Nurse On The Run

Hello! I know I said I was back blogging, but as I’ve been saying for almost the past two years….anesthesia school takes up a majority of my time and marathon training isn’t exactly not time consuming either haha. Between studying, running, and taking breaks with friends, maybe my return to blogging was a bit premature.

BUT! The big news of the week is that it’s MARATHON WEEK. Man, I’ve waited so, so long to say that again. My last marathon was the 2015 New York City Marathon, which was about 2.5 years ago and was a bit of a disaster.. It was also long before I started anesthesia school, long before bilateral hip surgery, a possible almost stress fracture (“stress reaction” whatever nonsense my calf was), lots of life stress. (And only one haircut – my hair is really, really long, haha.) Anyway. It has been a long time since I’ve thought about running a marathon, and I’m very excited that that time is here.

Nervous, but excited. I’m not sure I remember how to do this.

Training has gone pretty well, and if there’s anything I’m proud of over the past few years, it’s how I dealt with injury and recovery. I was very smart in coming back from surgery and took things super slow. I still feel like I’m coming back from injury/surgery mostly because I’m not as fast as I used to be, but I also haven’t done any speed work outside of random days where I just tried to run fast. However, surgery was about 1.5 years ago so I feel a little silly saying that I’m still coming back from it. Maybe this marathon will mark the end of that. My training plan was loosely based on one of Hal Higdon’s intermediate marathon training plans, more so based on a progression of long runs and whatever training runs I could fit in based on my clinical schedule. (How tired I was, how late I got home, etc.) I did two 18 milers, two 20 milers, and maxed out at 50 mile week, which is the highest weekly mileage I’ve run in years.

I did my first 20 miler solo as an out and back along the West Side Highway. I love running with people, but it’s just going to be out there on race day, so the mental game needs some edge. I averaged 7:59 pace which is probably too fast for long run pace. I mostly blamed the guys I ran past who just wouldn’t let me get ahead of them….I was like, “I can run 8:00 pace all day, just you watch.” Finally they gave in. VICTORY. Hopefully I can hold 8:00 pace for 26.2 and life will be golden. I did have to give myself a huge pep talk at mile 18, but that’s alright. I blame that on little hydration because the water fountains were quite on yet.

My other 20 miler was with ridiculous wind while running with Abbe, but pace was 8:29 and felt easy. Same with the 18 milers (which took us on tours of Queens and Brooklyn, highly recommend switching it up), so I feel good about that.

My peak mileage weeks.

I don’t think I mentioned this in my last post, but I started fueling with Snickers bars. If you’ve been around for awhile, you may remember that never in my life have I been able to eat gels, so I normally use chews (Powerbar Energy Chews, usually) for my long runs/marathons. I went to buy some when my long runs ramped up, and it appears they don’t make them anymore….I’ve been out of the game for too long. In discussing this with Abbe and Baker, the idea of using candy (specifically Snickers) came up, so I’ve tried them on my long runs and I’m happy with it! I cut the fun size Snickers bars into two or three pieces, put them in a ziplock bag, and carry them in a RooSport pouch. So far, so good! I’m worried about if it gets warm on race day (weather looks okay so far, fingers crossed), so I may put some in the refrigerator the night before just to harden then up a little. The freezer is a little too intense, but the refrigerator seems to keep them hard enough that it’s not a melty mess while still being easy enough to chew.

I don’t recommend putting them in a zip lock bag in your sports bra because: 1) they melt and 2) your swimsuit model career will be ruined. Thank goodness I have anesthesia school as a back up.

Current weather reports are calling for partly cloudy with temperatures in the 50’s-ish, so fingers crossed that doesn’t change. That would be pretty magical and I could run in shorts in a tank, which is what I’ve worn only once this year because spring is taking forever to reach NYC.

My goals for the race are pretty simple. They are as follows:

Qualify for Boston. And by that I mean, “run a time that would actually get me into Boston.” So, 3:30 because 3:34:59 isn’t going to cut it.
Finish.

I will honestly be happy with both of those. Or even just the second one. I would love, love, love to qualify to run Boston again next year. I haven’t run it since the bombings in 2013, and I really want to go back. I may have a back up marathon in my mind in case this doesn’t happen. But overall, I truly feel lucky to have the privilege to toe a start line agains, so I will be happy just to finish. Having surgery was a little bit of a reset on my running career (so maybe I should want to beat my first marathon time, which was 3:51…maybe?), so I’m trying not to compare to my previous PRs quite yet. I hope to run that fast (and faster!) again someday, but coming back from surgery and training while in anesthesia school isn’t the time for that.

As an aside, I’m sure you may know by now that the second place woman at the Boston Marathon is a CRNA. I attribute most of her toughness in the race to having survived anesthesia school, haha. Four more months to go…

Let me know if you’ll be out at the New Jersey Marathon – running the full, half, or cheering! I will definitely take all the help I can get and I can’t wait to toe that line again.

Hey guys, it’s me.

I know, it’s been awhile. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster over here since my last post and sometimes it just felt like I was barely hanging on, let alone having time to write. But I do miss this space and sharing about running and nursing. Part of me feels like blogging is a thing of the past (which I’ve written about before…), but I enjoy putting ~~pen to paper~~ fingers to the keyboard, so here we are.

Let’s get you all up to speed, why won’t we?

School

I can’t believe this, but we’re less than six months away from graduation. If you had told me last year when I was deep in the trenches (not that I’m out of them…) that I’d be uttering those words or that it would FEEL somewhat tangibly close, I’d think you’re crazy. This program has been a roller coaster of it’s own. It’s both exciting and a little scary that I’ll be done in six months, but I can tell I’ve grown and learned so much and look forward to making the most of the next six months.

In September/October, I did a general rotation at my old hospital, which was fun to return to my old stomping grounds! I even got to go into a burn surgery for skin grafting, which was cool to come full circle on that. The minute ventilation on the ventilator was so high to make up for the increased metabolism and CO2 production – burns are so fascinating!

After that, I spent November/December commuting to Long Island for my pediatric rotation. I was with pediatric attendings, most of who had just finished their pediatric fellowship, so it was cool to work with people who had just finished their training. We did tons of mask inductions, and my IV skills shined with those tiny IVs. They also had a pretty intensive NICU with very sick, tiny tiny babies. It was a challenging and incredible experience. (Commuting/finding parking, on the other hand, was not fun.)

January/February was back in Manhattan at a small hospital (five ORs!) with lots of spine cases, so I became a lot more comfortable with turning a patient prone. The CRNAs here were incredible and so great to work with, both to learn from and to work on being independent.

Bouffant life for life.

Now I’m back to commuting to Long Island for a cardiac rotation. Cardiac is a little intimidating for me because it’s very different from the ICU training I had. In burns, we give fluid, fluid, and more fluid, but cardiac is all about pressors and inotropes. This is a great opportunity to place central lines and such, so it’s been a good experience so far.

I still have my OB and trauma rotations and then one more general rotation – it’s flying and I’m trying to study for the board exam so I can hopefully knock that out soon after graduation! We start looking for jobs soon which seems crazy but exciting.

Life

I’m single. I moved to the Upper East Side.

In January, Ali had me as a guest on her podcast, the Ali on the Run show. Lots of nursing, running, travel, and introvert talk. Check it out!

Running

RUNNING! Hello, I still love you. Last we heard, I ran a half marathon in New Jersey and it went very well. I heard rumors that school gets a little more manageable in the spring semester (which it did!), and I got the marathon itch. While I pondered my list of spring marathons I’d really like to run one day (Eugene, Kentucky Derby), I decided that a closer option would be best since traveling while in this program maybe isn’t the grandest plan. The New Jersey Marathon won for its location (I can drive down there in the morning!), timing (late April – hopefully not too warm??), and the fact that it is flat as a pancake. You may recall that I ran the NJ Marathon with a friend way back in 2013, so it will be my great return.

While I know that my goal for my first marathon back from surgery (recap: hip arthroscopy in August 2016) should be to just finish it, the truth is that I really want to go back to Boston. I know it sounds a little elitist to say, “I haven’t run it since 2013,” but I really want to get back there. I know this marathon won’t be a PR for me, and even running 3:30 (because let’s be honest, 3:34:59 isn’t going to get me a spot) will be a lot more challenging than it used to be, but I want to go for it and think it’s possible.

That said, training has been going well! I don’t train like I would love to due to the school schedule, but I’m doing what works. I definitely run on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, which are non-clinical days, and then I try to squeeze in at least one more run Tuesday-Friday – usually 4-5 easy miles because running after being at clinical all day is hard. There’s definitely no speed work involved, and I’m mostly trying to run myself into shape. Training started on Christmas Day (the best present there is??) and got a little thrown off with the events of January, but I’ve been able to slowly build like you’re supposed to, and I feel good about it.

Miles with JB fly by!

I ran 41 miles last week, which is the most I’ve run in a long, long time. My legs were tiiiiiiiired after that! My long runs have slowly been building, and I reached 18 miles this past week! I’ve been doing a mix of running with others (shout out to the Bakers and Jocelyn for being my long run buddies…) and running solo. Although I enjoy having company on long runs, I’ll be solo on race day so I think it’s important to get some of mental edge that will be needed when hitting mile 22. I’ve also mostly been leaving the podcasts behind and going back to my roots of running without a phone, which I love. My long run pace has been anywhere from 8:00-8:30, which feels good and often ends with a faster finish for some confidence boosting.

Highlights from the recent runs have included:

Abbe and I did a really fun run, getting out of Central Park loops! We ran over the Queensboro, through LIC, over the Pulaski Bridge, through Williamsburg, over the Williamsburg Bridge, and up the east side of Manhattan.
After a discussion about fueling options for marathons (which, if you’ve been around awhile, you may remember I can’t take gels and chews are my go-to despite not loving them), Baker and I decided to try using Snickers bars for fuel. We took fun size Snickers bars on our 18 mile long run on Saturday, and I must say…….I think we’re on to something.
Our 18 mile long run was a partial circumnavigation of Manhattan, which is a run I haven’t done in years. So fun!
I was getting annoyed about how I don’t run as fast as I used to – I was chasing some guys (who I didn’t know) on a run, and some random woman yelled, “Go catch those guys!” so I dropped a 6:36 mile and that burn feels so good.

Circumnavigation!!

I feel like I’m still coming back from injury/surgery, and I’m not sure at what point I won’t feel like that. I definitely feel like I’m starting all over again with this marathon thing. For many of my marathons, I had years and years of training and mileage under my legs, and I think that build over years is so important. I was taking it pretty easy in the year leading up to surgery, which was followed by three months of basically nothing but physical therapy exercises, then a slooooooow return to running via a run/walk. It wasn’t until the summer that I started to feel like my old self again, and even that was limited by the time constraints/stress of school and starting clinical.

Not that I ever left the running community, but it feels really good to be back kind of like the old days. To be able to talk about future races, to join in on group runs without wondering how my hips will hold up, to run for an hour and call it easy. When I was at the running store looking for my long run fuel (I used to used Power Bar energy chews), I realized they didn’t have them. I asked someone who worked at the store, and she said she hasn’t seen them in awhile. I’ve been out of the game so long that they’re phasing out my fuel of choice! (Thank goodness we’re onto this Snickers thing.) Running is such a big part of my life, and it’s really fun to be back in it without reservation.

Hopefully I’ll be back to the blogging game. I’ve missed it. Let me know if you’re training for a spring race! Or if you have any tips about the UES that I may have missed on my three year hiatus. Or if you have leads for CRNAs jobs!

Nurse on the Run

New Jersey Marathon – Race Week!

….is this thing on?