Redeyed RD in DC

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. 

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.