I finished the half-marathon over Memorial Day weekend in 2:16:57. That was slightly slower than the 2:10 - 2:15 I was hoping for, but not too bad for my first race. K finished around 2:02, and M finished around 3:28 despite the handicap of the organizers having picked up all the directional signs.
* 13.1: Boston's Run to Remember (2:16:57)
* Week 9: 3x800; 3 mi; 6 mi
* Week 8: 4x1600; 8 mi (DNR); 12 mi (1:58:39)
* Week 7: 6x400; 6 mi (55:03); 10 mi (1:39:28)
* Week 6: 4x800 (DNR); 8 mi (1:15:00); 8 mi (DNR)
* Week 5: 3x1600; 4 mi (37:27); 10 mi (DNF)
* Week 4: 6x400 (DNR); 6 mi (57:06); 6 mi (DNR)
* Week 3: 3x1600; 5 mi; 10 mi (1:43:26)
* Week 2: 4x800; 4 mi (38:41), 8 mi (1:20:40)
* Week 1: 4x400 (DNR); 3 mi; 6 mi (59:38)
29 May 2007
20 May 2007
8 things
Tagged by MonkeyGirl, so playing along (finally).
Here are the rules: Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves. Write a post about your own random things. Post these rules. At the end of your blog, tag 8 people and post their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment and tell them they're tagged.
1. I'm thinking about ditching the medical school idea to stay on the ambulance for little pay and constant verbal abuse by drunk strangers.
2. I have a nickname at the ambulance co. (Space) and it makes me feel quite accepted.
3. I've been 2 for 3 in my last two softball games. This trend will soon break, I'm sure. It is usually fun for the first few games of the season to hit balls over the heads of outfielders who only see a girl and not a hitter.
4. I hate whiny patients. Most especially when they are the last patient of the day and after 2000.
5. I like school, the learning, the hanging out talking about interesting things with smart people. If the student loan program had a retirement option, I'd probably never leave.
6. My entire house is a mess right now and it is driving me insane. K likes to start projects and not finish them and this results in a huge mess because he never puts anything away until he's "done", which never happens.
7. When I get upset about things, I clean. I'd rather clean than cry, but sometimes I do both at the same time.
8. Sometimes I want a loaner kid just to be able to do all the fun kid stuff, but Zac lives too far away.
I don't know 8 people well enough to tag for this, so play along if you like.
Here are the rules: Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves. Write a post about your own random things. Post these rules. At the end of your blog, tag 8 people and post their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment and tell them they're tagged.
1. I'm thinking about ditching the medical school idea to stay on the ambulance for little pay and constant verbal abuse by drunk strangers.
2. I have a nickname at the ambulance co. (Space) and it makes me feel quite accepted.
3. I've been 2 for 3 in my last two softball games. This trend will soon break, I'm sure. It is usually fun for the first few games of the season to hit balls over the heads of outfielders who only see a girl and not a hitter.
4. I hate whiny patients. Most especially when they are the last patient of the day and after 2000.
5. I like school, the learning, the hanging out talking about interesting things with smart people. If the student loan program had a retirement option, I'd probably never leave.
6. My entire house is a mess right now and it is driving me insane. K likes to start projects and not finish them and this results in a huge mess because he never puts anything away until he's "done", which never happens.
7. When I get upset about things, I clean. I'd rather clean than cry, but sometimes I do both at the same time.
8. Sometimes I want a loaner kid just to be able to do all the fun kid stuff, but Zac lives too far away.
I don't know 8 people well enough to tag for this, so play along if you like.
15 May 2007
Holy Shit!
It was a dark and stormy morning. The kind that makes you want to pull the blankets up, swat the alarm clock across the room and forget the outside world exists. This was not the morning I would have naturally picked to haul my sorry carcass out of bed to run endlessly around town. But this was the morning I had after missing a chance yesterday for an afternoon run. Three hours to get up, get running, get done and get on the road to the next task.
Twelve miles. An intimidating total run larger than what I had been doing weekly before training began eight weeks ago. The training plan calls for 10:22/mile, a pace I've never managed to keep. My long runs tend to start fast, then slow and speed up irregularly, and end walking. Not exactly the measured pace I'm supposed to keep. Today I was aiming for a slow start and a steady finish. And somehow, some way, I did it.
I ran every step of 12 miles. No walking in the middle. No dragging feet at the end. Just running. The sound of jogging feet and deep breathing. The showers at the beginning weren't steady but did keep the pollen down, at 8 miles the rain started for real, but by then I was in the happy place. The place where it wasn't really so much like running as moving from location to location. Noticing the scenery, mind free to wander, just me and the run.
And best of all, I think I could've done 1.1 more today.
p.s. I've been tagged for a meme I'll try and get to tomorrow.
Twelve miles. An intimidating total run larger than what I had been doing weekly before training began eight weeks ago. The training plan calls for 10:22/mile, a pace I've never managed to keep. My long runs tend to start fast, then slow and speed up irregularly, and end walking. Not exactly the measured pace I'm supposed to keep. Today I was aiming for a slow start and a steady finish. And somehow, some way, I did it.
I ran every step of 12 miles. No walking in the middle. No dragging feet at the end. Just running. The sound of jogging feet and deep breathing. The showers at the beginning weren't steady but did keep the pollen down, at 8 miles the rain started for real, but by then I was in the happy place. The place where it wasn't really so much like running as moving from location to location. Noticing the scenery, mind free to wander, just me and the run.
And best of all, I think I could've done 1.1 more today.
p.s. I've been tagged for a meme I'll try and get to tomorrow.
14 May 2007
New link
Remember the comment about better written stuff...here's one newly added to the links list:
Musings of a Highly Trained Monkey. Enjoy!
Musings of a Highly Trained Monkey. Enjoy!
13 May 2007
Lost
No blogging for a while, no ideas, no motivation. Just feeling kind of lost and adrift. Seems like there are so many better and more interesting EMS blogs that it isn't worth writing about calls, med school isn't happening and I'm just out of things to say.
I've got a new full-time partner on the ambulance, which always takes a little adjustment. Things at the ambulance company are in a constant state of transition for the last few months, which is unsettling and stressful for me. I can adapt to change, I'm entirely flexible in how things work on calls, but I just don't like not knowing what I'm walking in to every day. There is one supervisor, moved up from the south station, whose personality just grates on me and I've already had a run-in with him in the first 4 weeks. Once I'm in the truck and doing my thing, the rest of it fades away and I really enjoy what I'm doing. Even on the Thursday night that was so busy my truck did back-to-back dispatched calls because we were the only ones even close to available. Normally the city runs in a 4 truck rotation for calls, giving everyone at least a little time to find an ER bed for their patient. The middle of the night call was the drunk assault victim I had told my partner that we were missing for the trifecta, so at least the night was complete.
Running is going. I was feeling pretty good about the whole deal, but a week where I wasn't able to accomplish what I wanted to (including a day where I was dehydrated and it was 85+ degrees and ended up walking home - and then had to work overnight) has left me feeling despondent about the whole idea. I feel like there is no way I'm ever going to make the 12 miles I was supposed to run this week, much less the whole half-marathon in two weeks. K ran his 12 in speedy time yesterday, which just makes me feel like that much more of a failure. I haven't even been able to get in 3 days a week on the training schedule. I finally got my ass up this morning to at least run something because I was starting to feel like I just wasn't going to run any more at all. I'm hoping to make time tomorrow afternoon to get the 12 done and off my mind.
I can't decide what to do about medical school. Do I spend the $2k to get help on the MCAT, submit applications again to more schools all over the country, and silently hope something works out? After submitting the financial aid documents, I found out that my "expected family contribution" for school is over $39,000 a year. K's salary won't even cover that plus the monthly mortgage for a year, so I'm not entirely sure how anyone figures that we're going to live completely in the red. Even though K tells me not to worry, we'll figure something out if I want to go, I'm not sure that I could do a decent job studying if I knew that every minute I was there was costing us the financial security we've worked the last eight years to achieve. So, do I stay on the ambulance, spend the 18 months to be a paramedic and work until I don't want to be on the ambulance any more and then make a new decision? Do I start trying to get my ducks in a row to apply for PA school? Do I just run off and live under a bridge?
I can't wait until the office job is over. They're trying to kill me in these last moments by demanding that I'm on-site (1.5 hr drive each way) instead of working from home two days a week. Those are my only two completely "off" days from the ambulance and kill any available time for running. I'm training the three part-time people who are taking over my job and that is actually better than doing all this myself, but I still don't get why we all have to sit in the same place to look at items on the network drives.
I guess this is the long way of saying that I may not be posting much, but I won't go away entirely without saying goodbye.
I've got a new full-time partner on the ambulance, which always takes a little adjustment. Things at the ambulance company are in a constant state of transition for the last few months, which is unsettling and stressful for me. I can adapt to change, I'm entirely flexible in how things work on calls, but I just don't like not knowing what I'm walking in to every day. There is one supervisor, moved up from the south station, whose personality just grates on me and I've already had a run-in with him in the first 4 weeks. Once I'm in the truck and doing my thing, the rest of it fades away and I really enjoy what I'm doing. Even on the Thursday night that was so busy my truck did back-to-back dispatched calls because we were the only ones even close to available. Normally the city runs in a 4 truck rotation for calls, giving everyone at least a little time to find an ER bed for their patient. The middle of the night call was the drunk assault victim I had told my partner that we were missing for the trifecta, so at least the night was complete.
Running is going. I was feeling pretty good about the whole deal, but a week where I wasn't able to accomplish what I wanted to (including a day where I was dehydrated and it was 85+ degrees and ended up walking home - and then had to work overnight) has left me feeling despondent about the whole idea. I feel like there is no way I'm ever going to make the 12 miles I was supposed to run this week, much less the whole half-marathon in two weeks. K ran his 12 in speedy time yesterday, which just makes me feel like that much more of a failure. I haven't even been able to get in 3 days a week on the training schedule. I finally got my ass up this morning to at least run something because I was starting to feel like I just wasn't going to run any more at all. I'm hoping to make time tomorrow afternoon to get the 12 done and off my mind.
I can't decide what to do about medical school. Do I spend the $2k to get help on the MCAT, submit applications again to more schools all over the country, and silently hope something works out? After submitting the financial aid documents, I found out that my "expected family contribution" for school is over $39,000 a year. K's salary won't even cover that plus the monthly mortgage for a year, so I'm not entirely sure how anyone figures that we're going to live completely in the red. Even though K tells me not to worry, we'll figure something out if I want to go, I'm not sure that I could do a decent job studying if I knew that every minute I was there was costing us the financial security we've worked the last eight years to achieve. So, do I stay on the ambulance, spend the 18 months to be a paramedic and work until I don't want to be on the ambulance any more and then make a new decision? Do I start trying to get my ducks in a row to apply for PA school? Do I just run off and live under a bridge?
I can't wait until the office job is over. They're trying to kill me in these last moments by demanding that I'm on-site (1.5 hr drive each way) instead of working from home two days a week. Those are my only two completely "off" days from the ambulance and kill any available time for running. I'm training the three part-time people who are taking over my job and that is actually better than doing all this myself, but I still don't get why we all have to sit in the same place to look at items on the network drives.
I guess this is the long way of saying that I may not be posting much, but I won't go away entirely without saying goodbye.