I just
attended a conference on the east cost. Time traveling from LA to Baltimore is
quite a feet. After 1 hour of sleep, I realized why it was called a redeye.
Appropriately named. And exacerbated by the pinot at the airport in
hopes of its sedative properties…
Clearly, I was only kidding myself.
It felt like I had ran a marathon yet I had sat for
hours. The particular dietitians attending this conference were the sports nutrition and marathon running RDs.
As I sat in the hotel
lobby, wearing my redeye PJs, awaiting my friend (to get back from her morning run)
I watched these fit RDs filter into the atrium.
One by one.
None with redeyes.
All very upright and very much awake.
Conferences can be just that. Conferences.
Conferences can be just that. Conferences.
But everyone once
in awhile you have a speaker that reminds you why you picked to study the field. His name was Barry Braun, PhD. A real smart,
practical, academic type with a laid back way of speaking cracking appropriate
jokes and possessed genuine enthusiasm for his work.
During his presentation, it felt like I had drank
a redeye instead of traveled a redeye. I had wide-eyes hanging onto every
study and joke mentioned.
The main point was that men and women have different
responses to energy expenditure, energy intake and hormone regulation. A lot of
the presentation shared how valuable standing as opposed to sitting is, the
most universally completed activity that beat out sleeping-perhaps everyone is taking redeyes these
days?
After the conference I took these words and ran with them.
Well walked with them. All over DC. With my RD friends in tow.
Four women all met at the very centrally located Saint Louis University in St. Louis
Missouri in the nutrition department.
All met in different stages: Carolyn was
an undergraduate at the time, Erin was an intern, I was a graduate
assistant and Jamie an instructor.
Now all RDs or
Dietetic interns we have sprawled out-covering coast to coast.
Me in LA.
Jamie in Denver. Erin In STL. Carolyn in DC.
So what did
we do when we got together?
What RDs do.
Talked about
the field
One intern, one clinical nutrition manager, one outpatient
dietitian, one chef professor.
Ate
Phenomenal
fried mahi mahi fish tacos with house made, fresh pico and gauc; boiled lobster
with a spritz of lemon juice and finely ground spices on toasted, buttered bun
with light mayo; a rendez-vous at our claim to St. Louis fame in DC-Pi Pizzaria
Walked
Smithsonian,
WWII memorial, my main man Lincoln, Korean War Memorial, Nam Memorial, Dupont Farmers
Market
Drank
White
Rascal, Beloved Schlafly at Pi, Black Cherry Mojitos
Acted like
no time had passed
meaning, they all made fun of my poster presentation from the conference...
Seeing
friends from my past home and seeing an east coast city reminded me of just how
foreign LA really is. There really are weather patterns and metros in this
world.
It was sad
to say goodbye but traveling west is always easier on one’s body.
And once the plane landed in LA, it felt more like home than
before I left.
Sometimes you have to run away and come back to make a new
home feel homey.
Even through bloodshot eyes…I was back, reenergized and moving. homeward.
