Nurse on the Run

So, I’m somewhat sad to report that my two months on day shift has come to an end and I’m back on night shift.  I say somewhat sad because I like the people who I work with on nights, and the shift in general is a bit more relaxed, but sleeping at night is something I miss!  It wouldn’t be so bad if the rest of the world kept a night schedule, but most of you don’t, so flipping my schedule back and forth leads to one tired Susan.  Headed back to night shift with three in a row, and I’m happy to be on the other side of that stretch.

back to wacky sleeping

My plan for flipping to a night schedule was to stay up really late on Saturday night and then sleep in as long as I could on Sunday.  Well…I went to bed around 4am and was wide awake at 1pm.  Gah.  Laying in bed for another hour yielded no results so I woke up and headed out for a run.  Since Sunday was the day after the 10k, I ran about five miles and kept it easy…I’ll admit that five miles seems like a warm up and it was over super quick.

Sunday, January 29
5.24 miles in 41:58, avg pace of 8:01

I got home and put up my blackout curtains and fake napped before heading into work.  I was definitely super tired to the point of being nauseated, but I made it to 8am and was passed out in bed by 8:30am.  That’s somewhat impressive.

Hey, look!  Black out curtains!

After waking up every two hours until I finally got up at 5pm, I went for another short but sweet run before work.  Five miles around the reservoir is always one of my favorite runs, especially if it’s on the darker side outside and you can see all the nights of midtown.  So pretty!  Too bad I don’t run with my camera…

Monday, January 30
5.17 miles in 43:17, avg pace of 8:22

nutrition talk

One of my goals for this round of night shift is to work on my nutrition.  I have a tendency to end up just eating bowls of cereal for dinner/breakfast/whatever you want to call the meal I eat when I get off from work in the morning.  This is not ideal.  Night shift also tends to make me feel very snacky all the time, perhaps mistaking the feeling of being tired for being hungry.  While I can’t guarantee that I’ll give up brownies at 2am (they’re so tempting when I go to get some coffee), overall I’m going for a little bit of a revamp.  Before heading into work this week, I’ve taken to eating a piece of toast with some smashed avocado, sliced tomato, cheese, and a bit of pepper.  It is delicious.  When you add a sliced banana on the side, it looks like a smiley face:

Smiley face?  Tomato slice eyes?  Banana smile?  Yes?  No?

So I think I found myself a new go-to pre/post-work meal.  At work, I have a full meal to eat sometime around 12-2am-ish, and I’ve been taking a yogurt and some granola to eat around 6am.  This is nice because then I come home and go right to sleep!  Otherwise when I get home I’ll probably just eat anything in sight.  That’s never a good idea.  Three nights of good nutrition down, many, many to go.

don’t you dare touch my coffee

I saw this card on etsy, and that would be one lucky man who would meet these qualifications:

Coffee with milk, please.

I had somewhat tapered down my coffee intake after being on day shift, but the caffeine intake is back through the roof.  At my most recent doctor’s appointment, the doctor asked about how much caffeine I consume, so I told her…and she looked at me like I was crazy.  I told her I work night shift, although I really wanted to be like, “What?  You were a resident once, you know how it is!”  But I kept that to myself.  Instead, I continue to drink coffee in large quantities and often at 2am.  Totally normal.

After my shift on Tuesday night, I climbed into bed with 2am and tweeted this:

Sara apparently saw my tweet and actually followed through on it…I didn’t realize what was going on and simply thought my alarm on my phone had a mind of its own since it was going off every five minutes.  Oops?  I woke up at 2pm and drank some more coffee.

You are so tasty.  Especially in a San Francisco mug.

I headed out for a run, which I like to call a “zombie run” because I’m not totally awake for those runs.  It was an unbelievable 62 degrees outside, so shorts and a tshirt was super comfortable.  This is definitely giving me a false sense of what it’s really like to train for a spring marathon!  Crazy.  However, you won’t find me complaining one bit.  Despite being mostly mentally awake, my legs didn’t feel that motivated, although my pace would appear to show otherwise.  With the 62 degrees, I couldn’t possibly complain about what I felt like.

Wednesday, February 2
8.36 miles in 1:04:26, avg pace of 7:43

That’s nice.  I like you, warm weather.

so that whole night thing

One week of nights down, fifteen to go!  It’s like marathon training…except not really.  This time around I’m hoping to try and cope with it okay…I know some people do fine on night shift, but how I adjust definitely varies from week to week.  I’m off until Monday night (hooray!), so I’ll be back to a normal schedule just in time for the weekend…which bodes well for the social aspect of life…hooray!

I’ve got big running plans for this round of night shift, especially since Boston will occur on this four month stretch!  Here’s to some good running, good nutrition, and good sleep this time around.

Now seeking:  People who want to run at 5pm or 8am.  Pace doesn’t matter, just an ability to understand that I can be a grump.  Ha.

I have absolutely no idea how I ever agreed to sign up for a 10K, but Betsy is a pretty convincing neighbor, so this morning I woke up at the break of down (or…5:50am) to make the trek to Brooklyn for the NYC RUNS Brrrrrrooklyn Hot Chocolate 10k.  I don’t know if you knew this, but Prospect Park is a bit of a trek from the Upper East Side, and I probably wouldn’t have headed over there if it wasn’t for the early morning company of Betsy.  In the ceremonious runner’s breakfast, Betsy bought a banana from the fruit stand on the corner and away we went.  Luckily, the subway came pretty quick and the 4 ran local to Prospect Park, so that was nice.

We hopped off the subway and started walking towards the park.  Eissa was right behind us so she joined us in our smart phone led journey to find the starting line.  Soon enough we found it and dropped our stuff off…this meant the pants and sweatshirt came off, leaving me to race in shorts and a light long sleeve shirt.  (Plus headband and gloves, I’m not too crazy.)  Jocelyn, Laura, and Laura were also around, so there was plenty of company.  Betsy and I hit the port-o-potties before jogging over to the start.

on the line

I guess I missed the announcement by the race director that the timing mats weren’t working and the back ups didn’t arrive in time, so this little 10k turned into an untimed fun run.  Not going to lie…I didn’t trek all the way over for a fun run!  Oh well, it wasn’t a goal race and was more for the hot chocolate, so I’ll survive.  I don’t even know how to run a 10k.  So that’s fine.  Soon the gun went off and away we went.

Just as a side note before I give a not-so-detailed race report:  This is my third 10k in my life.  For my first, I was a freshman in college with no idea what I was doing.  For my second, it was the Mini 10k…it was hot and humid, and the night before I was out until 1am drinking beer and eating nachos.  So my PR wasn’t exactly a stellar time.  Moving on.

lap one

I’ve only run in Prospect Park once in my life, so I don’t know the ins and outs of it like I do Central Park.  This can be a good and bad thing, as sometimes it’s nice to know what lies ahead and other times it’s not so fun.  The gun went off and we started up “the hill” in Prospect Park, which isn’t so bad on fresh legs.  I saw Megan in front of me and probably spent about a mile catching up to her.  Caught up to her and we chatted along for a little bit, holding a somewhat steady 6:45-ish pace…aided by some downhills.  That’s nice.  We noted some random mile markers stuck into the ground, but meanwhile just kept running.  The first lap went by pretty quick.

lap two

Uh, hello there, hill on the second time around.  Megan slipped ahead of me and I slowed wayyyy down.  I’m mentally not all that super at running up hills (perks of being from the Prairie State…), and I have no idea how to run a 10k anyway…so the mile up the hill slowed down to a solid 7:23.  Oops?  I knew it’d be better once I got up and over the hill, as there’s a downhill on the other side.  Mentally I wasn’t into it and I guess it shows.  I definitely felt much better once the hill was behind me and just concentrated on getting to the finish line.  I could tell I was running faster and saw some people up ahead to try and catch…hi, Harrier girl!  I caught her and that was nice.  As I got closer to the finish, I couldn’t actually remember what my 10k PR was, but I figured I’d be beating it.  So that’s nice.  Sped through the finish, 10k, done!  Thank goodness.

Saturday, January 28
6.2 miles in 42:33, avg pace of 6:52
Splits:  6:47, 6:39, 7:23 (ouch), 6:40, 6:37, 1:31 (6:31 pace)

hooray PR!

That’s a PR by about a minute, so I’ll take it.  Overall it felt more like a tempo run than any sort of race.  As I said, I have no idea how to race a 10k, and I certainly didn’t taper for this at all, so I’m okay with the effort.  I certainly wasn’t running all out and never felt like I was going to die, so I think if I trained for more speed I could probably drop my time a bit.  But that’s neither here nor there, and I like running marathons.

hot chocolate and brunch for the win

I was most excited about this race because instead of another cotton tshirt to add to my collection, they gave out mugs!  If you know my coffee obsession (back to night shift tomorrow night…), then you know this is a winning combination.  I’ve also taken to drinking more hot chocolate during this (mild) winter, even better. 

Yay Brooklyn mug!

I’ll probably be drinking of out this tomorrow.  Also, behind the mug is a really old picture of my dad and me (I think I’m four-ish, but you can’t see me in the picture), and it’s one of my favorites.  Hi dad!

Post-race, Betsy, Jocelyn, Laura, Laura, and I headed to brunch at Tom’s in Brooklyn.  We only got a little lost, but it was a nice, sunny day so no complaints from me.  The wait at Tom’s was only about five minutes…not too shabby.  As solemates, Betsy and I split a broccoli and cheese omelet and banana walnut pancakes…seriously, find a friend who will split such things and keep them close always.  Best idea ever.  Also, the pancakes were delicious!  Highly recommended.

Overall, not too shabby of a start to a Saturday.

double time

In my mind, I had hopes for a few warm up and cool down miles at the 10k to up my mileage, but that didn’t happen.  Oops?  I figured I had enough time to head home, take a nap, and head back out again for a few miles.  I’ve never doubled in my life (unless you count relays), so I wasn’t sure what it would be like.  Just before napping, a box arrived from the SF Marathon, so I knew what I’d be wearing on my run!

I don’t wear hats…ever.  I think I look funny in them and they never fit my head correctly.  When I played softball, we wore visors…brilliant.  But anyway, I kind of like this hat!  Anyway, I headed to Central Park to rep the marathon and get in some easy miles.  My hair was still wet from my post-10k shower….as was my sports bra.  I need to do laundry, okay? 

Anyway, off to the park for some easy miles.  People have asked me about my other SF Marathon shift before, so it really does work to run around with it on.  Today was no different, except the person who stopped to chat about it was none other than another NYC Ambassador, Emily!  She was wearing her shirt as well, so that worked out perfectly.  We chatted for a few minutes before going on our way.  If only I had run into Mark in Brooklyn this morning!  We’ll arrange an actual meet up one of these days. 

Back home and second run for the day was done…I like it.

Saturday, January 28, ROUND TWO
6.18 miles in 49:12, avg pace of 7:58

Soooo probably not as easy as I should have taken it, but oh well.  Not too shabby for two runs today!