countdown

in exactly 2 hours and 20 minutes, i will have a month off. A MONTH OFF! i feel extremely fortunate about this. i guess i earned it, one residency already and now a second. the ABEM (american board of emergency medicine) allows trainees who have completed a prior residency 6 months of credit towards the usual 3 (or 4) years.

so instead of finishing 6 months early, i get 6 months of "selective" time. this year i'll take 3 of those months, mostly as time off. i can't think of any other job where i would actually get this amout of free time. unless i take a leave of absence, this probably won't ever happen again in my career. so i'm grateful.

after these first three months of residency, i'm feeling a bit tired, but the work hasn't been bad. i don't even mind the number of hours we spend in the hospital. it's really that there are so many other things that i want to turn my attention to: projects around the house, spending time with family and friends who live far away, reading for pleasure, spending more time with livvie.

i hope to make the most out of this time away from the program but not just filling my days with activities and projects. my intention is to recharge my mind and body so that i'm fresh when i come back to residency. i don't know how exactly i'm going to do it, but i plan on taking the next few days to come up with a plan.

today i spent a little extra time (when i was planning on running) taking care of things around the house, so i was left with slightly less time than i had imagined. what was supposed to be an 8 mile easy run turned into a super tempo 5 miler at sub 7 minute pace. it felt GREAT. the weather today has finally turned cool, and it's was lightly raining.

it's exciting to think that i can get performance improvements like this with better weather conditions. maybe i'll actually hit my goal at philly: sub 3:10 (boston qualifying time for me). looking forward to my 18 miles tomorrow.