Heather; livin life on the wild side

As you can tell from her face, she's up to no good. This is Heather in front of Michangelo's "David", a place where you are not supposed to take pictures but she didn't care (just look at that face of defiance). This was in the Academia gallery in Florence, Italy. And it was definitely the coolest thing we saw or did today.

LA Marathon 2011- Not even Oprah could help me

So last week James Gibson, Tyler Rex, Devin Dickson and myself embarked on an epic journey. For the last 4 months we have been training for the LA Marathon. And last weekend, along with about 23,500 other people, we gathered at Dodger's Stadium for the start of the race in the wee hours of the morning.

The start was crazy. All of these people jammed into starting corrals. It was pretty cold too, luckyly I had gone to the thrift store to buy a sweatshirt and sweatpants for me to wear at the start of the race, the plan being to take them both off and throw them to the side of the road as I warmed up. I took off the pants as the race started, and the sweatshirt about 2 miles into the race.

We all had been watching the weather because it had been projected to rain, the night before weather.com said there was a 90% chance of rain. Devin had said that all he wanted was for it to not rain until after the race started. He got his wish, but probably should have wished for something different. It literally started raining as we crossed the starting line. There were so many people that we didn't cross the line until almost 10 minutes after the official start. And we were not really able to start runing normally for like 2 miles because of all the people. But I loved it. There was so much excitement and energy. And the rain actually was perfect for the first 6 miles, it felt great (temporarily). From about an hour into the race until the end it was pouring and windy. It rained over 2 inches that day. I can definitely say the weather effected my race outcome.

My goal was to finish in 4 hours and 30 minutes, which would have required a 10 minute/mile pace. A few days prior to the race I had found out that Oprah ran a marathon in 4:30, so I HAD to at least beat Oprah (which became my new and improved goal). I did great at pacing myself for the first 12 or so miles, and I felt good. So good infact that I started going faster, which ended up being a bad idea. However, miles 12 till 18 were amazing. I was flying and felt great. At the time I worried that I would pay for it toward the end of the race. Then at mile 15 Heather, Shira, and Amy were waiting under their umbrellas to chear us on. It was awesome seeing them and that pumped me up even more.

Mile 18 was the start of some real pain. My iPod shuffle stopped working (probably because of all the rain) which didnt help because the day before I'd put together an ultimate marathon pump up mix. For the last 8 miles I was able to run a consecutive mile maybe 2 times. Cardiovascularly I was fine, but my legs were so tight. And I was really cold. I was actually on pace to get my goal time up until 23 miles, but those last 3.2 miles I was probably doing around 13 minute miles. At one time I had to bend over to tie my shoe and could barely do that. I just kept repeating to myself "Have to beat Oprah".

I finished in 4:40:58, 11 minutes off of my goal. Overall I was not too disappointed, given the conditions I felt okay. After finishing I was in a sort of a daze. I hadn't seen Heather or anyone else anywhere. And it was then that I realized how cold I was. I could not stop shivering, and the mylar "blankets" they were handing out did nothing for me. The whole scene looked like a natural disaster had hit. People everywhere looked horrible and cold, people were crying and confused all over the place. It took like 90 minutes to eventually find Heather and everyone else. And she was not too happy. She was as cold and drenched and had been worried that something had happened to me. But all was okay and we eventually ate some Panda express which was awesome.

I am glad I did it, and am okay with the results. I wish the mess at the end had been better organized, but the weather was really the problem and not much could be done about that.

So yes, Oprah, you win this round. But I doubt it rained 2 inches with 20 mph winds during your race.

Making people in my class and at UCSD jealous

That's right. It's my wife and Hello Kitty. We were just walking around the mall, minding our own business and across walks Hello Kitty. I immediately yelled at heather to go stand next to her as I got my camera out. Needless to say, probably one of the best photos Heather will ever have.
And it's probably better for you if you do not get the reference in the title of this post.

We're going to Michigan!!!

So the dramatic saga of my residency application process has come to a close. I am doing Emergency Medicine at St. Mary Mercy Hospital in Livonia, Michigan. For those of you who are not familiar with this vacation hot spot, it is about 25 minutes west of Detroit. I'm hoping that maybe I can hang out with Eminem while we live there, Heather would be stoaked.

This whole process has been horrible, and that is coming from someone (me) who generally considers themself pretty easy going. It seems to be unnecessarily long and expensive. As of last night I was in the situation of not matching into an Emergency program and having to settle for a one year intern spot at a less than desireable program. But this morning I recieved a call from the Program Director in Livonia who said that they had had a spot open up and that it was mine if I wanted it. I am going to be an Emergency Medicine doctor!!! It's official.

I am excited, but also nervous about our move. I know that it will be a tough transition for Heather and I, however I am confident that we will get through this and come out better because of it. The program is 4 years and I'm sure that will fly by and we will be back in California before we know it.

Let me take this time to say how grateful I am to be married to Heather. She is an absolutely amazing and supporting wife. I definintely would not have been able to get through the last 4 years if it were not for her. I know that this move will be a challenge for her, but I also know that she is going to find a great job and excell at it. And in 4 years she will probably not want to move. I recognize the sacrifice that she is making for me and I promise to her that it will be worth it.

Cheap surgical goggles

I guess it's kind of hard to see in this pic. But I figured writing my name over a lens of the goggles would deter potential thieves in two ways. Firstly anyone who's name isn't steve probably wouldn't like having that on their goggles. Secondly if another steve rolls around and is stoked to find personalized goggles, chances are his right eye is not blind and having his name covering his lens would bother him. Take that two-eyed steve!

Golf is sweet

For the last nine months or so I have been playing a pretty good amount of golf. I'm not sure why but early last year I randomly decided that I should check out play it again sports to see if they had used golf clubs. Well they do. And less than $100 later I was the proud owner of a "new" set of clubs. Since then I can safely say I've enjoyed a decent learning curve. That's not to say I'm good now, it just means that I started out really bad and am still at the point where I am easily impressed with myself. A typical round will have maybe 3-4 pars, as well as 2-3 holes where I end up 8 over par on a single hole.

I always liked playing golf, and figured I would get into it when I was older and maybe not physically able to do as much otherwise. However now I totally get how relaxing and enjoyable it is. When you end up working so much, it is really nice to be able to get outside in some quiet with lots of well trimmed grass. This is especially when you work so much for free as I do.

New car mats and a clean car

Both of these things are sweet. Thank you Mom for my nice new car mats. I am getting my car cleaned to commemorate this occasion, I've never had new car mats. And I'm using a coupon from the penny saver for the car wash. So I write this I am saving pennies which is awesome.

Running like the wind

As some may know, I am training for my first marathon. Prior to this i had never really ran more than 7 or 8 miles at one time. But two weeks ago i ran 16 without any real problem and hope to do 20 this weekend with similar results. My marathon goal was originally to break 4 hours, but honestly after my first training run I knew that I had to adjust that goal a little bit. To break 4 hours i would have had to maintain a 9 minute mile which didn't seem too bad, or at least not to someone who had only run about 8 consecutive miles prior to this. Averaging a 10 minute mile, however, will put me at about 4 hours and 26 minutes. This is my new goal and I still feel as though it will be respectable.

It blows my mind that olympic marathon runners average around a 5 minute and change per mile. I couldn't even do one mile at that speed.

Two days ago I did a quick 6 mile run after work. Firstly, I feel like it's a big deal that I now refer to such as a "quick" run. Before 6 milked was normally my limit and i felt like it was a big deal if I did that. What's crazy is that it really does seem quick now. Well my run two days ago felt awesome. I even surprised myself. I averaged 8:30 per mile, which is slow for the running world but fast for my world. What was crazy was that i was able to maintain that speed without really exerting too much. It was the first time in a long time that I actually felt fast, which again was awesome.