Marine Corps 17.75K

I got up ridiculously early this morning to drive down to Quantico (about 35 miles away), which took me about 1.5 hrs this morning thanks to Beltway construction, to run the Marine Corps 17.75K (about 11.1 miles). Yes, that is a random distance--1775 was the year the Marine Corps was established, so that's where that came from.

This was the inaugural race of the 17.75K (by the way, it's the only 17.75K race in the world), so nobody really knew what to expect. It's part of the Marine Corps Marathon training series, which is how I heard of it.

Anyway, here's the course map:

So as you can see from the elevation map, there were quite a few hills. Fortunately, probably nine of the eleven miles were in the park, so there was good shade cover, which was definitely necessary. By the time I got back to my car (about 10:30), it was 85 degrees and rather humid.

Overall, slower than I wanted to run (1:52ish, which is about a 10:07 minute/mile pace), but I survived, which makes it the longest run I've done in over a year, and a good way to kick off my training for the Marine Corps Marathon.

The Army 10 Miler

On Sunday, the Metro opened a couple of hours early, a few streets in DC were completely closed, and about 20,000 people flocked to the Pentagon for the Army 10 Miler, which is one of the most popular races in the DC area (another being the Marine Corps Marathon; both races fill up within three days of registration opening).

I met up with a couple of other interns, as well as the husbands of a couple of interns, at the Forest Glen metro stop at 6am Sunday morning (when the Metro opened), to begin our journey to the Pentagon stop. We ended up arriving a little after 7, which was almost an hour before the race began (although closer to an hour and a half to when we actually crossed the start line). I ran with Beth and Emily, an orthopedic surgery intern and general surgery intern, respectively, for the first six or so miles, before I lost them at a water stop around the sixth mile marker.

With my dramatically bad performance at the half marathon a couple of weeks ago, I decided to take it fairly easy for the last four miles, which meant that I didn't get that great of a time (1:38 or so; a bit faster than 10 minutes/mile), but I was still standing at the finish line, which was the ultimate goal. Of the five of us, though, nobody ended up with that great of a time, so I didn't feel so bad (Beth and Emily ended up coming in only a few minutes ahead of me). After crossing the finish line, we got our coins (above), and then it was off to our meeting place, the Pentagon Metro sign, which worked out pretty well. While we were waiting for the menfolk to wander up(they must have been spending a lot of time in the food tents), I saw someone in an Ohio State shirt, so we chatted for a few minutes. Turns out, he's a sports medicine physician at Nationwide Children's Hospital, so that was pretty interesting.

Anyway, it was another long Metro ride back to our cars (by the way, cramming a bunch of sweaty, stinky people into Metro cars is not pleasant), and then we went our separate ways to go home and clean up before heading out to breakfast (which we ate at 1 pm...). Then I spent most of the afternoon taking a nap. All in all, a pretty good day. Emily decided that we should do it every year of residency. I agree.

One really bad run

This morning, I had a half marathon through Rock Creek Park. Yeah, didn't go so well.

We had been having all sorts of fall weather lately--perfect running weather--but we weren't so lucky this morning. On top of that, I took the first part of the run out too quickly, and the result was that by mile eight, I was feeling pretty much done. However, after a marathon, at least ten half marathons, and a smattering of races of other lengths, I've never not finished a race, so I kept going. I walked a lot, but kept going. I kept thinking that I should stop, but figured it was a mind-over-matter type of thing. And besides, I've never not finished a race.

And then I passed out a little after the tenth mile.

I don't really remember what happened after that, because the next thing I knew, I was surrounded by paramedics who kept asking me my name and what happened (and all I could tell them was, I passed out), and they decided that I needed to go to the emergency room, which since I couldn't stand, I agreed with. I told them probably five or six times that they had to take me to either NNMC or Walter Reed since I'm active duty (NNMC was only about a mile away), but they kept trying to talk me into a civilian hospital that was closer. I finally convinced them, mostly because the last thing I needed on top of everything else was to get an ER bill and trying to get TriCare to pay for it when a military medical treatment facility was only a mile away.

I also got to discover just how it feels to have altered level of consciousness (when the nurses in the ER asked how I felt, I said "altered". They looked at me funny until I informed them that I was an intern). Things felt funny and looked funny and kinda felt like an out-of-body experience. When they asked me my name and social and birthday, I had to seriously think about it before I came up with the answers. Then they asked me where I was, and I said "Navy," which wasn't good enough for the nurses (I don't think they know that that's what Army doctors call NNMC; they made me tell them that it was National Naval Medical Center, which again, took me a minute to come up with). And then they asked the date (which I didn't know), the day of the week (which I knew because I had asked the paramedics about ten minutes before), the month (I randomly guessed September, but I was pretty sure it could have just as easily been August or October). I did know the year, which made them happy.

Well, they got three liters of fluid in me (so I was in the ER for a little more than three hours), and I was feeling much better after the first half liter (although my heart rate and respiratory rate were still pretty fast, signs of dehydration), so I got to stick around for the remaining two and a half liters, reading People magazines from five and nine months ago. Great fun. Fortunately, I had the foresight to put my Metro card in my pocket before starting the race (finishers get Metro passes to go back to the Rockville station, where the race started), so I was able to get back to my car and go home.

Great fun. I just hope none of the Navy interns knew that I was in the ER today. It could make work tomorrow fairly embarrassing.

Columbus Half Marathon!

This morning I got up early, had breakfast, and braved the marathon traffic to go run 13.1 miles with 12,000 of my closest friends (okay, that's not exactly true... some of them were running 26.2 miles). Here's the course map:

Adrienne is on an away rotation in Cleveland this month and had to work today, so I was on my own for the race. That's okay, because running ridiculously long distances seems to make everyone good friends. I talked to a girl running her first half before the race, chatted with some random people while running, and ran with a couple of Marines for a mile or so before they stopped for a bathroom break (they were running the whole marathon, so it's really not that impressive that I was keeping pace with them).

Overall, it was a really good race, although really cold at the beginning (my fingers were so cold, I couldn't bend them for the first two miles). I ended up breaking the two-hour mark (yay!) with a time of 1:56:17. Not my fastest ever, but it was only the second time I came in before two hours, so I'm happy. It was about an 8:47/mile pace.

Here's my medal.

And, of course, since I live right on the full marathon course, I had to be creative in driving back. Here was my route to and from the parking garage (C is my apartment):

I got to drive along High St. to get to the parking garage, but it was closed when I was headed home, so I had to get creative to drive back. I was just impressed with myself that I found an alternative route without the help of my GPS. I guess after living in Columbus for more than three years, I finally know my way around (somewhat).

Long day and new shoes

Yesterday I decided to PT with the ROTC cadets before working from noon to ten, so by the time I got home at eleven, I was wiped out and went straight to bed.

The shift itself wasn't too bad, but just like other shifts, we seemed to get the same type of patients all day--yesterday, it was lacerations. I got to do quite a lot of sewing--a head, a little finger, and an arm. One of the attendings did another arm (different patient, thankfully), and a family medicine resident did a pretty complicated laceration repair on a leg. Although I'm not all that great at suturing (it's one of those things that just takes practice, and I don't have much desire to practice it), they are nice patients to have. They have one thing wrong with them, you can diagnose and fix it there, and they go home happy. It's nothing like the abdominal pain patients, who get a huge workup which usually doesn't lead to a diagnosis, and go home feeling only a little better than they did when they came in.

Today was the expo for the Columbus Marathon (and half-marathon) tomorrow, so I went in to pick up my packet (I'm doing the half, not the whole thing), and ended up buying a new pair of running shoes. My usual shoes cost $100, and they had them for $76, so I couldn't pass that up. While I was there, I ran into a second year who recognized me from a Military Medicine Interest Group meeting, so we talked shop for a bit. It was a nice little reminder of how far I've come, and how glad I am that it's almost over.

Can we make this any more awkward?

Actually, to be fair, STD clinic wasn't nearly as awkward as I feared it would be. Most of the guys (and the vast majority are guys) have been through this before and know what to expect. Most also realize that them being there is their own fault.

I saw three patients today, and they were all pretty straightforward--one got a phone call last night saying someone he slept with tested positive for chlamydia and he should go in for treatment, so we ran some labs and gave him some medicine. The other two were a few days early for what we jokingly call "green light Friday". They don't have any symptoms, don't have any contacts with anyone with an STD that they know of, they just want to be screened to make sure everything is okay. So we draw blood and take a urine sample and give them a phone number to call if they don't hear from us first.

After that, the day was significantly less exciting. I went through the CDC's online TB course (which mostly consists of reading mind-numbingly boring powerpoint-type slides and answering questions) and then went over the first chapter in the epidemiology textbook with one of the residents. Then I went to the DA's online smallpox vaccine course (more powerpoint slides, more questions). Those were even more mind-numbingly boring than the CDC's TB stuff, and not even laughing at whatever the interns were talking about was helping me stay awake. It didn't help that our office was probably over eighty degrees even with the fans on.

Since I overslept this morning (my cell phone for some reason froze at 4:45 am, so there was no alarm), I didn't get to run before work, so I tried running after work, when it was almost ninety degrees outside. Needless to say, I didn't run far. Hopefully there will be no repeat performance from my cell phone, and I'll be able to run when it's still cool out tomorrow.

Half-marathon and beginning rotations

Kit and I ran a half-marathon (13.1 miles) in Camas this morning. It wasn't too big of an event--only a couple of hundred people, as opposed to some of the other races I've done, with 10,000+ runners. Not too bad, although it did rain for the first six miles or so, and there was a massively huge hill at mile 12 (I walked up it--I'm a wimp, and was a tired one at that). In the end, I came in at 2:02, which is about nine minutes slower than my best, and Kit came in at 2:23. Not bad for a first half.
He was less than thrilled with me, as I'm sure you can tell.

How I'm able to smile after this is beyond me.

Anyway, that was pretty much all I've done the last few days. The parents went to Spokane for LeMaster and Daniels 100th year anniversary, and Alex left for Seattle on the 23rd (to get ready for the Olympics), so I had the house to myself until Kit showed up Saturday morning. I did a lot of reading, and that's about it.

Well, all lazy vacations come to an end, unfortunately. After dinner tonight I headed up to Tacoma (University Place, technically), where I'm staying with Ann and Norm for the month while doing a rotation in preventive medicine at Madigan. I in-process at 7:30 tomorrow, which means I need to leave here by 6:30 so I can be sure to get to Ft. Lewis, get through the gate, drive to Madigan, park, and get to the medical education office by 7:30. Fun, fun.