Less suck. more awesome!

(imported from my Xanga for you non-Xangans)



This weather has made me eager to drive my crazy commute home from the FP clinic i'm rotating through right now so I can catch the last rays of sunshine setting over the water next to the bridge as i sneak in a quick run in the fall weather.

Honestly, I miss running competitively. Maybe the races, i could do without. You get so excited, and nervous at the same time the night before, and morning of those big 5k's or 10k's. Head out to a wooded area like Sunken Meadow State Park, and run over foothills that looks like giant 15 story behemoths while youre chilling right there on the mulch-lined starting line with the mob of skinny, fast guys half freezing to death in the late fall chill, after having a 1/4-1/2th of a bagel, water, and a banana for breakfast.

But training was the best. Running right now around a nice waterside park is great, dont get me wrong. I'm running alongside a nice view, with water, a bridge, trees, young couples with kids, middle schoolers playing handball and bball, middle aged people with their dogs, the korean, taiwanese and hispanic 40 yr olds fishing along teh rocks, and the other guys plaing soccer on the fields, with al lthe runners running along teh edges of MacNeil park. its really nice. but the one thing that bothers me....is that there is no competition. Back in high school and even college, youre around so many people youre age, youre bound to find someone who is a runner who is pretty darned fast. Here. I've seen pretty much all the runners in my town, and none of them are in shape. I have to guess that they run at 9-15min mile pace runs for about 10-25 minutes. I'm currently going around 7-7.5min mile pace for 30min-1hour, and its so hard to get faster. My buddies Nat and Jay used to stay right along with me back in the day, and that pushed us down to the 5-6minute mile pace no problem during our peak. sure it wasn't Syosset good, but for us Herricks boys, we were the best in our classes. sub 20 minute 5k's were possible, our captains would usually be around the 16 minute 5k pace, which is stellar. right now, i try to blast my hyper aggressive nu-metal and pumping movie soundtrack music to motivate me, but its not the same feeling as having a guy who is 25 bls heavier than you, 3 inches taller than you storming down the path 5 feet behind you like a madman as a source of motivation to kick it into the next gear for the next couple miles until your legs go beyond the point of burning and pain and your lungs stop crying for relief, and your body goes numb, and then starts to feel really really good as you just say "screw it all" and book it until your muscles cry for the 2nd wave. then you book it some more for the final kick, and then you feel like crap for 2 minutes during warm down, and then feel freaking awesome for the rest of the evening.

good. freaking. times. where. are. they. now. honestly. i need to move to a place that has a really nice park like this, but actually has people who stay in shape and run! the residents at NUMC run at eisenhower park and one of teh surgical cheif residents was a marathon runner. that would be an awesome workout buddy.

i would move near my old high shcool buddies, but both of the guys i used to run with got married this past summer, and while they were stacked to all heck and in shape until the day of the wedding day, marraige seems to be a time-sucker for most guys who work 70-80 hrs a week, so they're gone. boo.

just gotta get to the 6 minute pace by myself then. i think i neede to think this out and write it out so i have clear goals now. if i lose another 10 lbs i think i can shave 30 secs off of my 5k-mile pace. my goal is to hit that before ob-gyn starts, when all hell breaks lose in this part of the world.

Family practice. SOOOOO BORING! but honestly, i needed it. Surgery made me turn into the impatient, demanding, quick thinking, personality-less jerks that i admired in the attendings at NUMC. they were probably the best dept at that hospital. no joke. but i can see how you cant act like that in real life. Family practice docs are a good example of guys who practice healthcare while being very personable, and carry out real conversations with your patients and share about each others lives. this past week has been particularly good for me i nthis respect. I've had 3-4 patients ask me about how im doing with my schooling, faith, relationship status, career goals, fitness level, etc.while they openly shared to me about their stuff. they brought out topics i generally dont share about since i dont think about them unless people specifically ask me about them, so we had great talks. it reminded me of my experiences at SMI last summer as well, since we spoke about faith also. awesome people in LI sometimes. But yeah, it made me become a person again in front of patients instead of being a robot that asked a list of questions about symptoms people get after surgeries, and walking out to rush through to teh next patient so i can get more than 4 hours of sleep that night. would i ever want to do FP? heck no. i dont want to deal with the headache of renting office space, hiring office staff, paying upkeep, etc etc. just pay me a salary and let me work in a hospital where the really sick patients are and al lthe consulting departments and big machines, where i feel like im helping to fix patients who really are sick. but yeah, i appreciate this rotation, because if anything this past week also reminded me in a big way of how much i need to fix my character. less suck more awesome.

gotta get, smarter, faster, stronger, nicer, humble..er, and most importantly, i gotta pray more and know God more. and just briefly, im so thankful to God that He's been helping me to slowly take steps closer to Him again. good stuff.

troo.