Fun and Misery Rarely Go Together

But they did on Saturday.  This weekend, I ran in the Tri-State Tough Mudder in Englishtown, New Jersey, with 9 other classmates from Einstein.  This is the same race series as the one that I ran in May (in Pennsylvania) with 4 other classmates.  This time, everything about it was several levels higher on the intensity scale.

One: We made a whole weekend out of it.  We rented a cabin in New Jersey for the weekend.  We had 13 of us sleeping in, essentially, a glorified mobile home.  That's all right, there was plenty of space.  Also, we got to use the hot tub, grill, and fire pit, so it was a whole lot of fun.

Birthday party at the cabin!

Two: We  brought spectators with us.  A few of our classmates (who weren't quite sure if they were up for the challenge of the Mudder) nevertheless came and supported us through it.  That's why I have so many great photos from the race.  (I didn't take them, obviously.)

Our loyal fans

Three: We had matching "uniforms."  Kind of.  We all wore our red Einstein scrub tops from anatomy last year, in some shape or form.  We figured, why not ruin them with mud?  They're already ruined with formaldehyde.  No big loss.  Plus, we looked awesome all in red together.

Pre-mud

Four: There were twice as many of us this time.  The 5 of us from last time, plus 5 more adventurous types, ran the 12-mile, 19-obstacle race.  The proportion of crazy people in Einstein's class of 2013 is increasing precipitously.

And yes, I do mean crazy.  When Daniel asked to borrow me for a second, I thought he wanted to do partner stretches.  I was wrong.

Five: We stayed together as a team.  Now, we could have split up and gone at our own, individual paces, but we made the decision to stay together.  We helped each other out, cheered each other on, tackled each other in the mud, and intimidated the competition.  (Actually, that's a lie.  Pretty much everyone who was running the race was running it for pure fun.)

Teamwork was a great decision.

Six: It was COLD.  For November, I suppose, it was actually quite warm - high 40s/low 50s, sunny, but a bit breezy.  Sure, that's fine running weather normally, but for this race...no.  The minute we got wet, the comfort was over, and that was within the first 2 miles.

Trying to stay warm, pre-race

Seven: We were in the water and mud MUCH longer than last time, and the water, if you hadn't guessed, was COLD.  The first 15-foot plunge knocked the wind out of me; my lungs were not prepared for the freezing lake below, which we then had to wade across in shoulder-level water.  My skin was so cold that it felt as if it were burning.  Bobbing under the barrels gave me the worst ice-cream headache of my life.  After getting out for a minute, we had to get right back in and swim across again.  Shoes don't propel well, so I had to rely on my arms, which, by the time I was almost across, were hardly working because the muscles were so cold.  I had never been that cold in my life.

That's not a warm lake that we had to swim across.

Eight:  There was SO much more mud than last time, which was great!  We tackled each other in it, threw it at each other, tripped in it, were covered in it.  Unfortunately, it was only marginally warmer than the lake, and we were never really dry after that first plunge.  While waiting to attempt to sprint up the impossibly slick mud mountain, we were standing still in the open breeze for close to 10 mud-soaked minutes, and THAT was then the coldest I had ever been in my life.

The coldest I've ever been was at this moment.

Nine: The race itself was more intense.  It was nearly twice as long (12 miles vs. 7 miles last May), and the obstacles were similar but harder, and there was actually a mystery obstacle this time: running through dangling, electrified wires.  Don't worry, the sign before the wires warned people with pacemakers or epilepsy to skip it.  I only received a few small shocks, but my taller classmates were tripping over themselves as the unexpected electricity coursed through them.  Afterwards, we couldn't breathe from laughing so hard.

In sight of the finish line

Ten: We finished together, triumphantly and as a team.  We felt as though we'd never be warm again, but within a few hours of fires, car heaters, blankets, showers, and hot tubs, we had warded off the hypothermia.

Muddy, freezing, and happy

Miserable?  Parts.  Particularly the parts when we were in the water, or wet and standing still in the breeze.  Challenging?  Without a doubt.  Before Saturday, I had never run 12 consecutive miles.  My knees and hips took a beating, and I'm still sore even 3 days later, but I feel proud of all of us for running the race.  Fun?  Not even a question.  The entire weekend - even, arguably, those miserable moments - was an incredibly enjoyable experience with my friends.  When's the next Tough Mudder?  Sign me up!

National Rep - Who, Me?

The weekend after my Halloween adventures with Rachel in D.C., I found myself traveling to D.C. yet again.  This time, it was on Einstein's dime, and it was decidedly more official.  Fellow classmate and student council member, Utibe, and I left after our Thursday classes to fly (yes, fly) to the capitol.  By completely strange but fortunate circumstances, we had recently become Einstein's representatives on the Organization of Student Representatives (OSR) of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC - the organization responsible for the MCAT, medical school applications, and the residency match, among other things), and we were traveling to D.C. to participate in the OSR portion of the AAMC annual meeting.

One school out of hundreds...well, more like hundred.

I'm sure it all sounds incredibly dry and boring, but let me assure you that it was not.  Without a doubt, it has been the highlight of my academic career at Einstein so far.  I had the chance to meet student representatives from other medical schools across the country.  I was able to learn about the enormous variety of educational initiatives and technologies at other schools.  I learned about the biggest challenges facing students across the country as well as the proposals being made to counter them.  I learned about the proposed changes and committee work on revising the MCAT and the medical school application process, as well as the changes ready to be implemented to make the residency Match and "Scramble" more organized and less nightmarish for fourth-year medical students.  On top of all of that, I heard a fantastic speech by the keynote speaker, Malcolm Gladwell, who used his phenomenal storytelling skills to get across the simple yet powerful message about the importance of humility in leadership.

We found a pure chocolate replica of the Einstein memorial.  Awesome!

And I participated in the elections of OSR leadership.  And I gave advice to pre-med college students.  And I had dinner with Einstein's Dean of Education.  And I made great new friends and contacts with other OSR reps.  And Utibe and I tried very hard (but ultimately failed) to use the full allotment of meal money from Einstein.  It was an incredible weekend.  I learned so much about medical education.  I'm excited to continue to serve on the OSR; hopefully we will be able to continue to go to these meetings.  I never really thought about academic medicine before, but I've discovered its excitement and appeal.  When I was telling some friends back at Einstein about my experience and how much it excited me, I was pleasantly surprised when one said, "Oh my gosh...you're totally going to be the Dean of a medical school someday."  Hmm...never thought about it before...but maybe when I'm ready to retire from the Air Force, it's something to consider...?

Fear and/or Sanity

A recap of my Halloween weekend in D.C.

Rachel and I dressed up for the Stewart/Colbert rally. 

By the time we got there, it was already incredibly crowded.  We couldn't see the stage from where we were standing.  We had this (somewhat obstructed) view of one of the big screens, though. 

Some people decided to get a better view from the top of an ambulance.  (How, exactly, is this legal??) 

This guy had a better idea.  Probably the best view from near us.  I have to admit I was slightly jealous. 

Some people had some hilarious signs. 

Love the irony 

This one, though, was my favorite.

After the rally was over, we simply stood and watched the crowd leave the Mall.  It was this crowded for at least 30 minutes.  And imagine...this is only one tiny portion of the crowd from the Mall.

After the crowds had (relatively) dispersed, we went back to take a look at the stage. 

And we asked someone to take a photo of us with my camera.  I lost count of how many people stopped us to take pictures with their cameras. 

Taking advantage of my politically themed costume, we had fun taking photos around the city. 

A fantastic day.

Gettysburg

When I drove to Washington, D.C. last weekend, I passed through Gettysburg, unexpectedly.  By that, I mean that I was on the right route, but I just didn't realize that it passed through Gettysburg.  It was getting late and I had already been stuck in more traffic than planned, so I didn't stop, but I was certainly intrigued.

Oooh, another national park to check off my (rather small, actually) list

On the way back home, since I wasn't in quite as much of a hurry, I decided to check it out.  Also, luckily, it was a beautiful fall morning -- sunny and pleasantly crisp.  Plus, I really like Lincoln.  Let me explain.  At St. Olaf, we were all required to take at least one ethics class as part of the liberal arts requirement.  During the busiest semester I ever had (because of challenging courses, leadership positions, and eight medical school interviews), I took Philosophy/Religion 278: The Ethics of War.  It turned out to be the best class that I ever had.  Professor Santurri's fierce conviction and quiet enthusiasm for the class -- as well as the way he was able to teach a highly charged issue without ever giving any hint of what personal views he held -- made me excited to read and think and write and debate.  One of his favorite topics is Lincoln, and you can be sure that we discussed Lincoln and the ethics of the Civil War from all sorts of different perspectives.  I had never cared much about the topic before that semester, but the class made me realize how much more complicated and interesting the whole era was.

The spot where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address

So, I have an appreciation for Lincoln.  I still have the Lincoln book we read for class, actually, along with two of the other more interesting books we read.  Last year, one of my medical school friends was perusing my bookshelf, and she asked why I had a book about President Lincoln.  I explained how much the ethics class had meant to me, especially since I had ended up in the military, where I am so thankful to have such a rich background in the ethics of war (something which many people do not have the chance to be formally taught).  My friend had not gone to a liberal arts school and was blown away by how enthusiastic I was about a non-science class.  In that moment, along with several other moments over the past year and a half of being away from college, I realized how lucky I was to have received such a well balanced education.  I also realized that I wanted to let my professor know how much I had learned and taken away from his class.

Demonstration in the fields of Gettysburg

So I wrote him a note and sent it in the mail.  I thanked him for the enthusiastic and thorough teaching, I told him that I was now in medical school (so all those days I skipped class for interviews were actually justified), and I let him know how useful the background had been as I entered the military and began to think more about the ethics of war, which now pertain to me more than they ever did before.  I figured it was the least I could do to.  A few days later, I received a very excited e-mail from him saying that my card had made his day.  In addition to making some very flattering comments about my future success in both medicine and the military, he said that he would share parts of my note with the current ethics of war class he was teaching, just to give them a little extra motivation.

The memorial for the Minnesotans who had died in the Civil War.  Every state had its own monument somewhere throughout the park.

There was really no point in telling that whole story just now, except to justify my comment that I like Lincoln. Yes, I like Lincoln because I had a phenomenal class with a phenomenal professor.  And I got to see Gettysburg on a beautiful fall morning, and walk through the National Cemetery in peace, and think about America and all of the things that I appreciate.  That was meaningful.