. Later that summer spent 9 hours & $1500 in the Elizabeth, NJ IKEA buying an apartment's worth of furniture for the first "home" Ben and I would start.

7 years ago: I quit my job to move to Illinois for medical school. Ben & I packed everything we owned into a 16' Uhaul truck and attached our 8 year-old Saturn to a car transporter in tow. We spent 4 days driving half-way across the country. (Really only a 3rd.)

6 years ago: In the span of 4 weeks we bought our first new car on a whim, got married, bought our first house, and went on a honeymoon. It was also my last summer off.

5 years ago: I spent 4 weeks studying full time for the first of the United States Medical Licensing Exams. While studying I celebrated the birth of my first niece. After an overnight in Chicago, took the exam which was certainly the hardest of the 3. Several days later took a quick vacation to Vegas & the Hoover Dam. In the meantime, my family postponed my grandfather's funeral so I could return from vacation.

4 years ago: I stopped ignoring the fact that I was meant to be a surgery and declared a "major". In an effort to get my name known I spent 8 weeks in Boston on "away" rotations. It was the longest I spent without my husband in the preceding 6 years or since. I sublet my first apartment and lived with strangers. That fall we cheered on the Red Sox as they won the 2004 World Series, their first in 86 years. I passed up the opportunity to actually see the Red Sox win game 4 in St. Louis because I was studying for the second step of the USMLE. And no one pointed out that it might be the game in which the Red Sox won the World Series.

3 years ago: We took the best vacation of our young lives: a two-week cruise from San Juan to San Diego via the Panama Canal. We arrived in San Diego less than 24 hours before I graduated from medical school in Illinois. Weeks later we sold our house and again packed everything we owned into a 16' Uhaul truck, put our 2 year-old Saturn on the car transporter in tow, and drove back to Boston. After unpacking the Uhaul in Boston, but before spending a single night in our new apartment, we drove it to the IKEA in New Haven, CT to buy a new apartment's worth of furniture. It was the last time we would move ourselves.

2 years ago: I finished general surgery internship. I should say it was the hardest year of my life, but I'm not sure it was. We refused to move out of our apartment for a window renovation project until our new apartment building was finished. We then spent $10k to move less than a mile, and have this fabulous view to show for it.

1 year ago: I started 3rd year of general surgery residency with the hardest rotation of the year - vascular nights. Five nights a week I tried kept 25 people from dying. Sometimes I was successful, and then there was the morning I coded two people simultaneously. After the rotation I took the 3rd and final step of the United States Medical Licensing Exams having studied part time for a week. Sadly the two-day, 600-question exam actually felt like a vacation.

Now, consider yourself tagged.

This rotation seems to be much emotional than adult ones.

She's a beautiful, precious little girl. May she some how be healed some day.

I got home from work early with plans to go running. I got down to the gym, turned on the treadmill, started warming up, turned on my iPod, clicked Nike+ iPod, and got this message:
"Connect receiver before beginning workout."
I unplugged the receiver and put it back in...several times....nothing.
I called Ben for as assist as to how to reset my iPod. He started to tell me "press a couple buttons simultaneously". Yeah, I got that part, look on the internet for me, please.
Tried resetting several times. Same thing.
"Connect receiver before beginning workout."
I considered going back up stairs. I considered running anyway. But, seriously, what would I do if I ran and couldn't log the miles? I was standing on the treadmill, after all.
Still, I couldn't run. I decided it was the sign to do some cross training & got on the elliptical. Formerly I elliptical trained almost exclusively as my cardio workout.
I was bored. Seriously bored despite watching David Letterman on Oprah. Bored.
Why would I be bored on the elliptical and not when I run?
I mustered 30 minutes.

I came upstairs to try to fix my iPod. I charged it fully. Reset it a couple times. Synced it. All to no avail.
I searched the internets. Nothing.
I remembered that when I synced yesterday I also downloaded a new version of iTunes. Had this new iTunes sabotaged my Nike+ iPod?!
Would I ever run again?

Nike+ says the sensor (the shoe part) needs to be replaced after about 1000 hours of use as the battery dies. They sell a separate replacement sensor indicating that the receiver should continue working indefinitely. All the more confounding.

Ben's solution was to wait a while to see if other people were having problems with the new version of iTunes & Nike+. Was I not going to run for a week? No.

I decided the easiest thing was to go buy a new Nike+ kit. All the easier as we live across from the Best Buy.

Ten minutes later. Plugged in, and viola. All fixed. Good as new. My running career is intact.

While I was writing this I did some math:

735 miles at an average of 14'23'' per mile = 175 hours of running....hmmm..... That's a bit shy of 1000 hours. However I guess the wear and tear over 2 years of use adds up. And for $30 it's not worth the effort of seeing if someone wants to replace it.

In searching the internets, it appears that someone else really wanted to claim the miles he had run when forgetting this Nike+ iPod sensor all together. This comes dangerously close to cheating, but he states he only uses it for good & not evil.

...that this does not count as blogging. A treadmill run that didn't start out so well. I dug in and pulled out a pretty decent run.

In an effort to make up for my laziness/tiredness/post-call-ness yesterday, when I left work a tad early, I came home and went to the gym.

Having a time frame plus a twinge of guilt, plus this girl I know with her personal trainer made me run.