My Poor Heart

I've always told people about "my poor heart"... most likely clogged with years of chocolate-covered cinnamon bears and ice cream. On top of poor diet, my heart has NEVER been consistently "athletic" for more than a school semester. (The day class ended, there was no more need to exercise). To this day my worst grade I've ever received was in P.E. class in 9th grade. Well, that's all changing...

Most of you know that I'm training to run a half marathon (13.1 miles) on August 23rd, 2008. I've learned that a goal is much easier to give up on if I'm the only person who knows about it, which is why I'm posting my progress for the world to see.

If you know me really well, you'll know that I like order, which makes me a huge fan of Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets. Here's a screen-shot of the file that I have deemed "Half Marathon Progress Report":
As you can see I'm in my 5th week of training and in my 2nd week of creating the actual spreadsheet. Just know that for the 3-mile days, I was running at about a 9 min/mile pace, and I'm very proud to be in the 7's now (see the 7.9 min/mile pace on July 14th)! The crazy thing is that now I can run a mile as if it were nothing, and that used to KILL me (in 2002 I ran a 1.5 min/mile in 18 minutes :(. I'm also excited that I ran 8 miles on Saturday... the longest distance I've ever run in my entire life. If you had asked me to do that 2 months ago I would have said you were crazy.

I do have to publicly thank Stacey, my sister-in-law, who is running the 1/2 marathon with me. I would have never joined the race if she had not invited me.

Eye Moles

Random eye-fact of the day: People can have moles in the back of their eyes!!
Don't believe me? I SAW a giant mole in a patient's right eye today. It was about 4 times as large as his optic nerve (see diagram to the left for general back-of-eye anatomy). Not only did I SEE it, I took a PICTURE of it for the optometrist I work for.

In the picture at the right (known as a central fundus photo -- or in other words, the patient is looking directly into the camera), you'll notice a dark spot right by the optic nerve. This is a nevus (fancy word for mole). Now imagine a perfectly round mole twice the diameter of the optic nerve in the extreme upper portion of the picture and you'll see what I saw. It was really cool! We had to have the patient look up and at an angle so we could get a look at it.

I love my job. I take pictures like these on most of the patients that come in. When they see the backs of their eyes, I usually crack a joke like "Awww! You didn't smile!" Or "I barely recognize you!". It's fun... especially with the really little kids, or the really old people. :)