WHABAM!

Let's just cut to the chase shall we? 

We shall.

Ran half marathon #2 yesterday and....

...it was THE BEES KNEES.

This calls for story time!

To be completely honest, I did not feel ready mentally or physically. I didn't do much running the week before the race and thought I would be lucky if I tied my first time. Really. I was not ready. But when I woke up on Saturday I felt surprisingly good. I was extra motivated from a good luck call from absolute darling friend of mine (4:30am my time, 3:30am his time). I ate, got dressed and was ready. At this point, I was going into the race not really caring and just wanting to get this race over with...and I think it really helped. The weather was perfect (well, perfect by running standards). It was cold (40s) but I like running in the cold and actually, I thought it was warmer than my first race in October. The race began at 6:30am and I told myself to go start off easy this time. Last time I was flying the first half of the race and then paid for it dearly the second half. I picked off my two (unofficial) pacers by the time I got to 5 miles and was feeling good. Now, there was a marathon and a half marathon and we all ran together until around mile 11. I couldn't find the 2:00 half marathon pacer, though I knew I began the race in front of him so I decided to just keep my eye on the 4:00 marathon pacer and noticed that as the race went on I was creeping closer and closer to him. This pleased me. I felt surprisingly well when I hit mile 8 and ate a shot block and decided I would eat another, if needed at mile 10 or 11. Well, for the love of mankind THEY DIDN'T POST THE NEXT MILE MARKER UNTIL MILE 12!!!!! You see, when I hit mile 8 and was still feeling pretty good, my competitive side revved up and I decided I was going to try to PR this race.  Trust me when I say I panicked a little after mile 8 and didn't see mile markers because I didn't know what mile I was at or what my time was. AH-NNOYING. I could tell I was at least at mile 10 when my quads starting talking to me, so that was kind of nice but for the love of running where the HECK were my mile markers!!??!?!? Every 2 miles huh? HUH? HUH??? LIES!!!! 

Well. All of the sudden I saw the mile 12 marker and was ecstatic, relieved, and then the exhaustion hit me. But my adrenaline also kicked it into (higher) gear and I was determined. Also I noticed the dude next to me perk up a little when we saw the mile 12 marker, I gave him a side ward glance and secretly challenged him to a running duel. And then the sensible side kicked in and I decided maybe I should just aim at finishing the race at my current pace (instead of trying run really fast/sprint the last 1.2 miles like I thought of doing for 0.3 seconds) so I let him get a little ahead of me but I kept pace with him. WELL. Then I saw, what I thought was the mile 13 marker, so I picked up my speed a little bit only to realize after I had passed it that the marker was the 26 mile marker for the marathoners and in actuality I was quickly approaching the REAL mile 13 marker. So once again I got my adrenaline going for the 3rd time and I was in some serious pain. But a good pain. But still, pain. And at this point they funnel the runners in so it got kind of tight. Well, I passed the mile 13 marker, say the clock and the finish line and SPRINTED. FOR. MY. LIFE. I'm sure my quads were ready to kill me but I was darned and determined to PR this race and be done. 

My unofficial time was a 1:57....

SET A NEW PR!!!!!!!

And then today I checked for my official chip time...

1:55:48

WHABAM!!!!!

I beat my first half marathon time by a little over 5 minutes!!!!!!

I felt like a rockstar. Could not believe it!!!!! I'm still floating.

And now in other news.....

My visitor over a long weekend left Tuesday evening (sad, sad day). It was, undoubtedly one of the best times of my life. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much fun. Pure bliss.  

Well, I walked into my office on Wednesday morning, I had this waiting for me:

Thank you my dear colleagues for 1) the messages and 2) messages on STICKY notes everywhere!!! I have an infatuation with sticky notes. I love them. It's kind of ridiculous but I do, I love them. 

Oh and hey! It was Valentine's Day too! I decorated Valentine's Day cookies with some of the rehab patients and the staff. It was fun!  

And my stepdad sent me chocolates. I am now a part of the tradition. I wish I describe to tell you how utterly happy this makes me. Happiness. 

AND my best friend sent my a Valentine's Day card with treats. 

Love this girl!

AND!! OH SNAPDRAGON! IT SNOWED IN SOUTH CAROLINA!!!!!!

(This is considered a heavy frost in NH, but I was still excited to see some white stuff here in the south. I'm sure the snowbirds weren't...bahahahaha! And you thought you could escape it!!! MUAHAHAHA!)

Also. Tim McGraw came out with a new CD. It's FABULOUS!!! A throwback to some of his old stuff, his GOOD stuff. Love it. I bought the whole CD and have been listening to it all week. A few songs even made it to my half marathon playlist. 

It's been the best week ever.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Haha ok so get this. I went in to educate a patient who had just gotten out of knee surgery. I educated him and we chatted and I asked if there was anything else I could do or get for him before I left. He said, "Yes. Will you be my Valentine?" Cheeky me, I replied, "Yes....But do you have chocolate?" He did but I was just being fresh. It was amusing. Except he had chocolate covered raisins. Oooooh temptation!!!! 

So, here is my favorite Valentine's Day date story:
It was my senior year at BYU and my friend Dan (whom I called Dashby) asked me on a date. Now let me tell you a little about Dashby. He's so cool. He plays guitar solo and in a band, is hilarious, down-to-earth, from San Fran, sports fan, cheeky, sarcastic, pretty chill, and we just have a lot in common, both in our interests, hobbies, and our personalities. So, needless to say, we got along pretty well and I just think he's awesome. Oh, and, the first time I went snowboarding, I went with him and a bunch of our friends (all of whom are pretty DANG good at boarding). Now, I hadn't been snowboarding in practically a decade so really I had no idea what I was doing. Dan stayed with me as I s-l-o-w-l-y worked my way down the mountain, which took me about 45 minutes. Awwwww nice guy isn't he??? Yup. Most definitely. That's Dan. So, now that you have been sufficiently prepped out how awesome he is:

He brought me a flower!!! A plush rose, which I still have. Precious! Then we went to this Greek restaurant near the dollar theatre in Provo. Hahahahah! Oh gosh. Hahah Dan told me to not look at the cashier guy in the eye because...he gave me some story about how he was Polish or Russian or something and how it was bad luck or something bad would happen. I clearly don't remember but to humor him and the situation, I wouldn't make eye contact with the guy, which probably weirded him out and it was hilarious. In my defense, the guy was a little sketch and creepy. It could just be that it was all in my head from Dan's story...Dan couldn't believe I did it. The food was excellent and my first exposure to Greek food (and ever since then I have been a HUGE fan). Then we went to Shopco (I think that's the name) next door and walked around and were being silly. In fact, I'm pretty sure one of the associates was following us around. Just to prove to Dan that she was, we tested out some of the furniture, checked out the kitchen supplies, and walked to random areas of the store and the associate was definitely following us. We were those people! It was fun! Then we went back to his apartment and we made bottle rockets by putting rolls of Mentos into liter bottles of Coke, shaking them up, and throwing them on the street to watch them explode. AWESOME!!!!! Then some obnoxious idiots drove by and were throwing water at us. Mature. College kids...geez. Anyway, it was awesome. Top notch date and the best Valentine's Day date yet. Ladies and Gents, I give you....my dear friend Dan:

                               

 Stud. This is my favorite picture of him. 
I do have some pretty awesome guys in my life.

So, hope you had/are having a wonderful day! I'm off to join my girls for our outing to the movies (and maybe ice cream!??!?) Xoxo! 

No More Miss Nice Dietitian

First of all can I just tell you about my unbelievable feat for the day? I saw 19 patients today. 19. NINETEEN!!! I was filling out my productivity and my jaw hit the desk. I couldn't believe it. It wasn't a horrible day by any means, just very, very busy. We only had 2 RDs on today instead of 3 so there was some serious cross covering plus some extra work from the weekend and we rocked it. I can do it! I can keep up with them! Happiness!!!


Normally I try to be very sweet and accommodating of my patients. Being in the hospital, let's face it, sucks and it's obnoxious having people poke and prod you, and come in and out all day and night long. Today was an exception. No-More-Miss-Nice-Dietitian. I have a patient--whom we'll call AB--who has diabetes and now renal problems. Shocker. That's what happens when you are non-compliant and morbidly obese...you're kidneys fail!!!! Oh and don't worry that AB just had to have an amputation, another "perk" of non-compliance. Take it from me, if you have type 2 diabetes, CONTROL IT or you will be sorry: possible amputations, possible blindness, possible kidney failure, and hey-the more research is done-the longer the list gets. PEOPLE. EAT SMALLER PORTIONS AND EXERCISE!!!!! This is not rocket science and it is NOT hard. Fun fact: Type 2 diabetes is almost completely preventable. WHAAAT?! Yes, true statement. Anyway, AB and AB's family asked for me to come in because they had...questions. Right. NOT. It was a whining session about how AB didn't like AB's diet and there weren't enough preferences and AB was getting sick of ordering the same thing and just wanted a burger and fries from Chick-Fil-A.
                          

Comic from here

Uh, OK. You want a what? Chil-Fil-A burger? French fries? With added salt? Really? Really? 


Well I want lower insurance rates, and an extra 10K added to my meager salary for having to put up with people like you, and lots of other things but for starters, it'd be nice if you and people like you would get off their lazy butts, exercise, eat right, take care of yourself, take responsibility for yourself and your health, and take preventable measures so our insurance rates and medical costs would quick going through the roof. Wow, never though it that way have you??? Nope, bet ya didn't. And NO you cannot have a burger and french fries. Your KIDNEYS ARE FAILING YOU. Bad news buster and no I will not ease up on your diet restrictions. This is not Burger King. You cannot have it your way. This is a hospital. You are clearly here for a reason (or several) and it's now my responsibility to care for you and make sure you have received the best care and education I can provide or it's my neck on the line. So no, you cannot have fries, fried chicken, salt galore, and whatever fluids you want. You might not care about the remainder of your limbs and functioning organs but I do. So too bad. 


Did I actually say all of that? No. Heavens no. I would like to keep my job thank you. But you BETTER believe I thought it. I did get frank with AB and AB's daughter and inform them that I would not change AB's diet and I cannot change the entire menu just to please AB because AB is getting tired of the food. I educated them, which helped, and walked out fuming inside. FOR THE LOVE!!!


And in other news, I downloaded Spotify, which is like some fancy, schmancy version of iTunes but connected to Facebook and allows you to add music to your library without downloading it BUT you can't load it onto your iPod. Well, silly me. I allowed Spotify to completely erase my iPod and then reload everything using its program. BAD NEWS. Stupid program. It messed up all my playlists and I was not happy. My running playlist was masterfully arranged in just the right way for my runs and it was ruined. Bugger. And THE WORST of it is, I had calibrated the Nike+ sensor to help me train (not that it's really that accurate but consistency people, consistency! It helped me gauge my progress!) and such and Spotify completely erased my calibration. I was SO ticked today when I was running because now I have no idea what my pace is and I had carefully and tediously calibrated it over the summer. I'm mad. 


But I found a new song to add to my "Guilty Pleasures" playlist by Chris Brown and The Biebs and I am a fan!!! The beat is tight and their voices are fantastic. Don't judge, I bet you'd secretly be tapping your toes and grooving along to the beat with me. And, Ladies Night Out tomorrow to see "This is War"! I'm very excited. You had me at Chris Pine. 
                               

Photo from here