Worst First Movie Dates

For some reason, in every relationship I have ever been in, there has been one date involving a really bad movie early on. Some movies were so horrible, it was a great prelude to the shit-ass dating to follow (or in some cases, no following at all). Unfortunately, due to my memory for really bad pop culture, I can remember almost all of them. There were so many classic movies that came out at this time, Schindler's List, Pulp Fiction, Shawshank Redemption, LA Confidential, even the classic Happy Gilmore. I watched none of these while on a date. It was like my dates and I decided to see if the relationship could handle 2 hours of hell and come out unscathed.
Now, I've been with my husband for over a decade now, so most of these movies have been rightfully placed in the $1 VHS bin of movie history. I'm dragging them back out.
The top 5:
No5 - Victim: my own dear husband, Darren.
Movie: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
This movie had everything going for it. Hunter S. Thompson story. Johnny Depp. Benecio Del Toro. What it lacked was coherent plot and flow (which is probably the point). However, my brain couldn't take it, and to this day I have blocked out the majority of what actually happened in the movie.

No4 - Victim: Dan?, Dave?, Mike? - you can tell this was a meaningful relationship
Movie: The People Versus Larry Flynt
I should have run away as soon as the words "with Courtney Love" flashed on the screen. It was painful, and I never went on another date with whoever that was.

No3 - Victim: Josh
Movie: To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar
Good Lord! What a premise! Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, and John Leguizamo in an awesome 50's convertible looking for adventure across the country...Did I mention they were in drag? While at sometimes fairly funny, it was overall completely stupid. I mean, Wesley Snipes' stage name(?!) - Noxeema Jackson. Patrick Swayze - Vida Boheme. The basic plot had our three intrepid ladies stranded in a small hick-town in the middle of nowhere, and they had to teach the townspeople valuable lessons about acceptance and moisturizers. At the end, everyone learned that everyone is wonderful and the world will be perfect if we can all just express ourselves. I express myself by firebombing theaters that show crappy movies. The End.


No2 - Victim: Rob
Movie: Made in America
My first date of all time. I had to be set up on a blind date by my best friend because I could not have gotten a guy to look at me without having my hot friend around. Usually the guy I was checking out would eventually walk over and say, "Hey, does your friend have a boyfriend?" It was awesome. Back to my story, so here I am, 15 years old, never been kissed, bad hair, braces with a huge gap in my front teeth, and in general, really awkward and nerdy. We went out on a double date, and this is the stinker that young love was supposed to blossom to. The plot of the movie (if you can call it that), was that Whoopie Goldberg had a daughter by artificial insemination, and the donor daddy was a used-car salesman played by Ted Dansen. The daughter wanted to find her dad before leaving for college, and she finds out it's him. Whoopie and Ted eventually fall in love and make the girl's childhood dreams come true. It is actually even worse than it sounds. I vaguely remember something about a rampaging elephant, which could have been the best part of the movie had Ted or Whoopie gotten smushed.

No1 - Victim: Kyle
Movie: ConAir
This is the #1 worst movie ever made of all time (I consider Ed Woods' movies to be works of genius in comparison). The first problem is that Nicholas Cage is the worst actor in the history of time (just ahead of Bill Paxton (have you seen True Lies? Seriously)). He can do okay in comedy, but as a mulleted, wrongly-convicted, ass-kicking, righteous badass? No chance in all of hell. The producers somehow slipped rufees to John Cusack and John Malkovich into joining this piece of rhinoceros poo as well. I really can't say anymore. It is in fact the essence of suck.

Honorable Mention: Johnny Mnemonic. I actually saw this movie towards the end of a relationship, and I blame Keanu Reeves for the breakup. My brain still hurts from the implausibility of the whole thing. Keanu can't hold one coherent thought in his head, much less the super-secret data plans for something or other.

Thanksgiving and IPOS

Sorry it's been so long since my last post, but between work and travel I've been pretty wiped lately. Here's a small sample of what's been going on:

1. Went home for Thanksgiving for a great weekend with the family. My parents usually go to my in-laws for Thanksgiving dinner since we don't have much family in town, so Darren and I don't have to run between houses all day. We played the first annual game of Brey family flag football; hopefully it will get better when the boys get a little older. Laura also had her baby shower on Sunday. I cannot believe that my little baby sister is about to be a baby mama (can't wait!). We also caught up with old friends that we haven't seen in a while. By the way, $10 redbull and vodkas are a fraud.

2. After being back in Philly for about all of 18 hours, I flew out again, this time to the International Pediatric Orthopaedic Symposium in Orlando, FL. I had won a scholarship to attend the conference along with two of my ortho friends from other residency programs. I also got to know a third resident who has so much in common with me it's scary. She's another resident in town and one of my newest facebook friends!

As for the conference, it was a great opportunity to learn more about Peds Ortho and get to know some of the big names in the field. It's actually one of the smallest branches of orthopaedics, so most people know each other pretty well. Here's an example of one of my encounters. Do demonstrate how big the names of the guys involved are, I'll use NBA references. To set the scene, I had arrived in Orlando fairly early on Tuesday, and most of my friends were supposed to arrive fairly late that night. So, I sat at the hotel bar to watch some basketball, drink a beer, and eat some nachos. As I am eating said nachos, Dwyane Wade walks by. I call out and say, "Hey Mr. Wade, I met you a couple of weeks ago when I interviewed to join the Heat organization. Want some nachos?" So Dwyane sits down and starts eating nachos. A few minutes later, Kobe Bryant walks by and starts eating nachos as well. Finally, LeBron James comes and joins the pary as well. Weird.

AM, M, and I also snuck out of conference a little early one day to visit Disney World. I have never been during Christmas season, and I must say that the parks were actually very pretty. We got to do a few of the rides and watch the fireworks just before closing. The rest of the week we hung around with some of the residents from different programs around the country. Again, peds ortho is a small community, so I will probably work with these guys for many decades to come. It's good to know that there are really good people going into this field.

3. A lot is going on at home as well. I've hardly been home the past few weeks, and then as soon as I got home I was on call the next day. I'm so ready for a change of location at work. It seems that all I do is read and make presentations and I really feel the need to get some of my personal life back. My dog barely recognizes me anymore.

4. Happy 1st anniversary to Washed Up!

random nostalgia

Believe it or not, beneath my tough-as-nails exterior beats the heart of a severely nostalgic person (really, I cry at all movies, including Return of the Jedi). Despite the fact that I pretty much hated most of high school (with the exception of the people I hung out with), I sometimes think it would be neat to go back and live the moment again. Would I be much different this time around, knowing what I know now? I bring this up because I started laughing at my oldness today. My senior year in high school, all of us had to do a presentation on some topic of our choosing. The topic my partner Clint and I chose? The internet. Seriously, the whole thing. Can you imagine trying to sum up the internet in a 30 minute presentation today? This was, of course, back in 1996 when only about 5% of people had AOL with their 14.4 kbps dial-up modems. Scary. We made up the majority of the entire thing, and I swear there were portions that we cut and pasted right out of the internet explorer help page. We got an "A".
Another goofy thing about these presentations? There was no power point. The only person that used power point was a girl (that we (semi-) affectionately called Elmo) for her presentation on cowboys. We were blown away by the sophistication.
Some of the other topics I remember people doing were H's talk on "A Day in the Life" by the Beatles, L's talk on chinchillas, and A's talk on ebonics. J did a talk on magic that included real tricks!
How in the world do I remember crap like this?

Vote!

Whatever your political affiliation may be, please remember to vote tomorrow (especially my friends here in PA).
I hope that you vote for Obama, but if you feel that McCain is the one to lead us, so be it. To me, Obama stands for everything that needs to change in this country: healthcare access which does not depend on the fickle "free market", progressive taxes that shift the burden off of those who can least afford it, and real environmental change. I also am extremely opposed to the shameful campaign conducted by the Republican ticket, specifically, Sarah Palin. To try to paint Obama as a terrorist sympathizer is downright dispicable. Let's play six degrees of separation with any politician and see what happens...(I have a good friend who is from Karachi, Pakistan, and his uncle once sold some hummus to a guy who repaired the car that once drove Osama Bin Laden to an Al Qaeda potluck dinner. So I am a terrorist! (None of this is true, except my buddy is from Karachi)).
So get out and vote tomorrow, even those of you back in beautiful Kentucky, where a good showing for Obama will help us overcome our racist past (and that horrible effigy thing at UK). I'll be voting for real change, and casting my ballot for Barack Obama.

World Series!

Wow! What a fantastic week its been! Since moving to Philly 3 1/2 years ago, Darren and I kind of adopted the Phillies (we are still St. Louis fans first, but it's like having both Twix and KitKat; I just like Twix more). Remember a few months ago when I blogged about how much I liked the Phillies and the Phanatic? Still true.
First, a couple of words about Philadelphia. This city is known for its psychotic fan base (a troubling statistic: something like 30% of Eagles season ticket holders don't have health insurance) and a penchant for violence (the Broad Street Bullies (aka '75 Flyers) and booing Santa Claus). Part of the anger in this town stems from the fact that none of the four professional teams has won a championship since the 76ers won in '83. This is known as the curse of William Penn. You see, there was a gentleman's agreement in the early 20th century that no building in the city would be built taller than the top of Billy Penn's hat on City Hall. This was broken in the mid-80s with the building of Liberty Place, and no team had won since. When the Comcast Center was finished last year, a replica of Willam Penn was placed on top, re-establising Penn as the tallest guy in town.
As for the World Series, Darren's friends I&S won tickets to the playoffs in the lottery, and knew they wouldn't be able to use the Game 3 seats. They offered them to us. Similar tickets were going on Stubhub for about $800 each, but we wanted to see the game. So here's how the rest of the week went (after the first two games in Florida).

Saturday: Oh man, we were like two kids on Christmas morning when we got off the subway. We probably haven't been to a sporting event this big (other than a few KY derby trips). SEPTA employees were handing out little pennants and the crowd was awesome. The fun kind of diminished as we walked up to the stadium, though. As we approached, sheets of rain could be seen heading right for us. All of a sudden, WHAM! Soaking wet...We finally got into the stadium and huddled under the stands with some friends of mine who had been there a few hours. As we stood there watching the rain and drinking $7 beers, we wondered if the game would be able to go on.

After about a 90 minute delay, the grounds crew starting to take the tarp off.

We reported to our seats, and used our rally towels as, well, towels to dry them off. 45 year old Jamie Moyer finally took the mound, and the game was on! Some highlights include Albert Pujols (my favorite player) winning the Roberto Clemente award for service, back-to-back homers by Utley and Howard, and Carlos Ruiz delivering in the bases-loaded ninth. As for me, I froze my tail off (although the rain had stopped, I was still wet from earlier and it was windy as all get-out). So what was my solution? Hot chocolate! One small problem, the line was roughly an hour long (seriously, the cashier would take the order, walk over, pour hot water, mix in powder, stir for 45 seconds and then take the payment; they couldn't have mixed it before hand?!?). Being a huge baseball fan, I go to a lot of games in the summer and I always get an ice cream sundae helmet. Well, as I was rotting in the hot chocolate line, I noticed the sundae line was wide open. So I, being stupid and cold, bought ice cream. I then froze for the last 4 innings.

The game finally ended at about 1:45 in the morning, and we took the subway back home, happy to be up 2-1 in the series.

Sunday: The Phils won this one 10-2, and even the pitcher hit a homerun.
Monday: The weather forecast for this one called for cold, and maybe a slight chance of rain. The forecast was wrong. In the fifth inning, the skies opened and it didn't stop raining for 24 hours. The game was 3-2 Phillies after the fifth, but then the Rays tied it in the top of the sixth. Then the commisioner decided to suspend the game. Pardon me? Suspend a baseball game? The World Series? The rain continued right through Tuesday, and the game was set to finish on Wednesday.
Wednesday: Watched the game on TV for this one. After Lidge struck out Hinske, the city exploded. Darren and I hoofed it to Broad Street (kind of the main street here in Philly) to watch the festivities. I did find it somewhat interesting that all of the people in the crowd kept saying how happy they were that the drought had ended after 25 years, and I don't think half of them were over 25. We saw the usual public drunkeness and petty violence (seriously, can't you take down road signs instead of harmless, hard-to-replace trees?), before visiting LOVE park and then heading home. We found out later that 76(appropriate for Philly) arrests were made. My favorite quote of the week came from Mayor Nutter, "You can be joyous, but you cannot be a jackass."
Friday: My usual Fridays are spent in the OR at Methodist hospital, which is on South Broad Street and right smack in the middle of the parade route. We finished up our surgical cases around 11am and then we headed out to watch the fun. We grabbed some cheesesteaks at a corner shop, some drinks at a corner bar, and then watched the sea of humanity. We had originally staked out some spots on the sidewalk, but as the parade approached, the crowd surged onto the median on Broad, and I ended up about 2 feet from the passing trucks (hence the good shots). You can tell just how happy this city is right now, which is something I haven't seen in my years here. Of course, now they're just setting themselves up by wondering when the Eagles Super Bowl Parade will be. Stupid Philadelphians, just enjoy the team that won!

Oh man, I love me some baseball.

Choices, Choices

After weeks and months of applying and emailing and interviewing, I have accepted a fellowship position at the Campbell Clinic in Memphis for the 2010 year. Hooray! My parents are so happy to have me back within driving distance (and I'm pretty happy to be back close to my family too). The fellowship came highly recommended by Dr. Herman, who is my favorite attending and who did his fellowship there. It's also great because all of the staff there is so friendly and also very well known within orthopaedic societies. I think I was sold when the attending who picked me up started telling me about how good bike riding was in Memphis and that he was doing an Ironman on Nov 1st. Trust me, having an attending to train for two things with will be awesome.
Other things going on:
1. Bike riding to work is getting very hard. It's been dark in the mornings now for several months, but I combated that problem with a new headlight (in addition to my tail light). It's actually easier to avoid traffic when you have car headlights to look for. The current problem, however, is that it is cold in the mornings now. I can solve most of that by wearing my windbreaker over my jacket, but it's my hands that are freezing. I now need to buy a second pair of full-finger gloves or quit for the winter.
2. No running until next year. Preferably, I would have quit running when I first got injured, but with my triathlons last summer, that wasn't an option and I had to train anyway. But now that there's nothing going on, I'm finally going to let the thing heal. That also means I'm going to have to start using the wimpy elliptical machines that I hate so much (I consider it exercise for girls who don't like to sweat). I have to do something other than bike or swim or I will go bonkers.
3. My sister is only two months away from delivering my first blood-related nephew, and I can't wait! My other sister just recently got engaged and I now have another wedding to look forward to!

Confessions of a Tired Ortho Resident

I'll admit it, my job is pretty cool sometimes. I take broken bones and I fix them. Other times, my job is not so cool. Want proof? I am thirty years old, I now have two gray hairs (bastards!), and I have homework tonight. Not just a math worksheet or a report on the major exports of Arkansas, mind you, but 50 pages of textbook to read. I am also currently at work (it's about 8:15 on a Tuesday night), so this reading is clearly also going to be done crappily or very late at night. I am also blogging, which, as you know, is not reading 50 pages of textbook.
I am also not happy because I am tired. I am usually pretty borderline narcoleptic (seriously, you cannot turn the lights down in a lecture for more than 10 minutes before I assume some slack-jawed, slumped over, come-hither-legs-posed comatose state), but it has been much worse lately. I can now fall asleep while operating (not with the knife, but if I'm not really participating), watching TV at 8 pm, and sometimes while walking. It's become a true hindrance to my ability to learn in lecture, and it's also kind of embarassing to fall asleep at work every day. I can think of two reasons for this: (1) I have mono (2) 5 years of sleeping no more than 5-6 hours a night is starting to catch up to me. I have also been flying all over the place looking for fellowship positions (pediatric orthopaedic surgery, fyi). I have to admit, my favorite spot so far has the fellow taking ZERO call nights and weekends. Goodness knows I need the rest. I would probably spend the extra time training, anyway.
As for training, without any races coming up, it's getting hard to be motivated over the winter. My shin splints also flared back up, so running is out until the inflammation completely resolves this time. I LOVE riding my bike, but I find my lack of suitable riding clothes somewhat embarassing (and somewhat dangerous) at this point. I did finally get gloves to combat the nerve compressions in both of my arms.
Enough complaining for now, gotta get back to my patients.

Why I love the Onion (Part II)

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/struggling_mets_combine_to_form

A little help from my friends

Anyone got any suggestions? I got a flat while riding last week. I changed the tube and rode a total of about 5 miles before I got a flat on the way home from work today (thank goodness, not in traffic).
Any suggestions? Do I need new tires or is this just lousy luck? I know nothing about bike maintenance and the majority of bike shops around here are very snooty. The Chuddley Cannondale needs your help!

My job

Unfortunately, since I don't yet have any children or have the time or money to travel a lot, my blogs are all pretty boring. Why is that you ask? Well, that is because I am a resident. Specifically, I am an orthopaedic surgeon in training. I finished med school in 2004, wasn't able to find a job in ortho my first year out, and took a position as a general surgery resident in Chicago. It sucked. I worked a ton and was barely able to enjoy the year in a great city (as an example, I had exactly 4 2-day weekends off in 1 year, ugh). After that, I moved to Philadelphia to begin work in my true love, orthopaedic surgery.

So what is it that I do all day? Well here's a quick rundown of a typical day:
5:45 - 6:30 (or so): meet with the resident on call from the night before and go over x-rays, then round (check on) all of our patients in the hospital
6:30-7:30 : conference in which we go over a topic assigned for the day (this requires reading about 40-50 pages of text book the night before)
7:30 - ? : Operate. This may be several short cases or just one really long and complicated one (for example, we fixed the right humerus and three fingers on a 350lb patient. That took 10 hours.) Once or twice a week, I may be in clinic seeing patients who we operated on previously (taking out stitches, checking follow-up x rays, etc)
Whenever the OR is complete for the day, the team meets again and goes over the things that have happened during the day: new consults, problems with patients, and who went home. This may happen at 5 pm or 9 pm. After that, the person on call takes over care of all the orthopaedic patients. Basically, he or she is in charge of the patients on the floor, the OR, and the ER. Sometimes all three blow up at once, and that sucks. The person on call then usually gets to leave the next morning after conference, meaning a 26 or so hour shift with possibly no sleep (yuck).

It's actually a great job, though. I went into ortho because I love surgery ( and power tools), love helping people get their mobility back, and I am not so good at treating seriously ill people. I just can't work at a job where most of my patients won't get better.

Here is some of my handiwork! On the left is a lady who fell off her bike and broke her elbow. On the right is a dude that got shot in the leg during a robbery (please note all identifying factors have been removed for patient privacy).

Here are some of the dumber things I've heard as a resident (or student) the past 9 years:

"Yeah, she had SIDS twice as a baby"- A patient's mother, trying to explain to us why her daughter had a slight speech impediment. Apparently, our patient was a zombie.

"well, I couldn't afford my blood pressure meds anymore" - A kindly grandma explaining to us why her blood pressure was in the critical range. Became a little awkward when her lab tests came back positive for cocaine. Guess we know where all of her money went.

Various stupid ways of breaking things:
The patient who jumped off the Ben Franklin Bridge and straddled a guardrail on I-95 in the fall. He broke a lot of things, especially his manly parts.

A patient who was "Stoofing" his neighbor's wife. Broke both ankles jumping out the window when the husband came home.

The lady who broke her fibula while trying to jump on a chair to avoid a cockroach.

Anyone riding a motorcycle.


A med student asked me how you can tell different residents apart. My reply: medicine residents put their stethoscopes around their necks (aka "flea collars"), surgical residents put them in their pockets, and ortho residents put them on ebay.

That's me on the left!

I am a bad blogger...

Sorry, nutty busy with work the past few weeks. Here are a few things I've been meaning to write about but haven't sat down to do.
1. Herbal Essences shout out: According to a snippet I read in Vogue today, I am using the number one selling shampoo in the Little Rock, AR Walmart (the article also listed the number one sellers at different salons across the country). So what does this mean? Beats me. I love the stuff and have been using it exclusively for 14 years. Not only is it cheap, but it smells nice. My friend Ben who sat behind me in Mrs. Goldberg's senior English class would always have fruity-smelling dreams thanks to my hair, which was usually wet from morning swim practice. And my hair stylist says my hair is nice and healthy. Eat that, expensive snooty shampoos!

2. The Election: I am nearly sick to my stomach thinking that the GOP may pull off this Palin piece of crap. She's about as qualified as I am to be vice-president (except the whole 35 thing), but I think Biden will whip her in the debates. Although, the media have already begun lowering expectations for her (similar to the way they did with Bush in '04 (oh my, he was able to use complete sentences!)). She'll also get the MILF vote from college frat boys.
I also wonder about people who vote on a one-issue stance, like fairly liberal people who vote conservative just because they are very pro-life. I'm actually okay with this, because no one candidate will meet all of your criteria. I'm pro-tort reform, and that's a very conservative stance in general, but dang it, I have to be able to afford to practice. However, my number one issue that I vote along has to be the environment, and I could never, ever vote for a candidate whose solution to the energy crisis is to drill for more oil. Oil is a dying technology and should be abandoned ASAP, not used to destroy more natural environment just to prolong the inevitable.

3. Went to the Red Bull Soapbox Race in Manayunk last weekend. Had a great time, especially since tropical storm Hannah dumped about 6 inches of rain while we were there. Favorite racers were the Nintendo-mobile, the Cheesesteak Chariot, and the whack-a-mole-bile. We used to live on the steepest part of the hill, so it was nice to have some fun back in the old neighborhood. Please see Darren's blog for more details.

Mayor Nutter and the Cheesesteak Chariot!

What comes around goes around

I was reading an article the other day about this band called the Jonas Brothers. Being old and without tween daughters, I have no idea who these guys are. Apparently, they are a Disney-fied creation of three cute brothers who blaspheme the name of Paul McCartney and do that cruddy version of "Hello, Goodbye" on the backwards Target commercial. I thought to myself, "oh man, I will never let my teenage daughters get caught up in a crappy marketing machine such as this. They're not even that cute and they have bad hair!"
Then I thought to myself, what did I like when I was twelve? Oh yeah.

I am so sorry, Dad.

Happy 20th Anniversary, Falls Fountain!

20 years ago this week, those in the lead of the never-ending attempt to revitalize downtown Louisville came up with a brilliant idea: stick an ugly, poorly designed fountain in the middle of the mile-wide Ohio and watch the tourists flock! These are the same people who thought up the not-at-all thought-out LOUISVILLE sign (scrapped before starting) and the Galleria. I have a sneaking suspicion that they are also the same people who allowed the Galt House to be built and then painted bright orange. Unfortunately, at that time, the riverfront had no green space to speak of (scrap yards = rusty eyesore) and people really had no way to see the fountain unless they were crossing the 2nd street bridge.
I, however, loved the darned thing. When it was actually working, the fountain had a fleur-de-lis pattern to it, which was especially cool at night with the multi-colored lights. It also made Louisville's very small downtown skyline a lot prettier. I still remember my parents taking me and my sisters to the Indiana side just to watch the fountain work (you couldn't stand anywhere on the KY side without getting tetanus or run over on I-64). I was one of the few sad to see it go in 1998 (but really, the base of the thing looked like a a rusty can of spam, or as this very entertaining article describes it "the heavy-metal lovechild of R2-D2 and a lawn sprinkler"). I also think that a lot of Louisvillians have blocked the thing out of their minds, as I had a heck of a time finding any pictures of it (no digital cameras way back then = no easily found internet pics).
Now that real change is going on in downtown Louisville, I would love to see the fountain resurrected, maybe placed just beside waterfront park. What a view from Slugger Field or the Great Lawn! I hear that the old fountain is sitting in a scrap yard, waiting for its chance to come back, much like Elvis in 1968. Bring on the sequins!

My new hero...

is Jason Lezak. He had one of the most improbable comebacks in a relay I have ever seen, protecting Phelp's ability to win eight golds. I woke up half of Cape May yelling at the TV.
Go USA swimming!

SheRox Philadelphia - Results!

Officially finished in 1:37.59, more than twenty minutes faster than my previous effort (it helps that I can run now). It's a lot easier to drop time when you can actually do a section of the TRIathlon. I was not prepared for how much the run would hurt (thankfully, not my leg) after doing exactly ZERO bricks prior to the race. That's lack of training for you...
The race was great fun; all women and a nice atmosphere. Almost 40% had never done a race before. My mentor Julie was also great in helping me prepare and answer really dumb questions. My family (except my middle sister who couldn't make it) drove all the way in from KY and cheered me the whole way!

Because the course for this race was exactly the same as the Philadelphia Sprint Tri, it's really easy to compare results. So here goes:


Swim 800m (same course as before; magically lost 100m)
Time: 14:52
Group Rank: 2nd Overall Rank: 21
Time dropped: 1:20
Wow, when I mentioned before that I was going to actually warm up before the race, I had no idea that it would matter so much. I felt much better than I did in the Philly Tri, and it showed. I was actually battling it out most of the leg with one other girl, but due to very poor visibility, lost her at the end by about 10 seconds. We finished nearly a minute before the rest of the wave. Awesome!
Room for improvement: I'd say train more, but I still find swimming alone so painfully boring I can't seem to do it more than once a week.

T1
Time: 1:45
Group rank: 10
Time dropped: 1:22
Again, running really helps. I also had a little more preparation going into it.
Room for improvement: Keep practicing.









Bike 25K (same course as before, magically gained 1K; who's measuring this thing?)
Time: 52:48 17.6mph avg
GR: 29 OR:146
Time Dropped: 1:22
Well, I'm actually kinda disappointed in this. I switched to clip-in shoes, rode my bike to work every day, rode the course a bunch of times, and had minimal gain. My only thinking is that last time I knew I wasn't going to run, and maybe I went harder then. I didn't have a lot of time to train the past few weeks, but I expected a little more. Maybe next time.
Room for improvement: I'm thinking maybe I should actually take a class or get some coaching. I'm trying to do this all on my own, and I really know nothing about biking. Until I can afford that (and maybe a sweet Orbea bike), keep pushing the ol' Chuddley Cannondale around.


T2
Time: 1:42
GR: 49
Time Dropped: 55sec
I'm kinda surprised I was faster considering I had to change shoes this time. But I guess this is where running helped again.
Room for improvement: Continued practice.

Run
Time:26:50 8:39min/mile pace
GR: 51 OR:260
Time Dropped:15:53
I have to be proud of this. I'd been sidelined from running for over 3 months, and I haven't been able to run more than about 2 miles at a time while I rehab the stress fracture. I was having some aching in the leg again last week after running 8 miles (in three days) and was kinda worried about it flaring back up. The leg was absolutely not a problem in the race. My being out of shape was. I actually had to stop and walk a few times in the first mile. I got my wind back for the rest of the race, and somehow managed a pretty good time! My best ever 5K is 25 minutes, so that ain't bad! I'm pretty sure I could have done sub-24min before I got hurt, so there's hope that I still have a lot of room to improve. Here's to a safe rehab.

Finish 1:37:59 (I saw the clock at the finish, and sprinted to finish sub 1:38)
Overall: 66 of 1163
Group: 15 of 168

me and the hubby after the race

me posing with the bike

me and my mentor Julie

Next up: The Annapolis Olympic Distance Tri on September 7th. I have got to make myself train harder for the next month. I'm off next week, so I have no excuse not to get out there.

SheRox Philadelphia

Just a few more hours 'til the next race. I have a mega-busy weekend ahead of me with the combination of the race, my family coming in, and preparing another lecture for work on Monday, but none of that's going to distract me tomorrow morning. Here's the new plans for this race.
Swimming: Get there early and warm up. My arms always hurt 400m or so into a workout, so I need to get that out of the way early. Other than that, set a good pace and go.
Bike: I've switched to clip-ins since my last race and am very comfortable with them. I also got a new helmet but that's because my old one was starting to dry-rot (ewwwww).
Run: I haven't trained much as I would like due to a very slowly-progressing rehab program, but at least I am able to run. Got a little recurrent achiness in the left tibia again on Thursday, but I should be okay for a 5k.

She Swims, She Rides, She Runs, She Rox!

Yankee/Shea Doubleheader

Well, Darren covered most of the bases (rim shot) in his blog, but I thought I'd put in my two cents as well.
1. Yankees fans can heckle well. Playing the Twins, who according to fans are from Canada, several quite clever shouts were heard:
-"Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!" (a reference to Manifest Destiny and the annexation of Western Canada)
-"Hey Morneau, how many loonies and toonies you paying the ump?" (Canadian cash(now worth more than American))
-"Hey Twins, why don't you head back to Nunavut?" I had to look this one up; apparently it is an independent Inuit colony in Eastern Canada.
2. Shea smells
3. The outline of the player outside the stadium looks way too much like the logo for the union of Jazz Dancers, Pastry Chefs, and Nuclear Technicians (on the Simpsons)

I also have to always have an ice cream helmet sundae at every major-league ballpark I go to. I think it started as a kid when we would go to Redbirds games and you could pick whichever team you wanted, and I at one point had every major league team (as of 1986). So I now have the Cardinals (two parks), the Reds (two parks), Brewers, Astros, White Sox, Phillies (helmet and Phanatic dish), Yankees, Nationals, and Mets. Boo to the Cubs and Orioles for not having them available.

Do not eat at steakhouses when you are vegetarian

I made the mistake of joining my co-workers at an upscale steakhouse for dinner last night. I laughed and chided them for eating 6 pounds of dead cow each while I sensibly ate a plate of grilled vegetables (and, as an aside, if you are a chef at an upscale steakhouse, shouldn't you know how to make a dish more exciting than grilled vegetables?). Now I have food poisoning and missed most of my day at work today, and I'm on call tomorrow so I can't rest up. Triathlon training has now been relegated to a sick joke I tried to indulge in. Damn.

Shouldn't the picture above make you healthier?

Favorite Pixar Movies

With the recent release of Wall-E, several outlets have begun posting their thoughts of the best Pixar movies ever. Many have considered Wall-E a masterpiece, including myself. It's the first movie in a long time that I've actually wanted to see more than once in the theater (side note, I saw Star Wars Episode I about 6 times in the theaters, and it wasn't even any good, I guess I just had a lot of free time back then). For a studio to produce 9 outstanding movies, improving computer animation techniques while not cutting back on story, is truly impressive in this day and age of crappy CGI extravaganzas. Without further ado, my list of the top Pixar movies ever.
9. A Bug's Life (1998): Easily my least favorite of the Pixar bunch and the only one I don't own on DVD. It's cute in its own way, but it is geared strictly at the under-10 set. The German caterpillar is funny though.
8. Cars (2006): The only Pixar movie I didn't see in the theater and I fell asleep the first time I saw it. I like it in general, but compared to the top 7, it's not even close. I also don't get NASCAR, so maybe that's the problem.

The top 7 get a lot harder...
7. Monsters Inc (2001): It's really hard to put this movie this low, but when you compare it to the other 6 ahead of it, it falls a little behind. Again, part of that may be because it's aimed at a slightly younger set. The scene at the end of the movie when Sulley finds Boo again is about the most touching scene of any Pixar film.
6. The Incredibles (2004): Another fantastic outing by Brad Bird. The story of outlawed superheroes is fantastic, especially the scenes when Frozone and Mr. Incredible are forced to listen to police monitors to fight crime. I also love the scenes of Violet's transformation from wallflower to supergirl (a childhood dream of mine).

5. Ratatouille (2007): I love the story of the gourmet rat, and gosh darn it if Remy isn't the cutest rodent since the great Mickey himself (who is now a corporate shill). The animation is superb, and the story of a rat trying to follow his heart is actually very moving.

4. Toy Story 2 (1999)
3. Toy Story (1995): Okay, these two are more of a tie. I think the story is better in 2, but the concept was so new with the first one. I also love the constant side jokes, like the Binford tool box and the names of the books on the shelf (Knick Knack, Tin Toy, etc). The adult themes are also slyly present, such as when Buzz and Woody discuss spending a lifetime in a landfill together after Andy has grown up.
2. Wall-E (2008): Please see this movie now. If you are unaffected by this robot, you may be one yourself. For the first half of the movie, I somehow didn't get it. Then I began to get the understated brilliance of this film. I will see it again. I will own it on DVD. My kids will watch it 100 times a day and that's okay by me.
1. Finding Nemo (2003): When I was an intern in Chicago, I worked hideous hours, got yelled at a hundred times a day, and I had to deal with a patient population that was way sicker than I like to deal with. The only thing that could cheer me up at the end of a long night of call was this movie. I'd put it on, watch all the pretty colors, and slowly be lulled to sleep. It is not a boring movie by any means, but it is extremely soothing to the stressed out. I quote the movie all the time ("curse you aquascum""I speak whale""Es-ca-pe") and I think it is the ultimate adventure story for a separated father and son (like "The Odyssey").

So, what do you think?