With only cardiac physiology and pathology exams on the horizon, the workload is the lightest it’s been all trimester. Grammatically speaking, this trimester has seemed like one long run-on sentence, bereft of punctuation, leaving the reader gasping for breath. Thankfully punctuation is inevitable, regardless how inept the writer. One of the few exclamation marks this trimester came in the form of St. Patty’s Day celebrations in Chicago.

The festivities started earlier than expected. I was shocked to see people already heading to the bars as I started out on my morning bike ride along the lake. The bike ride to my friend’s place in Streeterville takes about 15 minutes — which gave me ample time to think about the physiology behind what my cardiovascular system was doing. I knew my capacitance veins were listening to their reflexive input by decreasing their capacitance, which increases rate of flow to my right atrium and ventricle. These things factor into End Diastolic Volume in the right ventricle, which via the cardiopulmonary pump, increases End Diastolic Volume in the left ventricle and therefore increases Cardiac Output. Whew! I better stop before I bore you all.

After my impromptu review, I met up with my friend for a small training session. His goal is a Spartan race in three months, and as I was working with him, I realized how much I truly have learned about biomechanics and rehabilitation as a whole — and I haven’t even hit second phase yet! We started with the basics: proper breathing along with shoulder, hip, and knee stability. Thankfully, my job was easy, as he is a born athlete that just needed a tune-up.

On my way back to my place, I made a quick stop by the river to watch it being dyed green — a Chicago St. Patty’s Day tradition. I made it back to Wrigleyville just in time to meet the group of friends Sarah and I had invited over to enjoy the festivities. Finally, true to expectations of a St. Patty’s in Chicago, the mayhem was a spectacle to see. All in all, it was a great day filled with great friends — just the punctuation I needed in my life.