The 15th Floor Overlooking Fenway

Given the fact that it was to be more than 50degrees on Jan 8 plus the fact that I had no inpatients and no cases until noon (= no need to be at work early), I figured I no excuse not to go running today -- OUTSIDE. Weather.com said the "feel like" temp was 40 when I left about 8:30a. I donned the layers and gloves and set out. It was a bit chilly, but I took my gloves off once I started running. It warmed up quickly. The air wasn't too cold on my lungs, but certainly gave me a running nose.

By the time I got toward home it had to be atleast 50. I wanted to keep running but really did need to get to work. Plus 6+ miles always seems great during the run, but turns out not to have been so great the next day.

I like to run in a loop, since running 3 miles away from home isn't too hard and sometimes I forget I have to run the same distance to get home. One of the longest loops I have is from our apartment down and around the Jamaica Pond. (Click the link -- you really want to.) It's a nice route along the Emerald Necklace, so it relatively traffic free. As opposed to my other long route along the Charles River, it suffers from less wind off the water. My Nike+ told me that 6.57 miles was my longest run ever -- have to love Lance Armstrong giving you feedback at the end, it makes you feel like a complete rock star.

As you can see I'm not a very fast runner, but that's never been the point.

I have been running with the Nike+ iPod since June '06. Even when I was my most fit (the year between undergrad and med school when I worked out 5-6 days a week, could squat almost my body weight, leg press twice that, wore pants 2-3 sizes smaller, etc), I wasn't much of a runner. In those days I cross trained on the elliptical, stair master, and bike.

During medical school I rode my bike a lot and could rock Paul's 65 minute Spin class -- bring it you silly skinny sorority girls 5 years younger than me. I still miss Paul's Spin class.

When we moved to Boston, our first apartment had a sorry excuse for a gym. Plus being an intern did not work well with any sort of exercise schedule I previously had. Working out was hit or miss.

Enter Nike+ iPod which first appeared in June '06. I've always been a Nike girl, owning a large amount of Dri-Fit and wearing Nike shoes. I was also lucky enough to have an iPod Nano, which is the only iPod that supports the device. Saying Nike+ changed my life is a bit dramatic, but relatively true.

I wasn't much of a runner and was no longer as fit as I was once was, but this little thing motivated me. Combine the Emerald Necklace, motivation, and a good book on tape (well, now iPod), and I some place became a runner. The Nike+ iPod is a two part system. The sensor fits into your shoe. (The special Nike shoes have a cut out for it.) The receiver connects wirelessly to your iPod. The two track your speed, distance, calories, etc. All of this is displayed nicely on your iPod, and there is verbal feedback at specific intervals, or anytime when you press the center button. Workouts can be selected by distance or time. Of course you can listen to your favorite tunes, podcasts or books on tape.
The Nike+ iPod website is also fantastic. Once your iPod is synced, your workout data is uploaded. You can compare old and new runs, track your mileage, set goals, join challenges, chat with other runners, and so much more.

You'll see my last 5 runs over on the right side. They are from the fancy Nike+ website. When outsite, I map my runs, and link to the maps.

Nike has also expanded its line of Nike+ gear with pants, shirts, hats, etc that allow you to interface with your iPod nano more easily. There's even a new watch/remote.

Lots of people have blogged about their hacks to make the Nike+ sensor work with non Nike+ shoes. Given that I have no problem wearing Nike running shoes, I'll let you search for them if you're interested. I haven't tried any of them out, so can't give any advice.

More on the running theme....

Nike+ has goals (that you set for yourself -- run a certain distance, run more often, increase your speed), challenges (interact with other runners), and now resolutions. When you meet your goals or win a challenge, you get trophies added to your trophy case. I generally don't make resolutions, but decided I could for this intance. So I looked at my stats.

2007 monthly totals of miles run:

That's a total of 324.4mi run/walked in 2007. My schedule varies alot from month to month, as you can see in April at May I ran more than 80 miles each month but didn't run a single time in July (I was on vascular nights -- one of the hardest rotations). I figure I should aleast be able to run that same distance in 2008 especially if it's a priority. Therefore, I've entered 325 miles in 2008 as my "resolution". This seems not too hard since that's 27 miles a month. BUT I know there are months that I won't be running much. For instance, for most of March, April & May I will be rotating at our hospital in Cambridge to which I ride my bike -- about 3.5 miles each way. Nike+ doesn't work on a bike, so there's no way to get credit for those miles. Nevertheless, I'm going to go for it.
Nike+ spreads out the "resolution" (325 miles in 2008) and asks your goal for January which I've set at 30 miles. Here's my January goal meter as of today (Edit: the goal meters update to real time whenever they are loaded, i.e. with each page load, so the meters are accurate to when you're reading this):

Part of me says that 30 miles in 4 weeks is a pretty lame goal, but then I remembered that most of the year I work 80 hours a week, so I'll cut myself some slack.

This rotation really hasn't been that bad despite the home call, plus I didn't have to leave for work until 8am this morning. While the temperatures are still a bit warmer than usual, darkness + pouring rain = tredmill run. I usually find tredmill running a bit boring and have never liked the fact that you can just decide you're done and hop off. (See my previous entry about running away from home and then needing to get myself back.)

However, it was a good run this morning. I underestimated my snooze time (and didn't really want to get up at 6am when I didn't have to be at work until 9am), but got myself together and was down in the gym before 6:30a. BUT it meant I only had an hour, maybe 65 minutes. I had already decided I needed to run 5 miles. This was partially because my Wednesday run got foiled by stupid people and despite the 50 degree weather I was driving back and forth from Boston to Needham six times.

I'm slow, I know. So 5 miles in an hour and good for me. I didn't expect to hit it, but I did. That is at least the good thing about running on a treadmill is that I find I can challenge myself more. I find it difficult to pace myself when running outside even though my Nike+ will tell me how fast I'm going. I just tend to run faster than I want to and therefore can't run as far.

I've forgotten how good it is to work out first thing in the morning because you can generally do just about anything for the rest of the day and have it be a good day.

Hmmm, I see someone left a message for me on my Janurary goal, but I have to keep running to see it. Looks like I should get it with my next run -- which should be tomorrow. Very cool.

A strange afternoon workout because Ben wanted to come with me -- and he's certainly not up early enough to workout before lunch.

I ran almost the entirety of the first 5 miles (after a 1/4 mile warm up) though the 5th mile kinda kicked my ass in order to fit it in under an hour. Then I did an extended 1 mile cool down at a leisurely pace.

Better than the post workout shower was coming up to find out who left me a message on my goal page. But it was anonymous! Thanks for the support whomever you are. So far I'm at 21.7mi in January (my goal is 30 which I should easy make).

Now where's the beer and live music?

Yesterday clinic wasn't scheduled to start until 9:30, but there was this snow storm, so I had to allow double the time to get to work. Regardless I still should have been able to get out of bed and get to the gym as my alarm was set for. Sometimes the husband and the flannel sheets win over the treadmill and running shoes. Plus, there was a lot of snow outside. (Don't remind me that I don't have to go outside to get to the gym).

I think I was actually listening to my body that it hurt and wasn't going to run for a 4th day in a row.

By the time I left the hospital today I decided I should run. I figured an easy 3 miles would be reasonable and if that was all I wanted to do that was enough.

Yeah, well sometimes 3 miles becomes 5 miles in less than 60 minutes.

Which means I completed my January goal:

Then I did some arm/back stuff because I was still feeling good.

For some reason I thought this was run was much slower than I had been running lately. I was pleasantly surprised.

You might notice there's no warm up, that's because I actually forgot to turn on my iPod (I was watching TV at the gym), which means I actually don't get credit for the first 1/2 mile. It just occurred to me that maybe not having the 1/2 mile warm-up significantly increases my overall pace. However, who wants to not get credit for all the parts of the run?

The run itself: a standard "get on the treadmill and run". Nothing exciting. Maybe someday I'll be ambitious and do some speed work. It's still a tad too cold to run outside, because I'm not crazy.

I've also decided that Family Feud is possibly my favorite running TV. John O'Hurley might be my favorite host of the modern era. I guess I'm not the only one:

Our new host, John O'Hurley's quick wit and sophisticated style resonates with viewers who remember the Richard Dawson era.

After spending the first half of the day on the couch watching TV, knitting, and napping, I decided I finally had to get off my ass.

I'd say that 5 miles each under 12 minutes, and all but the first under 11:30 is more than decent. I've changed my Janurary goal to 50 miles, which is easily attainable as I'm at 44.27 mi right now.

I started getting blisters at the end of yesterday's run, so I wore different shoes today forgetting that those were usually the blister-prone shoes. That's my excuse for only going 4 miles and not running many of them.

Oh well, 4 is better than zero.

I had gone out at lunch and it seemed to be on the warm side though overcast. Then the sun came out and it seemed awfully nice.

Weather.com claimed that it felt like it was 40. I changed my clothes and decided to go OUTSIDE to run. If I have to wear more than running tights, a shirt and a sweatshirt it's too cold for me to run outside. I opted for running tights, a shirt, and a longsleeved shirt over top plus my dirty running shoes. (And by dirty, I mean old and messy.) They would become my muddy running shoes before it was over.

What one can't easily estimate from the 15th Floor Overlooking Fenway is how windy it is. There are a couple of visible trees, but it doesn't help much. Currently there are no flags flying at Fenway to help judge.

It cold. And windy. Regardless, I ran. I'd be pretty lame if I didn't. Though I could have go inside to the gym.

Here was my path around the short loop of the Fens and a bit of the Emerald Necklace. (Go visit -- it combines two of the coolest things: Google maps & Nike+.)

It looks like a funny run for me for two reasons: (1) I was running to a Nike+ Workout (see next entry); and (2) I kept encountering big patches of mud that I didn't really want to run through, so I'd slow to to walk and try to get the least muddy. It was a good thing I was just about home at 4 miles because my iPod died at that point.
Overall, I will not become one of those crazy people who run in the cold. When I got inside weather.com claimed it felt like it was 26. That's too cold for me.

Today is National Wear Red Day to promote women's heart disease awareness. I'd be lying if I said that was why I ran today since I didn't even remember until I was watching The View (which would be the first episode of the The View I have ever seen -- wasn't so bad).

This weekend you should call your mothers, sisters, aunts, and grandmothers and (gently) harass them about their heart health. Heart disease is the number one cause of death among women and many of the risk factors are modifiable.

Pretty good I'd say. While I still have too many pants that don't fit, I can run 6 miles.

I had this crazy thought while I was in the shower about running a marathon. Summer 1998 I spent at MIT without Ben (the last summer we were apart, I think) and I was studying to take the MCAT. I started "working out" that summer. I couldn't do much but I had lots of time on my hands. At that point I had this crazy plan that either I would get in to medical school or run a marathon. I have no idea why they were mutually exclusive. Hmmm.....maybe run finish a marathon before finishing surgical residency? That's a lot less crazy than, say, having a baby during surgical residency.

Did I really run the 4th mile in less than 10 minutes (9:50). So I was the girl in high school who couldn't finish a mile in less than the 16 minutes the President said I had to. Hmmm...makes me want to find those other stupid skills we had to do, like the arm hang and sit ups and pushup and seated reach.

Now off to a movie and dinner. What a great way to spend a Saturday.

In surfing the internet this evening, I found a very cool tool at Runner's Word. What should I wear? gives you recommendations for what to wear based on the temperature, sun condition, wind, and if you like to be cool or warm. For instance I found out that during my run last week when I froze my but off, I should have been wearing a hat, long sleeve shirt (check), tights (check), jacket, and gloves (check). Guess it sounds easy when you think about it....

I think I need to go back to work and my real life because I'm about to get caught up in the running thing.

I joined a fun new challenge today:

I've run 26.5 mi this week which means I can easily get to 30 miles for the week of vacation (my weeks start Monday) which I would say was a pretty good vacation even if I didn't put away the laundry (yet).

Today's was a short run because I have things to do:

And because 16+ miles in 3 days was starting to wear on me.

I finished with 30.52 miles which is the second most I have EVER run in a week (most was 30.72 in May 07). Tomorrow I'm back to working 80hrs a week and waking up before 5am.

Here's my plan for the next 4 weeks (the length of this rotation -- afterwhich my schedule is quite wacky and I will reassess then):

• run twice a week during weeks that I am on call on Saturday
  
• run 3 times a week if I'm off for the weekend (or just on call on Friday)
  

I somehow left work at 12:30 (how is that my service is ridiculously slow) right after Ash Wednesday mass.

Since I knew it was unlikely that I would run again before Sunday, I set out to run 6 miles. I've never before decided to run 6 miles. Usually it just happens.

Somehow this gives me 22.8 miles for Feburary.

The last two days have made me feel like a regular person -- I voted, got ashes, went running. I suppose regular people put away the laundry, too.

My random Saturday on call for transplant surgery wasn't too horrible yesterday. I came home this morning at 8am having slept a couple of random hours. Before I left the hospital I had given thought to running when I got home. However, it is amazing how absolutely different one feels during the last 10 minutes in the hospital versus the first 10 minutes at home. I came home and got into bed instead.

In the afternoon I could have sat on the couch in my pj's watching TV and knitting for the rest of the evening. But I made this deal that I would at least run twice a week despite being on call on Saturday. It's really not that much, so I decided to get off my ass.

Throughout the entire run I kept reassessing and bargaining with my self as to how far I'd run. Somehow I squeaked out 6 miles.

That gives me 12+ miles for the week and leaves me with zero of the guilt that would have come from sitting on the couch for the rest of the evening.

I can't completely explain today. After my first patient failed to show up for her surgery, I stood for most of 9 hours operating:
1. Exploratory laparotomy, biopsy of mesenteric mass (which, after several hours, we deemed unresectable), bowel resection, hand-sewn bowel anastomosis
2. wide local excision of an arm melanoma
3. umbilical hernia repair

I was leaving about 6:15 when I found out that Ben was stuck at work. I really wanted to lay on the couch until he came home. Instead, I went for a little run. Crazy. Maybe this was just my Lenten sacrifice.

Nothing fancy, and I came upstairs because Ben came home. I should be able to get my 3 runs in this week. My goal is 15 miles this week.

....it must be time for a long run.

Not sure where I got the speed from because it was the fastest 6.5 miles I've ever run. The 6 miles was under 66 minutes which is great for me.

It also means I finished my February goal already -- maybe I need to make these goals a bit more difficult.

I'm still on track for 15 miles this week (remember my week starts on Monday).

The aforementioned plan for the day is out the window, but it's still been a pretty good Saturday.

Grr, I just discovered that the old Nike+ widgets are all angry and want to be reloaded. I will, but just this once.

I should have known that if I ran the fastest 6.5 miles ever yesterday, that I should have taken today off. Except I had this silly goal of 15 miles this week, and would have been a run behind my "run 10 times in 4 weeks" goal, and there's really no projection of being able to make that up.

Alas, I "ran". It took 2 miles before I could find a pace I could sustain for even a mile. At that point I listened to by body and walked the remaining 1+ mile in order to have 15 miles for the week. I shouldn't be so hard on myself, it wasn't 15 miles for the week, it was 15 miles for 3 DAYS.

Then I did some upper body weight lifting so now my arms as are jelly as my legs are.

I'm off tomorrow, so hopefully today was some sort of rest and I can be back to my regular pace tomorrow.

I wish I was kidding.

Today started out very rainy -- windshield whippers on continuous "very rainy". Fortunately I went shopping & to get a pedicure this morning. The rain stopped and the sun tried to come out. It was also a lovely 55. It all spelled running outside. I set out to do 5+ miles. I was dressed fairly appropriately, but realized I could use a wind vest. I've done alot of treadmill running since I last seriously ran outside. I noticed a difference. With help of Nike+ I was able to pace myself which I often have a difficult time doing outside. I end up running faster than I can sustain. I had a nice little run. My apartment to the esplanade to the "end of the esplanade" and back. I ran most of the 5 miles, and it was getting a bit chilly on the way back, but I decided to keep running since I didn't know how the rest of the week would turn out. I made sure to stay out of the mud.

Mile 5.83. I had just checked my distance and time and decided I could push out the past part of mile 6. Then I tripped. I was running hard at that point. I tried to catch myself, but I went down. Hard. Onto both knees, then my palms. I yelled, and swore very loudly. It echoed. Why wasn't it atleast cold enough to be wearing gloves? My palms were quite scrapped. People from the park looked; I tried to make some motion that I was okay. I couldn't figure out how to get up without using my hands or knees and both hurt like hell. Fortunately I was less than 1/2 mile from home. I wanted to cry. I was pissed. Scraped palms are not conducive to operating.

The scrapped and stingy feeling doesn't photograph, but look, there's blood:

I was slightly pissed about the hole in my pants, but figured I could fix that without much issue.

Then I took off my pants.
I couldn't capture the large hematoma underlying the large scrape.

After a painful shower I discovered that my right shoulder and elbow are all scrapped. I guess I must have rolled.

At least my pedicure wasn't harmed.
(That one's kind of for Amanda.)

I've forced myself to sit down, put my legs up and ice my knee. I took a nice loading dose of Advil. I'm going to hurt tomorrow.

I decided this deserved it's own post. After the fall I had almost forgotten -- with today's run I passed 100 miles since the start of the year: 102.5 miles in 49 days. I'd pat myself on the back, but my palms hurt too much.

Despite my knee still looking like this:

(I couldn't really capture the large area of blue/purple or the decent amount of swelling that remains.)

I put on these when I came home from work:

Fortunately, there was no question about going outside, because this

looked like this:

I was unable to run. Later I decided it was stupid that I tried.

I walked far enough to complete 10 miles so far for the week.

I went out later and just walked home a mile through a foot of trampled snow which is similar to walking on the beach. I'm going to have to bench myself from trying to run on Sunday. Fortunately I'm on call tomorrow, so that should keep from doing anything too stupid.

After getting some sleep this morning Ben and I went out for a late lunch/early dinner -- as we say "let's make lunch our big meal". This often happens when I'm post-call.

We were out driving along both sides of the Charles River and I was longingly staring at all the people out running. (I'll ignore the fact that it was too cold to be outside.) My knee is not good. It's worse today that it has been, and I wonder how much Friday's long walk/attempt at running impacted that. Yesterday's call wasn't too demanding and I could sit with my leg up more than a usual work day, however the swelling yesterday morning was worse than in the last several days.

I'm not dealing well with this injury, though I'm trying to remind myself it's been less than a week. I guess I should go back to taking advil and give it some more time. Where's my darn magic wand?

Since it is highly unlikely I'll be running tomorrow (I'm on call), I figured I would cap off February with some stats.

February Goal: 35 miles
February Miles: 53.91 (can I round to 54?)

January Miles: 52.31
Total 2008 Miles: 116.22
March Goal: 35 miles

February
Number of runs: 10
Longest run: 6.51 mi 2/16/08
Fastest run (on average): 11.29/mile also on 2/16/08

Number of falls: one
Injuries: Left knee, right knee, right elbow, right shoulder, right palm
Remaining injuries: Left knee

My knee is much better. The superficial wound is almost completely healed, and my leg swells much less at the end of the day. I can tell during the little runs across the street to catch the bus or the walk signal that I might be able to run for real soon. I might still give it this weekend off. Maybe I'll try a little bike riding.

I'm on to a new rotation today. It's two blocks at the same place, and will actually be 11 weeks away from the big house. I'm on call during the week, but no night float means I'm also more likely to get to leave early when I'm not on call.

Today was one of those lucky days. I also decided to see if my knee was healed and I if maybe I was over my cold. I guess all the sitting around and napping I did this weekend helped.

I appear to be better:

I'm not sure why the graph looks so funny, or flat.

Driving home I thought maybe I could do 3 miles. Ahem, so I doubled that. It may have been just warm enough to go outside, but I decided to stay inside in case I needed spend some time on the exercise bike if my knee wasn't up to running.

The new rotation schedule is nuts. All I can say is that I have to try to run when I can. I'd love to average twice a week, and there will be weeks I run 4 times and weeks I don't run at all. That's life.

I am the proud owner of this:

(SInce July 2006)

Work has been busy this week plus I'm still getting over this silly cold. Monday's 6.5 mile run was odd because I had the time to do it and because I felt well enough.

I was granted a slight reprieve today and don't have to be at work until this evening when I'm on call. I slept in much later than usual (a testament to my illness), and then couldn't completely figure out how to spend my day. I finally got off my butt and down to the gym. However, I felt like crap on he treadmill and decided I had too many other things to do to force myself to workout when I was sick. Plus I'll likely not sleep tonight and am on call for another 24-30 hours on Sunday.

I wasn't going to post this piddly little 15 minutes on the treadmill, but I decided to be honest -- much unlike then the scientific community only publishes the results of the experiments that work. Here's my negative data.

Have a good weekend.

For the non medical people, post-call refers to the day after one is on call. In the era of the duty hour regulations, one can only work 30 hours straight, so being post-call now also means not being at the hospital. Some people try to refer to being post-call as having a "day off". Sometimes it is; usually it is not. If you haven't slept and it's the second time on call in 3 days, it's not much of a day off.
I was on call on yesterday which means I went to work at 7:30a (relatively late) yesterday morning and left this morning morning about 7:45a. In that 24 hours I was responsible for my ICU patients, my floor patients, and any surgery consults that came through the ED or from the inpatient floors. It was not all that bad of day, and I even slept for 2 hours (uninterrupted at that) from 2:30 to 4:30a.

I give myself an A+ for today's post-call day.

• slept from 8:30a-1p
  
• ate lunch
  
• dressed (sorta)
  
• went to the Rite Aid
  
• put away some old laundry (including two sets of sheets)
  
• dusted my room (seriously)
  
• ran 6 miles
  
• made pancakes and bacon for dinner (then my husband claimed he doesn't like pancakes)

Not my best 6 miles, as it was plagued by blisters and chafing. It's still chillly here -- I was running outside in January, wasn't I? Just a mildly boring get on the "treadmill and run" run.

I might be a tad behind on my March goal, but as long as I stay/get healthy, I should be okay.

It's always nice to have gotten some sleep on call meaning a post-call day can be useful.

I did so serious work on my research project, and then went down to the gym what turned out to be my longest run ever.