so this is it.

5 weeks of interning at Grady Hospital will be over tomorrow. I am very happy to have my life back so I can get on with training, obsessing over races, and spending time with Eddie and my two 4-legged creatures. This has been such a great experience and while I have not been riding much at all, it was important for me to do this rotation and it was totally worth it. I'm not sure what people think of when I say I'm in the field of nutrition..I know some people think that means I serve people food in a hospital. Um, no. I've spent the last 5 weeks thrown in the fire of medical nutrition therapy--i.e. figuring out the needs of trauma patients and of those with multiple diseases (liver, pancreas, kidney, heart, lung, cancer, AIDS, you name it). Hours and hours of calculations, follow ups, research, tube feedings, charting, running up and down stairs, washing my hands, and of course laughing. I think that if you didn't laugh at things and yourself that working in health care would be very very depressing. While I knew my competitors have been training and racing their asses off already, I knew the bike would be there when I finished. And, it is. I am really looking forward to some good weather this weekend and some QT with the family and the bikes.

In other exciting news, I was the lead author of an abstract submitted to the American College of Sports Medicine, and it was accepted for publication..and presentation! So, that means I have to find a way to get myself to the ACSM Annual Conference in Indianapolis to do the presentation at the end of May. It is highly unusual for a graduate student to be in this situation so I will consider myself lucky as this will be a great opportunity for me.