Okay, so another marathon is in the bag. That makes it 5 for me thus far, but I'm still stuck at 4 in the "marathon in every state" goal because my last one was in Memphis. The Country Music Marathon in Nashville was definitely a good experience overall.

Five of us from Belhaven (myself and 4 soccer players) left at noon on Friday and drove up. It was a six-hour drive in a smallish car, but we made it alright. It was a bonding experience :-)

We arrived at the expo 30 minutes before it was scheduled to close, and it was absolutely packed! I think everyone arrived at the same time we did, so we ended up waiting in line for about an hour.

The hotel we booked was 13 miles outside of Nashville (all the ones closer were sold out because of the 25000 other runners), so we drove there and carbo-loaded at the special buffet dinner they had for marathoners. We all ate too much because the food was delicious, especially the greasy garlic bread. Following the dinner we watched a motivational movie about marathons and hit the sack (around midnight, I think).

4:30 AM came early, but probably because of our excitement, none of us had any trouble waking up. People always say that two nights before a marathon is your most important night of sleep, and I believe it. I ran my best marathon in Tupelo, Mississippi last August after having only slept 20 minutes the night before.

I had mixed emotions about the race itself. The atmosphere at the race was nice, there were plenty of fans along the side of the road, there were bands at every mile, and the t-shirt and finisher's medal were cool. And I felt great for the first 15 miles. Those were the positives.

There were not-so-great aspects of the race as well. Most significantly, it was hot. 50 degrees is ideal for a marathon, and the high in Nashville on Saturday was 90. It was ridiculous. At every water stop (about 1 every mile) I was drank a cup of Cytomax and a half cup of water, and dumped a cup of water over my head. It's difficult to stay hydrated in that heat. The course was also much hillier than I was expecting, and it took a toll on my already-sore hip flexors. As I mentioned, there was music on the course, but because it was country music, it did nothing to motivate me.

In hindsight, I probably ran the first half too fast, but I don't regret it. At the half mark I was at 1:28:30, because I had told myself that I wanted to put myself in a position to break three hours if I was feeling good. By mile 15, I knew I had no chance at that. My legs had begun to tighten up, so I eased off the pace significantly and ended up with a 3:11:08. Not terrible considering the conditions, and a lot of other people were slower than expected as well. In the past years of that race, a 3:11 would have put me in about 100th place, but this year I ended up in 55th place out of about 4000 people. I really don't ever care about my placement, because there are so many people faster me, but it was nice to know that I wasn't the only one going slower than usual.

Well, that's about all there was to it. The drive back wasn't as bad as I was expecting (No cramps!). Probably because I was going slower the second half, my legs didn't feel terribly the following day, and I even went for a nice, barefoot, 1-mile jog around the soccer field. Good times.

Now I'm ready for my next one! I'm looking at doing Chicago again on October 11, but we'll have to see. If the med school class schedule is similar to last year's one, we'll have a test on Friday before that race, and two on the following Monday. I might just be insane enough to fly up there for that. Two of my good friends are running it, and I'd love to do it with them.

I went to a campus praise and worship gathering a little while ago, and it was exactly what I needed. A wonderful time of silence and prayer preceded a great talk given by one of the RAs on my staff. My perspective has been way off over the last while, and it was jolted back into place tonight.

I don't have one specific thought about tonight, because my friend hit a lot of nails directly on the head. I just need some time to digest what he said, and to be alone with God.

A big thing is that I simply need to believe in God. My perfectionist tendencies continually lead me astray, and I find myself thinking that in order to reach that place in my Christian life, I always need to be concentrating on God and doing something for Him. It's funny, but it's when I have this mindset that I get most discouraged, because I realize that I can never do this. Anyways, I've got some thinking to do.

It's also 11 PM, and I have no idea what I'm going to say in class tomorrow. I just gave them a 2nd test last class period (it was a good test, too, if I'm allowed to say that), and we've come to the end of the material in the syllabus. Oh well, I'll come up with something, or I'll let them go early to study for the final.

So I've decided to write a book. It won't be completed for a while, as I plan to write about my medical and graduate school experiences, but I plan on starting the writing soon.

A plethora of books are currently in print describing "the medical school experience," most of them authored by bitter, overworked residents who have become disenchanted with medicine and are overly critical of the process of medical training as a whole.

I don't want to write another one of those. They quickly become old and predictable. Who knows, I may not think highly of medical training by the time I'm done either, but at least I know what I'm getting myself into. Many of those authors write as if they had no clue before entering medical school about the grueling hours, the stress, the sleep deprivation, the relationship struggles, the competition, the inexorable blows on self esteem, and all of the other negative aspects of medicine. To prepare myself for these things would be impossible, but it is with the terrifying knowledge of these realities that I move forward.

However, I've always considered myself an optimistic realist. I'm fairly easily contented and I tend to focus more on positives than negatives. In that respect, my perspective differs from that of many of these writers. While I certainly don't want to present a glossy, idealized view of life in medical school, I would like to discuss the good times as well as the bad.

Perhaps the most significant thing I'd like to highlight in the book is my relationship with God throughout the process. It will change and grow in ways that I can't imagine, and this excites me. I'd like to provide answers to all of the questions that I've had as a Christian pre-med, to help all of those who will wrestle with the same issues in the years following me. It will definitely be a different perspective from a lot of what is out there.

Anyways, these are early thoughts. I only got the idea a few nights ago.

Tonight, for the first time, it began to sink in that I won't be at Belhaven come fall. It had become a habit for me to attend the "future RA" meeting, and this was always a time of the year when I was ecstatic about the upcoming year's RA staff, class load, leadership responsibilities, etc. I feel the same way now, but it's completely different.

I attended the 2009-2010 RA meeting this evening, and it was most definitely a bittersweet time. As I watched the RAs react with delight upon learning their room assignments for next year, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of sadness. I love Belhaven, but more than that I love the people here. I'm going to miss living with them, learning with them (and from them), and growing with them. People at the meeting repeatedly asked me if I was excited about the stage of life that I'm entering, and I told them, of course, yes. But med school is not at all what I was thinking about tonight. It was all Belhaven, and I'm going to be heartbroken to leave my wonderful home of 5 years.

I just got out of a meeting with the Dean of Graduate Studies at UMC. He was wanting to talk about my summer lab rotations, but was unaware that I have already been in contact with a physiology faculty member about them. This made our meeting superfluous, but we had a nice little chat, and I was able to talk to him about an issue I've been thinking about.

At UMC, the norm is to have an MD/PhD student complete the first two years of medical school (the basic sciences component), then get a PhD in three years, then return to the clinical portion of medical school. I thought this made sense and was a good setup. Then I started reading about the dual degree programs at other schools, and found out that some of them have students leave to go to graduate school after three years in medical school, instead of two.

Maybe it's because I lack knowledge about many aspects of the program, but to me, that sounds infinitely more appealing. The advantages I see of going this route are as follows:

1) There is a huge correlation between the second and third years of medical school, and it would be helpful to not have three years separating them. During the second year, you learn all about pathology and pathophysiology, and in third year, you apply that knowledge in the clinic.

2) One of the things I thought would be incredibly difficult about the program was not being able to do clinicals with my classmates. This would solve that problem. Everyone is spread out doing random stuff during fourth year, so I probably won't be with classmates then regardless.

3) After third year, there is a good chance that I will have decided upon a medical specialty, and I believe that would help to give my research a direction.

4) Fourth year is much less busy than third year, and if for some reason I were unable to finish my PhD work in the alloted time, I would have more flexibility in working around my rotations to complete the work.

These are the salient advantages that come to mind. The only disadvantage that I can think of currently is that I will be clinically rusty coming back into fourth year, and some of those rotations will likely be significant, especially if they're in a field in which I'm considering specializing. I think this wouldn't be hard to work around. I would just have to schedule a meaningless rotation first to get my clinical footing. If I came back before third year I would have to do the same thing anyway.

Today I've been watching videos of doctors who started in Harvard Medical School in 1987 and were videotaped throughout their careers as part of a PBS documentary called "Doctors' Diaries." The link for the videos is here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/doctors/lives.html

The videos include clips of the doctors when they were in medical school, internship, and residency, and also current interviews with them where they discuss their lives and reminisce about the past. Surprisingly, the stories of these physicians have impacted me rather strongly. They are not only interesting but also emotionally moving. It's comical to see how these doctors, who are now experienced and astute, were like deer caught in headlights during their schooling and internship. While I was watching, I found myself very much looking forward to being in school and in the medical profession, but at the same time terrified at the prospect.

I believe it's great to be prepared for any situation, as much as is possible. When this is an impossibility, you have to live with it and roll with the punches. With medical school, I am every day becoming more and more aware that it will be an incredible emotional roller coaster. Each day will have high highs and low lows. At this point I have not yet learned how to deal well with criticism, and a tough skin is just something I'll be forced to acquire. I realize that.

Another thing that I'll have to be prepared for, and I've known this for a while, is that any romantic relationship will be difficult. Not impossible or unrealistic by any means, but certainly not easy. Medical school may not be too bad, but internship and residency will be grueling. How does one go about working 80-hours a week, doing the best work they can possibly do, and then coming home to his or her spouse and being anything but an exhausted grouch. At this point, this is beyond me. It struck me that nearly every single doctor in those videos has been divorced, several of them multiple times. All I know is, if I'm married, I don't want to put my work ahead of my family or my relationship with God.

We won both intramural games handily tonight. They were fun, but the co-rec games aren't nearly as intense as the guys-only games, and I like intensity. Good, clean competition. I love it when nobody is mad at their opponent at the end of the game, but everyone has worked hard.

It's late, but I'm sitting in the dorm lobby helping a good friend out with Algebra homework. Times like these make me realize that I really do enjoy teaching - there are few things more rewarding than seeing a student's face light up when a concept clicks with him/her.

Recently I've started reading a book called "Doctors" by Sherwin Nuland. I've only read a few chapters thus far, but I'm definitely enjoying it and would recommend it to anyone. Dr. Nuland is (or was, when he wrote the book 20 years ago) a well-known surgeon at Yale, and in this book subtitled, "Biography of Medicine," he discusses the contributions of renowned doctors throughout history. His perspective is a breath of fresh air; in some ways, he sounds a lot like a pre-medical student. He has a lofty, if not idealistic, view of medicine and its practitioners, and although his surgeon's hauteur is evident it does not overwhelm.

Last night's intramural men's soccer game was intense and highly enjoyable. Probably the best intramural game I've ever played in. It was neck-and-neck the whole game, and we ended up tying 7-7 in regular time. They had a two-minute Golden Goal period (way too short) during which nobody scored, followed by penalty kicks. We ended up losing 1-0 in PKs (it's hard to score on those small goals), but I wasn't upset at all. We played well and put up a great fight against the team that everyone thought would crush us (they have three guys who will be playing on Belhaven's soccer team this fall). We'll probably end up facing them in the championship game, and we might just have to get revenge.

Tonight should be fun, too. I'm also on a co-rec team, and we have two games tonight. Just got done with a 5-miler, and will have a few hours to let my legs rest. I can't risk getting injured.

Okay, so I've been messing with this dumb site for a while now, trying to make a cool-looking page. So far, I've been unsuccessful. Maybe eventually.

Edit:
I think this'll be it for a while as far as reconstructing the page goes. I'm sick of dealing with it. This looks OK, I think.

I think it's time for an update, not because I have any interesting news to report, but because I want to stay in the habit of posting regularly. Maybe once I start school I'll be able to bore you with all the cool, random little details I'm learning.

But anyway, I'm just sitting at work listening to Hillsong. They're great. I have their entire discography on my laptop :-)

It's a slow day here in the office, so I'll probably end up spending some time preparing for class tomorrow. My dilemma is this - I'm trying to make class more interesting, but how do you go about teaching students the origins, insertions, actions, and innervations of muscles in an interesting way? I found some mnemonics that I believe they will find helpful, but I'm looking for other stuff as well. If anybody has suggestions, they would be much appreciated.

About a month to go until Belhaven students have their final exams. Nobody seems to be too stressed at this point in the semester, but maybe that's just because I mostly hang out with people who don't take their studies seriously. Come to think of it, I've never really hung out that much with pre-meds and others who are highly driven academically. That's going to be an interesting adjustment in med school. It's not that I dislike hanging out with people who enjoy studying, I just haven't done it all that much. Maybe it's because I don't like study groups.

I had a good, hard 20-mile run yesterday. It was a marathon simulation run, so I did it at a 7:15 pace. If I do the marathon at Nashville at that pace it'll be a 3:10, and I'd be fine with that. But since I did that run yesterday in sunny 80-degree weather on tired legs, I think I might be able to go a few minutes faster than that. It'll be a fun race regardless, and the trip will be awesome. About ten of us are driving up there, and I can't wait! 19 days to go...

Intramural indoor soccer is in full swing at Belhaven, and that seems to be the talk of campus. I think both of my teams (mens and co-rec) have an equally good shot at taking the title (and with it, the t-shirts). We won our first mens game 13-1 (against the team that beat us in the final last year), and we were taking it easy on them. I like to win, but that was just an ugly game all around. I felt bad.