IMWI race report

I did my first IM in 2007. It was my second year in the sport. Had an abundance of time and a coach. Then I started residency 2.5 years ago and got lazy. Working 80 hours per week will do that. Signed up for IMWI to get some passion back in my life. However still working crazy hours my prep wasn't exactly as organized as last time...

Prep: Did what I could when I could. There were days/weeks where I did next to nothing. There were good weeks. No real peak weeks because work got hectic 7 weeks out so I considered it a 7 week taper. It's what all the pros are doing these days, right?....

Race plan: No power meter. No HRM. No bike computer. No watch.
Swim: Swim. Not drowning a bonus
Bike: Try not to ever breathe hard. Take the hills easy. Not crashing a bonus
Run: Get to the finish any way possible (crawling acceptable). Not getting carted off on a stretcher a bonus.

Detailed nutrition plan: Drink lots of what the nice people at the aid stations hand out. Eat when hungry and what the nice people give out.

Race report as a list (because residency has made me attention deficit)

1. Swim was mass chaos. Started in the worst possible position (middle). I attribute my survival and lack of drowning completely to the Kung Fu Panda moves I picked up in my year playing water polo in college. Seriously, I could press charges for some of the things that were done to me by super testosterone charged neoprene wearing tri geeks. And who the hell are the people you always see swimming perpendicular to traffic?? Total time 1:13:39. Approximately 3 hours less than it felt.

2. Bonus pre-swim observation. I saw a guy walking to the start wearing 2 (TWO) garmins and a HRM on the opposite wrist. I came SOOOO close to asking him what time it was.

3. Coming up the helix from the swim to T1 was one of the best minutes of my life. I now know how rockstars feel leaving concerts. Minus the sex with strangers part.

4. The first loop of the course was amazing in every way. Except for the 1688 competitors that I'm pretty sure passed me. Maybe it was 1689. Anyway, the hills were the best part. Holy spectators!

5. Loop 2 sucked my will to live. I have a bike shoe problem. I think the nice people who design shoes at bontrager were hired from the company across the street that manufactures vices. Every pedal stroke of the last 40 miles I was pretty sure there were bones in my feet snapping. Note to self: buy new bike shoes next year. Hills however were still the best part. There is one flat straight section that made me want to spray sunblock in my eyes. I don't know how people can stand IMFL.

6. On the way back to town saw a sign that said: "Someday you will not be able to do this". My internal reply: "thank god". Total bike time 6:31:17. Which surprised me since I was sure the sweeper was behind me and they were closing the course.

7. I walked through T2 like a 90 year old woman on her way home from a colonoscopy. Still made it out in 4:15. What the hell do people do in there for >10 minutes?

8. I learned first hand how to do the Ironman shuffle. For those of you not in the know, it's jogging at a speed barely faster than walking and trying to find any excuse to stop. My best excuses were aid stations, hills, wind hitting me wrong, seeing people wearing polka dots, and my internal clock telling me it was probably a time ending in an odd minute. This went on for 23 miles.

9. Mile 23. I turn to my neighbor and ask for the time. 7:30 she tells me. Oh F&%K. Here I was thinking I was going to do a 13-15 hour Ironman. Now you're telling me it's 7:30 and I have 3.2 miles left??? Shit. Like I'm ever going to forgive myself for coming in over 13 hours now. Damn it.

10. The ironman "sprinting" commences. I'm blowing through aid stations, pushing over small children, yelling like Rocky. Every step hurts but it doesn't matter. I was going to break 13 hours goddamnit. Sonsofbitches. Run time: 5:01:06

Total time 12:57:18. A little less than 20 minutes slower than my last one. And way better than I ever expected with my training.

Aftermath: It took 3 days for my kidneys to start working again. Finally today I'm peeing. Probably up 10-15 pounds from race day. Damn rhabdo. Drove 16 hours home yesterday. Miss my family already. The side reason for me to do IMWI was to spend a week back home. It was great.

Best Darn Century That Starts At My Doorstep

-I may have worn a camelback and consumed the entire thing including my 2 water bottles before we were able to stop

-It may just have required a mile on the interstate

-I will neither confirm nor deny eating enough food to feed a small army tonight

-But that was the best dang century I could come up with leaving my front door.

The general route is here The area between lookout mountain and Evergreen Parkway needs to be on I70 (mapmyride won't map it that way)

Got to about 8,382 feet of climbing when my garmin died here:



And some views from the summit:




If you live in Denver or visit with your bike it's a great ride! And ending downhill is a bonus....

Interview at Tri for Time

Joseph who runs a blog named Tri for Time wanted a couple words on Ironman training in residency. The interview is

here

Although one of my time management strategies has been to ignore this blog....

One product endorsement while I'm here. My new favorite running product...

Running skirts!



Undershorts that don't ride, pockets for keys and Mp3 players, stylish enough to grab a coffee after a run. And no, I'm not sponsored by skirt sports. I wish!


Happy training!

Jodi

First Race Report in 2 years!

I thought maybe a race deserved a post here for once. Scheduled this race a couple months ago when I know I had the week of for vacation. Scheduling racing is NOT easy in residency. Was able to get 4 friends and colleagues to make the trip with me and it was a ton of fun! A quick and early note of appreciation to Without Limits Productions who put on a first class race in the face of a bit of adversity.

Given the awful weather I realized on Friday that I hadn't taken my tri bike on the road in 2 years. 2 YEARS! Friday I went out on the Cherry Creek Trail and could only stay aero for about a block at a time before my upper body was screaming. That was not going to work...

So I went out yesterday and did 30 miles with 3 x 10 minute zone 4 in aero position and things were slightly better. Sent a picture to a friend of mine for a position critique and his response was "You look really weird in that position". Awesome.

Last night I did a very formal carb loading dinner consisting of a lot of cheese and 3 bottles of wine between 3 of us. I find the 2am frantic wake up after having a nightmare that I'm dying of thirst aids in pre-race hydration.

Left for the race ridiculously early in the morning per my inner neurotic drive to never be late. Oatmeal wasn't sitting super well, but being my first race in 2 years I was nervous. And a touch hungover...

Notification was made 2 days ago that the swim was cancelled. E. coli levels were such that illness was all but guaranteed to anyone who jumped in the lake. This was the 4th race that I've done with a cancelled swim so I know the drill. Not being much of a runner it's always a big let down. And it would have been a phenomenal day for a
swim. Lake was like glass.

Racing in Colorado observation #1: 99% of the field, including those that could probably stand to lose 50-100 pounds, have sponsors.

Racing in Colorado observation #2 (also the same with racing anywhere): The more expensive your bike, shoes and kit the cooler you are. Or at least the cooler you think you are...

Run #1: I don't run well cold. My triathlon runs are always faster than my open runs. I was in the fourth wave and by the time we left there were already men back and starting the bike. The buzzer sounded and I immediately regretted the intervals from yesterday. Quads felt like rocks. I am also a very awkward runner. Have you ever seen that Friends episode where Phoebe takes up running? Kind of like that. The course is about 3/4 mile flat then a 1/4 mile hill. Going up that hill I already passed some people walking. Looked like a pretty good idea to me. I was in a state of utter hyperventilation at this point.

Coming back down the hill was better. Settled into a bit of a groove. Getting excited to get on my bike in my "weird" position. My time for the 2 mile run was somewhere in the 16 minute range.

Into transition I was sloppy. Didn't bother trying to start with the shoes on the pedals. It's been too long since I've practiced that move and I'd probably end up eating pavement. Took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to clip in, mostly because I was so anaerobic I couldn't seen straight.

Bike: The bike course is fast and flat and goes through a neighborhood. Unfortunately no good excuses to get out of the aero position for the entire race. I don't race with a watch, bike computer or HRM for anything shorter than ironman. I just know I'm going hard enough if I sound like a high school girl running from a serial killer in a horror flick. I guarantee I did not sneak up on anyone today.

It was a three loop course. Coming around finishing the first loop I was pretty sure I was in trouble. Muscles were screaming. Ah well, you don't race cause it's easy. The next two loops were fast. Passed by a lot of people with disc wheels. Passed a lot of people on hybrids. Had a second or two of doubt and fear as I made the turn back to the
transition area. I did 3 laps, right??? Total time 35 minutes (21mph).

Run #2: To me, running off the bike is SOOO much easier than running cold. Feels good. Feels right. But my lack of fitness definitely showed going up the second hill. The only thing that saved me was seeing all of the fast girls gaining on me as I made the turn on the out and back. You may be sponsored but you are not beating me, dammit! I'm quite sure the last mile took half a day. My lungs were starting to burn from the 1.25 hours of hyperventilation. I just wanted it to be over so badly. And then it was. Total time was I think 23+ minutes. I heard the cheers from the peanut gallery (Sankoff, Breyer and Jason) as I went across the mat. And I managed to not puke for once. Not that I didn't want to.

Total time 1:17, Unofficially 4/33 in the female 30-34 age group. So close!

Overall happy with the day. It hurt really bad. It's not my fastest race but I went as hard as I possibly could and have no regrets. And it reminded me how much I absolutely LOVE to race. Congrats to the rest of the crew who raced today. Great times had by all!

A pic of the whole crew after the race:



Me and Dr. Breyer before the race

Oh, boy.... Here we go again

Camp wrap up

Back from camp today and I am exhausted! It was a great week with Lanny, Anita, Kathy and Jim. Lots of great workouts (220 miles of hard riding), great wine, great time with friends. We capped off hell week with my own favorite hell swim set:

500 warm up
10 x 50 with 10 situps in between each 50
200 easy
10 x 50 with 10 squat jumps between each one
200 easy
10 x 50 with 10 pushups between each one
200 easy

It is really fun. We told Anita all week that she had to bring an extra towel with her to hell-workout. I think she was quite intrigued. We had each other laughing so hard we almost peed ourselves during the situps. Then in the middle of the squat jumps, which look awfully hot in a speedo with a little extra love handles, Lanny informs me that behind the tinted windows immediately to our left is an exercise class that overlooks the pool. I hope they enjoyed the show.

Hard to thank Lanny and Anita (and Jim) enough for enduring every single workout with me and slowing down when I needed it. And Kathy for the overwhelming hospitality

But now I'm back in good ole Denver. It was nice to see the Mad-Dog and my friends at conference today. Trying to get into a good groove of training because my life is going to be pretty training-free from April 23-May 22. Hard to train when you work from 4am-6pm every day...

And my funny for the day

I'm in no shape for this...

I'm in Florida for my third annual training camp with my buddy Lanny (and his wonderful wife Kathy). I remember fondly the days when I could come here and hang with the riders here and Lanny and I could kick each others' butts in the pool. Those were the days when I wasn't fat, lazy and out of shape. However, it has been one fabulous week. Riding every single day, running and swimming on opposite days, all of which would have been so much better without bronchitis... but beggars can't be choosers.

The first day we went out with Naples Velo for their 24 hour mph ride. I was hanging on by the skin of my teeth with heart rates north of 190 when Lanny got a flat. I saw him drop back, but with the anoxic hit my brain was taking it took a good 2 minutes for me to figure out what just happened and turn around. I have never been so happy for a flat in my life. The flat happened near the turnaround for the ride. After we fixed it Lanny told me the horrible news: The pack would be back around to "pick us up" soon. Oh shit. And sure enough right when we turned at the light there were 25 testosterone charged pairs of quadriceps heading our way. So we got in line and prepared to be engulfed. And then I noticed something- "Lanny, your tool bag is open..." Within 30 seconds Lanny reached around to close his tool bag, knocked his multitool out of said bag, I ran over it and flatted my rear tire. Yet again, here I sat not exactly broken up not to have to grab onto the fast moving train with my dental floss level of fitness. 2 more guys stopped as they went by to help. With my flat now fixed we start riding home. With my naive brain I figured we would take it easy back to the cars. Oh no. Now that there was no pack to "limit" us to 24mph, why the hell not go back at 26? And that little story of my first workout pretty much sums up the whole week. Me redlining and going to bed at 8:30 so I can get my ass handed to me again in the morning.

I'm tired.

Oh, I am so, so tired.

And maybe it is this level of fatigue that has me thinking about maybe, just maybe signing up for IMWI 2011. But I do realize that it is a pipedream if for no other reason than me completely unable to get to Madison a year ahead of time to register. Grrrrr...

Anyway, other events of my most fabulous vacation week include bocce ball, kayaking, cooking, wine, and way more than my fair share of margaritas. Oh yeah, and there was that vodka night....



It is 8:41 and way, way past my bedtime. I was promised that tomorrow will be "hell day". And after the training is complete I'm getting a pedicure, damn it.



Hope you all enjoyed your Easter. (Code words for: I hope you all ate a ton of yummy chocolate)

Life is good...

Just sitting here doing laundry and drinking wine at midnight on a Monday night. You learn really fast when doing an emergency medicine residency that weekends don't exist. Neither do good night's sleep or business hours. But it also allows you to go to the pool at 11:30 am when no one is there and enjoy the gorgeous 70 degree sunny days in March in Denver. So no complaints.

Swimming by myself without my team has yet again re-exposed me to the awesomeness that is pool dynamics. I went to "lap swim" on Saturday to find that they had no intentions on putting the lane lines in. I spent 30 minutes dodging a group of kids playing water basketball before a couple of other guys jumped in. I had placed myself near one wall to best avoid being maimed by the round flying death ball. The kids quickly emptied out and the new guys, a couple ex-football players in bermuda shorts and big goggles situated themselves as they thought was appropriate. One jammed between me and the wall, and the other boxing me in on the other side. The great thing about all-muscle, all-testosterone swimmer is their utter inability to let anyone beat them in a sprint. So as I'm struggling to regain my endurance in the water with my flabby, no muscle arms, I have two guys timing their 25 yard all out sprints with when I push off the wall. After swallowing half the pool water from the wake I have now decided that I'm completely ready for another Ironman swim.

In the cycling front, yesterday I had a fabulous ride down to Morrison and through Red Rocks. I have a perfect cycling buddy who's training for Ride the Rockies. She's great and knows a bunch of beautiful routes. Denver is full of off road trails and hitting them, even if just for part of a ride is such a nice break from traffic. So today I went off on my own on the cherry creek bike path and was visited by the Karma police. I passed a middle aged lady who was well endowed from the backside wearing a tight fanny pack, fluorescent clothing and side-ways ponytail. I couldn't help but sing to myself: "You make the rockin' world go round". And for that lapse I have been plagued by Queen all day. All day. I will never think ill of you again, bright colored speed walker lady.

Headed out to Florida in 1 week for my annual- Let Lanny and Kathy (my best friends from Cleveland) kick the shit out of me every day and then get me fat and happy on great food and wine- training camp. I absolutely cannot wait. Riding and swimming every day (and running when I feel like it) surrounded by total relaxation. Maybe a pedicure thrown in, just to feel girlie. Just what an intern needs in April! And I even have another vacation left this year. Thinking of doing a 4 day backpacking trip with a 3 day spa indulgence on the end. Now that sounds faaaaabulous. And I did start looking at the Colorado race calender for the year. I think I will try to do some races this year. We shall see when the schedule comes out later next month.

And now for some ED stories...

I have been working in the pediatric ED for the past couple weeks. It's pretty awesome since I usually don't have drunk people spitting in my face and my weekly load of pelvic exams is greatly reduced. But as I said in my last post, Denver Health has the genius idea of putting the patient's own words on the ED board. Which gives me ample opportunities to take pictures of the chief complaints so that I don't forget them. One of my favorite pediatric chief complaints this week was:

"I smoked a bowl of chronic and picked up a bottle and started drinkin'"

By the looks of this 14 year old, that is something that he was going to regret. And for the record, he came in vomiting his guts out at 2pm on a Wednesday. I'm sure that the the fact that you can buy marijuana "legally" on every corner has NOTHING to do with the volume of sky high teenagers we are seeing. And I'm still trying to figure out what the 18 year old had ingested who came in actively hallucinating after watching the 3D version of Alice in Wonderland on my last shift. It was quite the sight with him still wearing his 3D glasses...

Then one day I walked over when my shift was done to talk to my friend Colleen. She was about to go see: "I am pretty sure there is a condom stuck up inside of me". We have such glorious jobs, let me tell you. I never did find out if she located the aforementioned foreign body...

OK, that is all. A couple of pics of long overdue visits with my Dad (here in Colorado) and my Mom (last week in South Carolina with my most awesome aunt and uncle). I wish I could see my family more often, but am so thankful for the moments that I do get to share with them.

On the Slopes at Breck. Buttering himself up for the mogul run in our future:



Irish bar in Charlotte, a couple days before St. Pattys. My mom, my aunt freenie and I. It was such a nice few days to catch up.



Enjoy this wonderful spring week! Summer is coming! :-)

Climbing out of a funk

I haven't posted here in about 6 months and still am not sure if I'll come back to it. But things are definitely looking up. I started intern year with about a 7 month stretch of very hard, stressful and time consuming rotations. I completely underestimated how hard it would be on my body (and the mental toll) to spend every third or fourth night in the hospital getting no sleep. I was mentally and physically spent. Didn't do any races after I moved here, and to be honest had very little motivation to train. But on the positive side I have learned so, so, so much. Going into the year I was terrified of how the schedule worked out. But I knew that once February came my life would get better. And here I am!

This past week the weather started getting better and I started to miss cycling (outside). I was feeling sorry for myself because I still didn't have a group of people to ride with. So one day I decided to be proactive about it. I started a cycling group and less than a week later it has 47 members. I went on a fabulous 56 mile ride with a new training buddy up into a canyon, Joined a pool, started running again and booked my flight for the first week of April to do a little training camp with my buddy Lanny in Florida. Not sure about racing this year since I have to see my schedule, but I'm doing the Copper Triangle bike ride in August (three mountain passes in one day). Hopefully some other races including one or two tris. Kicking around the idea of doing a half marathon the third weekend in April. Highly doubt I can get my flabby butt into shape that fast, but it could be fun to try. I didn't reapply to Timex for obvious reasons but I am really looking forward to getting back to doing what I love because I love it and not worrying about anything else. I want to swim, bike and run for the joy of it. Because let me tell you... it ain't gonna be fast!

Ok, to end on a funny note, here are some of my favorite quotes from the past few months...

ED board where patients chief complaints get put up for the docs and nurses to see:

"DOG ate toe"

Yup. Accurate statement, unfortunately

Overheard by chief resident before rounds when he didn't know that the whole department was listening in:

"She had the most perfect vagina!" (The backstory was that he did a speculum exam on a woman that used to be a man without knowing that little fact)

Leaving a patients room with a spanish translator:

Translator: You don't want to know what we just talked about

Me: Oh yes I do

Translator: She asked if condoms would prevent her and her husband from transmitting chlamydia back and forth...because even the XLs are too small for him.

And then I knew why he was sitting back smirking

Hope everyone out there is doing well!!!

Finally room to breath

After working 3 straight months of 80 hour weeks I am finally back home in the emergency department. We work 4-10 hour shifts (8am-6pm twice followed by 6pm-4am twice) and then have 2 days off. Life is good! I am rediscovering the joy of running with the help of the Mad-dog, and in turn I've been trying to introduce her to the fun of Colorado.

As you can see, she loves climbing:



Me too!





And can't get enough of hiking:



Speaking of Hiking, I got a hold of a new Timex Expedition WS4 watch last month (thanks to my teammate Roger Thompson for the help). I broke in this awesome toy with my favorite hike so far:



This is Spearhead Mountain. A big challenge at about 12 miles round trip and one hell of a steep climb, especially given the fact that you it's done without ropes or support. There are some dodgy sections for sure. But I always knew our exact altitude with the Expedition. So much fun!

Here's a pic of us (Deb, me and Anna) at the top with a great view of Long's Peak in the background!



I liked it so much I did the hike the next weekend with Roger and his son Willi. We didn't quite make the summit because we were caught in a bit of a snowstorm when we started climbing the steep part. But here are a couple pics of us at the top of Bierstadt on another ascent:

I had 5 layers on underneath that jacket. BRRRRRRR!!!



And Roger at the top:



Then my Dad was in town last weekend and we went to the Rockies/Brewers game



And then I tried to kill him by taking him from his home at sea level up to 13,000+ feet. We didn't quite make it to the top of Gray's peak because he got altitude sick, but we had some beautiful views nonetheless





And then we celebrated with some hot "Mexican Candy" out with my brother and his family for dinner. Notice the sweat on his head?



So things are good. Doing more running (just got back from 4-5 miles with the Mad Dog) and biking (mostly trainer) and trying to get back in the swing of life. Heading off Saturday on my first vacation of the year. Going to PANAMA! Can't wait!

Best of luck to my friends and teammates racing Kona. You guys rock!

Still working...

Just hopped off the trainer for a short spin on the Trek. Life has been more than hectic. I grossly underestimated how hard it would really be to work 80 hours per week and try to stay motivated for anything other than sleep! I have survived a month of surgery night float and a month in the Medical Intensive Care Unit at the University. Currently working medicine wards and about to start a 102 hour week working the graveyard shift at the county hospital. The bonus of working nights is the added training you can get in riding your bike to the hospital since it's always when the sun's still out.

Training has been pathetic, I'm afraid to admit. Things will turn around, for sure when I get to my on-service (emergency) months. I can't wait! I just happened to be very front loaded with my schedule. The bonus of that is I should be able to race early next season! I end my year with 4/5 months in the emergency department where we only work 60 hours per week. Yay!!



With my time off (we are mandated to have at least 4-24 hour work free days per month), I've tried to do a lot of cross-training. My workout of choice has been hiking. Two weekends ago Roger and I did 18 miles of hiking, climbing a couple mountains in Rocky Mountain National park. It was awesome!



This past week I had to take Maddie to the vet (found a 24 hour emergency vet) because she had developed what I thought was a swollen anal gland. Turns out it was a solid mass and I'm anxiously awaiting the results of the pathology. I'm terrified it's cancer. So over the weekend I took her out to Indian Peaks on a hike. She liked it so much that I think we're going to climb Bierstadt (14,000 feet) on Saturday if she's feeling up to it. I'm hoping to get ahold of the new Timex Expedition series to test it out. It looks sweet and even comes in orange!



Well, that's all I've got for now. Just trying to keep my head above water as an intern. I never fail to be inspired by my teammates at Timex ripping it up this year. I'll be back to the races eventually!

My Day off

What I love about Denver:

Being in the mountains in 1 hour



Mountain fed lakes



Climbing to the top of a mountain



And relaxing for a bit



and Watching people ski on a 90 degree July day



Meeting new people every day that like to get out and be active



Things I hate about Denver...

These two not being here:




And missing my friends! Lanny and Kathy sent me the nicest housewarming gift today. I miss my riding, swimming, running, dinner and wine drinking friends!

Back to the grind...

Up!

Every week I have had the same Friday plan. Get home from work at 7am, take a nap and then get things done! Well, every week the nap gets a little longer. So yesterday the nap was just over 8 hours. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much last night. About 3.5 hours was all I could handle. So now it's 6:30am and I'm already through 2 loads of laundry, a load of dishes, a Monster energy drink, a walk with the Mad dog and I'm about ready to hit the roads for a run! Nothing makes you appreciate a day off quite as much as working your butt off all week. So not to waste a second of my day off I'm headed on a big hike in the mountains at 9am and then cookie making for the most fabulous nurses on earth and then maybe a ride on the trainer to finish off the night. Woohoo!

In other news, our official Denver Health EM scrubs arrived this week. We were told that they run very big, so I opted for the XS. Well, as it turns out all the scrub sizes run huge... except the XS. It's open season on booty when I have those things on. I'm using it as motivation to not gain any weight during residency. Although I have this fear that one day on shift someone is going to bring in treats and I'm going to have to use the trauma sheers to cut my pants off. I will have pics soon of the bootylicious scrubs with my Nathan race belt holding my 7 pagers. It's hot.

Training is a bit on hold lately, but I am getting very good at running through 2 hospital pavilions, 9 floors and a huge emergency department. I could also probably win the "answering multiple pagers at once" division at the local adventure race. I'm also getting much better at filling out the "death packet". Which will come in handy working in the medical ICU starting Thursday...

Ok, I'll try to put up some pics later of the big hike today. But I'll leave you with a pic describing the state of my life lately.



It really was quite organized. Before it collapsed. Ditto for my sweet over the door shoe rack. Before it broke....

All work, some play!

My life is absolute crazy town right now! My muscles are getting flabby but my brain is getting a little less atrophied than it was 6 months ago. I got on the trainer today and put in an hour. And my legs felt like jello when I was done! So, so sad. But not to worry, My roommate and I are planning a big end of season race to keep us motivated! I almost guarantee a finish line puke...

Work is pretty draining. I work 80 hours between Sunday morning at 7am and Friday morning at 7am. The only thing I do between shifts is sleep! At times it is overwhelmingly stressful, and there are a couple rare moments of peace. I had to send patients to the ICU on two days last week. And another day I started the day with 5 consults (2 neurosurgery, 2 urology and 1 plastics) and ended it with 4 more consults (2 neurosurgery, 1 plastics, 1 urology). In between I tried my best to keep 100 floor patients alive. Ah, the pleasures of being an intern! It's so funny to me that just a couple months ago as a medical student I wasn't allowed to make any decisions... and now I'm the go-to person for dozens of people and am expected to be the front line doc for every guy who gets rolled in the front door with a head full of blood. I find something distinctly wrong with that picture....

I do get 48 straight hours off every week and have been really enjoying that time. Mostly because I love my roommates and my intern class is amazing!

Here is my Emergency Medicine intern class at our picnic:




And last weekend Roger came to visit. It was awesome. We went to Red Rocks for a concert, went to the Cherry Creek Art Festival, went hiking in the mountains and went to a nice dinner. Absolutely milked every second out of the weekend! Here are a couple pics from the top of the hike we did:




And then this weekend I gathered a bunch of the interns and we went out to dinner. The night ended with me, my roommate and my friend Kaite cleaning up after the over-imbibing of a surgery intern who shall remain nameless. We made the best out of the situation. And had a LOT of laughs.




So things are hard, life is stressful, but I am having a good time away from the hospital and learning a ton when I'm there! I have a ton of funny stories, but I'll leave you with one...

Last week I got a page from the Emergency Department to the Neurosurgery pager. It went something like this...

We have a patient of yours down here...

He signed out from the Intensive Care Unit against medical advice this afternoon (one of the many things I don't find out when I start my shift)

The Denver Police found him wandering the streets with his butt hanging out of his hospital gown, his IV still in place...

drinking a beer

Would you mind coming down to see him?

Sometimes I really do LOVE my job

:-)

Welcome to internship

I started internship with one of the most demanding and scary rotations of the year. I get there at 5pm Monday thru Thursday and have 6 people hand me lists of patients that will be my responsibility for the next 14 hours (24 on Sunday starting at 7am). I carry 6 pagers that go off relentlessly all night with people looking to me for answers. And whenever there is a neurosurgery, plastics or urology consult in the emergency department I am in charge of the initial history and physical. I pretty much spend the night terrified. One day last week I went 24 hours without eating because I was too busy/exhausted. This week I have taken care of, among others, a murderer, a baby with an unexplained head bleed, a couple who rolled their car on vacation, a lady with a softball sized brain tumor, more people with appendicitis than I care to count and a man with the worst aortic dissection I've ever seen. But the beauty of this rotation is that when I leave on Friday morning at 7am I don't have to be back until Sunday morning at 7am. Days off rock!

My residency class is simply amazing. We are going to be a pretty close group. There is rarely a day when just one of us has the day off, so I was able to find a hiking buddy for today. My classmate Kirsten and I went up to Rocky Mountain National Park for a couple hours.








Other awesome things about Denver:

-My bike commute is great. It's mostly on a bike path that runs under the city. Looks like this:



Except when it rains. Because then the whole path turns into a whitewater rapid. I need to get a kayak for those days...

- I have family here. My brother Carey came up last weekend and installed a doggie door for us (our house kind of resembles a dog kennel). Then he had me over for a wonderful dinner. Bonus!

- Roger is coming next weekend! Going to Red Rocks for a concert and then I'm trying to decide between hiking and whitewater rafting for next Saturday. Can't wait! Just have to survive 80 hours of work in the next 5 days and then I'm good to go!

(*training is going to be a bit low this month, but there will be good months, I'm sure!)