I've got to ride in Denver tomorrow night

2005-05-01 - 11:59 p.m.

I actually have really bad timing. Today I got up at 4:30 in the morning, ran a half marathon, drove for several hours, and listened to my aunt's and her boyfriend's inanities for the second day in a row and now tonight I've decided to pull an all-nighter--no sleeping until noon tomorrow. Not very well planned out, eh?

The reason for the all-nighter is because starting Tuesday I will be on graveyard shifts working 10pm to 8am. When I'm working morning shifts I usually wake up two hours before I have to go to work. So I've decided that I'll do that for this too and wake up at 8pm. Which means that I need to go to bed at noon to get my full eight hours. I decided I'm much more likely to be able to skip a night's sleep than to try to force myself to fall asleep at noon. Hopefully this'll work for me.

Last weekend my aunt (the one from Stockton) told me that she and her boyfriend were coming to Seattle this weekend. She actually told me about it several months ago but I didn't have my work schedule then so I didn't know if I'd be free to get together with them. Only for some reason I thought she told me she was coming at the end of May. I guess I just didn't realize she meant the front end. At any rate, it turned out that I did have this weekend off so I could hang out with them. The reason they came to Seattle was actually to run the Vancouver marathon. It's cheaper, apparently, to fly to Seattle and rent a car to drive to Vancouver than it is to fly directly to Vancouver. Since I was free and they invited me along anyway, I told them to cancel the rental car reservation and I'd drive them. And then they talked me into running the half marathon. So although I've been talking lately about doing a half marathon, that one is with Kitten in June. This one was really spur of the moment.

So yesterday morning I picked my aunt and her boyfriend up from the airport and we drove up to Vancouver, British Columbia. I'd never actually been there before. We went first to pick up their race numbers and to get me registered and then we checked into our motel. They told me they had a room with two double beds, but it turns out the room only had one bed so I ended up on a cot. That turned out to not be too bad, actually. We rode the airtrain around Vancouver just for fun then, but it turned out to be having technical difficulties that made the trip much less than smooth. Afterwards we went back to the hotel room and went to bed. I think I really should thank my father. Because of him, last night was much more tolerable than it could've been. I'm used to sharing a hotel room with someone who manages to stink up the whole room from the connected bathroom the way my aunt's boyfriend did so effectively last night. And I'm also used to sharing a hotel room with someone who can shake the walls with their snoring the way my aunt did. Thanks Dad!

And then, as I mentioned before, today I ran the half marathon. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. For some reason running in those races is fun. There were about 7000 people running the half marathon. My goal, basically, was to finish without slowing to a walk. My second goal was to finish before the Kenyans. There's this group of Kenyan men that are crazy fast and they go around winning marathons. So they had twice as far to run as I did and they also started thirty minutes after me--my goal was to finish before they did. And then, my other goal, which I didn't know how realistic it would be, was to finish with an average pace of ten minutes per mile--a time of 2:11:00. It turns out that I did the first two rather handily. I started out going slowly because I wasn't sure how much I'd have to save up at the beginning in order to still make it to the end. It turns out I saved too much because I had plenty left at the end. And the Kenyans did pass me once, but that was just because our routes happened to coincide for a little while at one point where I had about two miles left and they still had quite a few more than that. So they passed me, but I still finished first. I didn't quite accomplish that last goal. Awfully close, though! My time averaged out to a pace of 10:03. I didn't really have any pain while I was running this race. My knees are a little sore now and my bum ankle is stiff, but other than that, so far I'm fine.

My next half marathon, the one with Kitten, is in a month and a half. What do you think are the chances that I could manage to do a sub-2-hour half marathon? I'd like to set that as my goal, but I'm not sure it's attainable for me. That would be an average pace of 9:10. On the other hand, setting tough goals is good, right?

Speaking of things that are tough, I finished up my tele training last week. By the end I was able to carry the entire work load. I was still skipping lunch and working late, but at least I finished and it wasn't too late on Friday. The bad thing is, though, that I'm not sure I like working tele. I'm not sure if that's just me being lazy or not. But working tele reminded me of being a resident. I was feeling really dumb and really overworked. Only it wasn't as bad as being a resident. Of course I was only doing this for two weeks where I was a resident for a year so maybe it wasn't as bad just because it didn't last so long. I don't know. I just wish I enjoyed it more. I wish I was more intelligent and was able to retain more knowledge in my brain so that I didn't feel so stupid all the time. I also realize that part of the reason that I want to work tele is just for status. Pharmacists who work up on the floors, especially those on the CCU or tele services, have a bit more status than those who only work in the central pharmacy. This "status" has absolutely nothing to do with pay or title, just respect.

Ok, so it's now a little after one in the morning. I have just under 11 hours until bedtime. And just over 3 hours until I will have reached the awake-for-24-hours mark. And about 4.5 hours until sunrise. I told Duke I'd buy him a latte and drive him to work this morning. Think I can handle commute traffic on no sleep? Hopefully! He works in Redmond and my plan is to bring a book and stay over there for a while after I drop him off at work just to let traffic clear up a bit before I drive home again. Oh man, I need to go find myself some more caffeine.