Not Dead. And no longer in grad school.

 The following things have changed since I last wrote on this blog:

• Finished two clinical rotations
• Bought a house
• Passed board exams
• Moved to Maine
• Graduated with my doctorate in physical therapy
• Got my first job as a physical therapist

For my last year in grad school, I served as president of the student association, mentored students in two courses, and applied for and was accepted to the national honor society for DPTs. I pushed myself hard in the last two terms and paid for it in health and stress level. Now I'm a DPT and have a full-time job working standard office hours for one company for the first time ever. I don't think I knew how hard I'd pushed myself until after graduation when I just had to do one thing--go to work every day. No studying, no exams to prep for, no meetings to plan or resources to put together. At the end of each day, I can come home and play video games until bedtime if I like. It's delightful.

I've given myself some time and space to mentally recover from four years of school and everything that went with it. For the first few months, I still didn't feel motivated to exercise in even the most basic of ways. I mean, not even a short walk in the evenings. I can tell I'm coming back from that level of stress and fatigue because I actually want to work out again. I've started exploring my new home on my bike and I've been getting to work early in the mornings so I can have a short run before I start my days.

On one of those morning runs I passed a sign for the Kennebec River Rail Trail that had featured sponsors, and one of the sponsors was IronMan 70.3 Maine - Augusta. Hmm, I thought. I live near Augusta. In fact, I work in Augusta. That's interesting.

So I signed up for IronMan 70.3 Maine today. And I guess maybe it's worth tracking my training journey on this blog again. I'm coming back from no fitness at all for the past few years to try to get in shape for a 70.3. And I know from experience that you can't fake your way through a 70.3. Maybe there are people out there who are similarly out of shape and want to get back to training or competing or at least participating in mass-start events and my journey will inspire or motivate or inform or something. Or maybe it will be entertaining to follow. At the very least it will be good for me to get my thoughts out of my head and onto a screen.

That's it for now. Here's a pretty picture from my bike ride today as a thank you for reading.

Maine is a very pretty place to live.