Negative Splits, 2 minutes today
June 30, 2022
by Dr. Plastic Picker
My back was bothering me a bit yesterday night, so I slept on a thicker mattress pad on the floor. It’s healtheir for your back to sleep on a firm surface. I’m not sure why my back was bothering me? I think it’s because I walked around yesterday in flip flops to pick up a bag of trash. I’ve gathered only 9 for the month and did get 3 recycleables as well.
My back feels better this morning and I made sure to sleep at a good time. I’m drinking my matcha green tea soy latte home version. I am happy and content. I have about 15 charts to finish and then a half day of clinic to get through. I plan to eat a plant-based lunch at work, and maybe drink a decaf coffee. And this afternoon I will speak for 2 minutes at a rally in the Civic Center on behalf of a “complete climate action plan.”
It’s just 2 minutes of comments, but I’m one of the headline speakers. It’s my first official speaking slot as Chair, Public Health Advisory Council, Climate Actions Campaign. I’ve been on the Public Health Advsiory Council now three years? This has been in tandem with my advocacy work with the American Academy of Pediatrics. It’s all kind of amazing how quickly I’ve non-purposefully and unintentially moved up in the climate and health world. I kind of just showed up as an Instagram litter-picker @drplasticpicker and the rest in blog and instagram history.
I realized last night that even in my meandering environmentalism, I spent about 5 hours doing climate work yesterday. I spent 2 hours prepping a power point to present to the Oregon Pediatric Society regarding expanding our Youth Arts Exhibition to Oregon. Then I gave the presentation and met with the wonderful team at OPS at 2pm. That presentation and dialouge went very well. We have plans to go the next steps. And then I spent at least an hour or two writing my comments for today and practicing it at home.
When I was in high school, I was on the speech and debate team. I realize now that training was the most helpful in my climate work. I did Foreign Extemporaneous and National Extemporaneous and Impromptu Speech, and did go onto the California State competitions. I also was a track runner and famous for my negative splits. I used to always run my 2nd mile faster than my 1st mile, which is unusual. My PR for a mile was 5:20ish or so which is pretty good. I only made it at San Diego CIF because most of the really fast young runners got injured. This is kind of a metaphor on how I live my life. I’m in the 2nd stage of my career, and I’m running faster for the earth now. Negative splits. Rested to try to maximize my impact this afternoon for the 2 minutes I have at the Civic Center.