Running and an Update on Army Life

I'm quite pleased with myself, though truthfully when I first came here I was hoping to do better, but there is only so much you can expect from yourself.

I came here with far from stellar PT scores on my Army Physical Fitness Test. In fact, I came to this school on a Failed Run. So I have had to work my butt off to get back into shape so that I could do ok when I got here.

So I ran my ass off before coming to this school, every day before I left I ran at least one mile, sometimes sprinting sections of it, taking a quarter mile and trying to get it to as close to two minutes as I could get (easy the first time, harder as I did it more and more) so that when I got to school, I had shaved two minutes off my run time in two weeks.

I was pumped about that, and then the second phase was shaving more time off so that I would get in the 90s in each event.

I'll be honest, the PT here isn't entirely difficult and I don't feel like its pushing me, but I do see a lot of improvement. I'm 3 pushups away from my 90, i'm two situps away from 100, and if I can shave 16 seconds off my run time for another 90, I'll be eligable for commandants list when I got to BNCOC. Commandants list was a goal of mine here too, but my performance hasn't been satisfactory considering I am very inexperienced for the caliber of soldiers that are here (but I'm not the worst off by any means). I wanted to get 90 in each event while I was here, but I'm not upset, far from it, I was pumped to get the scores I did as it shows how much I have improved physically since I have been here.

Now I need to maintain my physical fitness, which will probably mean doing PT with the Privates when I hit the trail in October. Maintaining my physical fitness level will probably be the toughest thing to do once I get back home but my health is worth it. It will be a great snowboarding season, I feel like I'm in the best shape I've been in in a long time.

Run Times for the two Mile

AUG 4 - 20:26 (yikes!)
AUG 17 - 18:20
SEP 7 - 17:59
SEP 24 - 16:52 (best runtime I've had in years!)

My goal is to get that runtime under 16 minutes, which is doable if I keep at it. If I do time on the trail, I have learned that there are opportunities to go to schools that I have always wanted to attend (like Airborne). I will not volunteer for that school unless I know I can handle the run and if my run is under 16 minutes, I know I can do it. Next year might be a crazy year for me if I end up doing this full time. It's still a maybe, barring other opportunities prevent me from volunteering to train soldiers as a full time job, but if I'm motivated and feel like I know what I'm doing and have a desire to be there, I know I can do it.

Once upon a time when I joined the army, I had this deep motivation to get as much crap on my uniform as possible, I wanted to be a drill sergeant, I wanted to have a huge stack with Airborne and Air Assault and all of those gung-ho schools and everything. I think I suffer from Combat Patch envy, and knowing that I probably won't have one is kind of a bummer especially with a school such as this, but now that I'm here, as long as I can stay motivated, these last three weeks should be a breeze. It will be tough, and I'll probably get the snot kicked out of me during combatives, but I'm ready for it!