Today's Workout(s)

June 6 was my PFT. I only scored a second class, which sucks, but I haven't been training. I got what I worked for, in reality. I ran 23:14, did 100 crunches, and my flexed arm hang was 38 seconds. Then we had a surprise weigh-in, and I was 14 lbs over my weight. I'm trying to make a decision whether to try to cut the weight for the second chance weigh in or take the hit and go on weight control. The crazy weigh-in policy for my battalion always seems to put a monkey wrench in my diet, because I always have to cut weight. I always lose discipline after three days of starvation and so long without water. I just eat everything I can find as soon as the scale is over.

So I'm on our remedial PT program (which is terribad for weight loss and physical strength progress) now. The first day was Thursday, June 7. It was almost four miles of what we call Radar Ridge. It's a lot of hill, up and down.

June 8: crazy run again, this time up MGuns Pede's hill. It gains 271 vertical feet in about thirty horizontal feet. I may be exaggerating the horizontal feet, but the sign says 271 feet. Then the gunny in charge for the week had us run the ridge to the end, wait for the slowest guy to kind of catch up, and split us into squads (that's Marine for team). Then the squads raced back to the LZ (landing zone, a big flat place where it is convenient to land a big-ass helicopter). I beat everybody back to the last hill, which is what usually kills me anyway. The last hill is short but it's steep halfway up. It's killer. I run ridiculously fast downhill. If I go slow and "controlled" my knee hurts and I feel like I'm going to fall or slip. My favorite moment was hearing Gunny holler "BULLSHIT! CATCH HER!!!" from higher up on the hill. (They did but it was still cool.)

So today I took the day off. Those runs kicked my butt and I've been sleeping all afternoon and all night. I took the total day off, workout and food. I'll be back to it tomorrow. Those runs did let me know I can crack the whip harder in my workouts. I have it, I just have to uncover it.

Oh, yeah, the man the hill was named after? He's a retired Master Gunnery Sergeant (E-9), USMC. He goes to my church and on Monday I'm running his hill with him. I'm excited. I'll run it again sometime and take pictures. I know! That's where I'll take my Nerd Fitness picture when I finally order my shirt!