Done and done.
Deep exhale. I’m finally done with my first year of medical school and what a year it has been. I definitely learned a lot inside and outside of the classroom. The year went by very fast and my undergrad prepared me very well. The days can seem long, weeks are fast, months are somewhere in between and semesters are fast too. I slipped towards the end of the semester but that was due to several factors, namely not planning my MPH courses and assignments early enough and hanging out with a pretty cool girl (she’s a runner, too!).
Now that I finally have some time (no classes until August!), I will try to capture some of the things I’ve learned this past year both about my education and training. School will have to wait until I can put together an outline of topics I think are important to cover but training I can talk about now. In fact, last night, I “doubled” in a local race that offered a 1M and 5K twenty minutes apart. Details below. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Medical School, Random Thoughts, Running, Triathlon
|
Digg! this story.
|
Leave a Comment
The Commuter
I mentioned a little while ago that I returned to riding my bike for most of my travels. Here’s a pic of the ride. It’s pretty sweet. I still need to get some toe-clips and possibly exchange my stem for a black one (cosmetics are important, right?). I recently put on 700×25 Specialized Armadillo tires with a reflective sidewall for safety and a little softer ride. When riding at night, I wear a headlamp and a rear flashing light. And occasionally a yellow reflective vest. Share your commuter pics!Bianchi Pista - click to see my ride.
Filed under: Medical School, Random Thoughts
|
Digg! this story.
|
Leave a Comment
Neglect…
Wow, I can’t believe it’s been a week since my last post. Not much has happened, so I don’t feel that bad, but then again, I am usually on top of things. Anyway. I was out of town this weekend for my sister’s college graduation which is part of the reason I didn’t update the site. Also, I didn’t do anything last week except for run (65M, 9hrs), all at an easy to moderate pace. I ended up submitting my paper a little late on Friday night/Saturday morning but my professor granted me an extension so that’ s good. I’m still waiting to get the grade back but hopefully I did OK. I ended up with a B+ in my other MPH class, which is good. I would really like to finish my coursework by this December if possible, but I think I’m still going to wind up with a class or two in the spring. Then again, I may just postpone whatever I have left.
Training has been going OK. I’m 24 weeks out from NYC Marathon, which is why all I did last week was run at a moderate pace. However, I got pretty burned out on just running for an hour or so every day, so I think I’m going back to the multisport schedule. It worked fine for me this past winter and I’m racing really well, so why stop? Plus, I think the cross-training keeps me mentally fresh. And I will be adding some strength workouts back into my routine because I would really like to get my 40K split under an hour (for a flat course). Also, I need to keep up the speedwork as evidenced by Tuesday’s track workout. See below for the details.
Filed under: Medical School, Random Thoughts, Running, Triathlon
|
Digg! this story.
|
Leave a Comment
Finals, etc
This is my last week of MPH coursework and I’m busting my tail to get all my assignments completed on time. It’s a struggle and I am definitely learning some lessons about scheduling my time/classes. No matter how much I try to avoid learning things “the hard way” inevitably that’s what happens. Granted, it could be a lot worse, but still raises the stress level a bit. My workouts have been very vanilla lately. I am just putting in base miles to get ready for NYC marathon. By commuting on my bike to school, I’m logging about 11M that way, which is better than nothing. I will probably try to get one threshold workout on the bike in per week as well and maybe go for a “tempo run” after a commuting bike just to practice my transitions. Even though I haven’t made it to the pool yet, tomorrow and this weekend I will make some time to splash around for a bit.
As I said my workouts have been very plain. I’ve run for 60-80 mins the past four days with some stretching thrown in the mix. I also added some striders at the end of one of the runs and try to insert 30″ pick-ups every 8-10 mins throughout the run. There’s a 1M/5K race this Saturday that I may jump in and see how I do, but I’m not sure yet. I kinda feel like the mile would be fun because i could go hard for about 5 mins and be done. On the other hand, I know I could get my 5K time around 16:30, I just haven’t done any speedwork this week. Decisions, decisions decisions.
Tues: 77′ + 5×80m striders, 149 AHR, 165 MHR, 10.5
Weds: 81′ , 158 AHR, 180 MHR, 11M
Thurs: 65′, 158 AHR, 178 MHR, 9M, leisurely 7:15-7:20 pace
Filed under: Medical School, Random Thoughts, Running, Triathlon
|
Digg! this story.
|
Leave a Comment
Sprint Tri Report and Updates
I didn’t realize that it had been so long since I put up a new post. I guess I got caught up in school work and forgot to put something up. Well, not much has been going on. Just trying to get geared up for finals and take care of some errands. Plus, I was pretty toasted after St. Anthony’s and it’s been pretty hot down here recently. This is my last week of school then I have a combined block exam for biochemistry and physiology next Tuesday. The rest of the week is free until the following Tuesday when I have my biochemistry SHELF exam, followd by my cumulative physio exam on Friday the 25th. Oh, and I need to finish up a couple of things for public health by Thursday so that I can prepare a presentation for our Awards Ceremony on Friday evening. Basically this week will be very busy. But back to training.
Yesterday capped off an 7-week racing block. That’s right, 7 weeks. Here’s how it looked:
- Mar 24 - 10K (35:21)
- Mar 31 - 5K (16:50)
- Apr 7 - 10K (34:22)*
- Apr 14 - 5K (16:49)*
- Apr 21 - Sprint Tri (800m, 30K, 5K - 1:21.21)
- Apr 28- St. Anthony’s (1.5k, 40K, 10K - 2:07.02)*
- May 6 - Sprint Tri (1000yd, 19M, 4M - 1:29.28)
- *Denots PR
Granted, the majority of these events were 5K/10K runs that really don’t take much time to recover from or demand a long taper. However, multiple weeks of getting ready to race and getting my stuff ready was pretty hectic. I’ll be taking a little break until a 1M/5K race after my last exam, then another olympic distance triathlon in mid-June that I won a free entry to during my first sprint triathlon. Hopefully I’ll be able to lower my St. Anthony’s time because I’ll be a little more fresh and it’s a smaller venue so transitions won’t be as long. The real test though would be to see if I can improve my swim time. It’s a lake swim vs. bay, so that should help.
On average my training has been going pretty well. I still manage to get between 8-12hrs but will start to shift the bulk of that to running and swimming (and yoga!) as I get enough miles on my bike by commuting. I probably put 25M on my fixie (pic coming soon!) on Saturday. It’s good stuff. But, I need to get back to work. Hope everyone else is doing well as it’s early racing season!
Filed under: Medical School, Random Thoughts, Running, Triathlon
|
Digg! this story.
|
Leave a Comment
