Above 300

This morning my company had a diagnostic PT test and I maxed the PT test for the first time in my life :)

 

Push-ups: 54 (108 pts)

Sit-ups: 81 (101 pts)

Run: 14:54 (107 pts)

Total = 316 points on the extended scale (which technically does not exist). 

 

After the PT test I went out and ran another 2 miles with a 9:30/mile pace and felt fine, which means that I did not push myself hard enough during the PT test. 

Randomness...

I only had to work four days this past week due to Monday being Presidents Day, but it still felt like a long week. In order to unwind and relax a bit this evening I baked peanut-butter chewies and chocolate-caramel brownies. Tomorrow I am planning on making some caramel corn as well as some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and put the baked goods in bags to give to Phil and Ben on Sunday. They both are deploying to Afghanistan in a few days and Sunday will most likely be the last time I see them for a while. I will miss those guys.

Last Sunday after Church Mike invited me to fly to a Todd Agnew concert that evening with him, Ben, and Phil, but sadly it ended up not working out for me to go. I'm trying my best to keep myself grounded in reality and not get my hopes up about anything, but some stuff Phil said and asked me this evening on the phone is making it really hard, like when out of the blue he and Ben wanted to know why Mike and I aren't dating yet. "Strength arises, wait upon the Lord..." Good song.

One morning earlier this week I got a call from a fellow S2 asking if I knew where my roommate was because she hadn't shown up to PT or to work that day. I'd seen Andrea when I got up for PT, but left before her assuming that she would be following shortly. Therefore, when I got the phone call it concerned me that she hadn't been seen by anyone else. I almost called Jordan to ask if she had seen Andrea, but then remembered that they are in the same BN and so of course Jordan wouldn't know anything more than I did. It turns out Andrea had a briefing and had informed the proper person that she would be gone, but it had slipped their mind. I am writing about this in here because it reminded me of an incident that occurred while in Iraq. One day a report came over the systems about an IED strike that resulted in a soldier killed in Tarmiyah. I remembered Jordan mentioning the night before that she was going to Tarmiyah the next day and the KIA was from her BN and in the vicinity of where she was supposed to go, so I became worried that it might be her because the battle roster number of the soldier hadn’t come through yet. I was too scared to call Jordan’s work phone because I didn’t want to hear from them that she was actually in Tarmiyah, so instead I called Andrea and asked her if she knew if Jordan was on the patrol that got hit. Andrea informed that it was a different platoon and Jordan was still safe and sound back at Taji. That evening Jordan stopped by my room to make fun of me for calling Andrea instead of her, and still hasn’t let me forget the whole thing, but I don’t care because I’m glad she is alive and safe. I guess I connected the two incidents because I found it amusing that this time I was ready to call Jordan due to worrying about Andrea.

Are the paragraph breaks working? They don't appear to be at the moment.

Ripe Pineapple

While in Iraq I ate pineapple almost every morning for breakfast. The man at the fruit stand got to know know me so well that he would see me walking up and start chopping up the pineapple before I even reached the stand. Now that I am home I occasionally buy a pineapple at the grocery store, but I've run into the problem of not knowing how to tell if a pineapple is ripe and sweet. This evening I was at the store and once again standing in front of the pineapples trying to come up with my own method of determining what characteristics meant a pineapple was sweet. I suddenly remembered that one of my friends is from Hawaii, so I gave him a call in hopes that he might know more about the subject. He and I had planned to hang out last night because we hadn't really seen each other since august or September, but for some reason that didn't happen. Sad :(

I digress.... Anyway he didn't answer the phone this evening and so I was left clueless about pineapples. Eventually I decided upon a particular pineapple due to it's pinkish hue. Now that I am home I looked up the question on Google and found the site http://www.ehow.com/how_1679_choose-slice-pineapple.html that gives advice on choosing a pineapple. I wish I had know the advice when I was at the store.

Weekend Synopsis

There are so many things I could write and have thought about writing over this past week, but right now I I do not particularly feel like writing about any of them.

 

I was hoping to spend the weekend lounging around the apartment, but I was at work until 8 pm on Friday working on a slideshow and waiting for keys.  Then, on Saturday I went down to Austin with Andrea and Jordan to go dress shopping for a dress for Jordan for valentine's day.  Andrea had a mall in mind that she wanted to go to, but after driving for three hours and stopping twice at gas stations for directions, she gave up finding the mall and we headed back to the outlet mall in Round Rock.  I was hopping to buy a skirt for myself, but quickly gave up on that idea.  We did not manage to find a dress for Jordan, but each of us bought a few things.  I came away with two new tops.  Going shopping with Jordan and Andrea made me feel better about my own clothes shopping woes because we all have trouble finding clothes that fit properly, especially when it comes to pants, skirts, and dresses.  Recently I've managed to find a style of top that works well for my body type, but as far as the other half of my outfit, if I find an article of clothing that fits one area of my body it likely will not fit another portion properly.  What women out there, besides young teenage girls, have the same size waist and hips/thighs????  I am not a guy!   Okay, enough of my ranting and raving on that subject. 

 

This afternoon I decided to take a break from working on the slide show for my BN ball and go for a run.  Since I wasn't very motivated to go out and run, but yet still wanted to get the exercise I gave Jordan a call to see if she wanted to go running.  She happened to be at the mall doing some more dress shopping.  I made her promise that if I went there to help her shop she would then go running with me.  Unfortunately, we were not any more successful today with dresses, but thankfully she has a few back home already that could work if need be.  After shopping we went for about a 4.25 mile run near her neighborhood.  She invited Andrea and I to eat dinner with her and Zack, so when we got back from our run she taught me how to make stewed tomatoes while she made tacos.  Zack learned the stewed tomatoes recipe in Iraq from some local nationals.  I actually liked the stewed tomatoes and the recipe is very healthy, so Andrea and I may add it to our repertoire. 

 

The hardest thing for me this weekend was giving up going to Grace Bible Church.  I got an email from Betsy on Friday that pretty much summed up what I was experiencing.  Andrea and I have been talking recently about obedience to God and how He has used peoples obedience to bless them.  Abraham's obedience to God in being willing to sacrifice Isaac kept coming to mind, as well as the phrase "and He was obedient, even unto death on the cross..." referring to Jesus.  I felt like this was something God was calling me to do in obedience to Him.  Giving up going to GBC is hardly the same as either of those two things, but it has been really hard because I really liked the people there and I was making some new friends.  Phil and I ended up talking this afternoon and he asked where I had gone to Church today because he goes to GBC.  I told him the whole thing, as well as my frustration with not feeling at home or a sense of peace at the church I ended up going to this morning (Holy Family).  He said obedience isn't always easy, which is very true.  I'm glad he talked to me about that instead of trying to convince me to go back to GBC. 

 

Lindsay called me on Saturday night and she told me that if I sign up for the San Diego Marathon on June 3rd that she'll run it with me.  I am seriously considering it because I want to run a marathon and I also want to see her again.  She's an '04 USNA grad who is in the marines.  We became friends while attending the Anti-terrorism/Force Protection course together back in July in Baghdad.  We mostly talk about running and guys, though other topics are occasionally discussed. 

Jitters

I am extremely jittery and I don't know why.  Perhaps this is what happens now when I don't do much physical activity for two days.  It started during the Bible Study before the church service when we were discussing the Church as a whole.  I find I get very excited about studying/discussing theology and, though our discussion was quite basic, it got the wheels in my mind turning at an extremely fast rate because I wanted to dig deeper but couldn't.  I think I am currently so hungry for any type of spiritual discussion in person that even the hint of it gets me going, though I do not know why I actually ended up with the jitters.  During the service I have to admit that I barely paid attention to the sermon because I was thinking about the Bible study, searching through the Bible, and jotting thoughts down on paper.  A few times I ended up putting my head down and praying for peace so that I could concentrate.  After the service I went home and found that I could not stand still, so I went for a 6.4 mile run to calm me down.  I'm hoping to break the 9 min/mile mark on my longer runs soon, but today I averaged a 9.07 min/mile.  The run worked for about an hour, but now the jitters are returning.  When I was walking out after church today Mike invited me to a Super Bowl party at his house.  I hope that I manage to be a bit more calm by the time I go over there. 

 

On a random side note, the word dichotomy  has been running through my head since this morning.  I don't recall hearing it used anytime recently, so I do not know why I keep thinking about it. 

Talking About Talking

Some people love talking and have trouble listening.  I have the opposite trouble, especially in groups.  It is extremely common for me to be in a group of people who are talking and listen intently to the ongoing conversation and be perfectly content without even realizing that I haven't said a word throughout the whole thing.  Of course, the rare times that I do feel the urge to add my two cents to a conversation I find that I am so focused on trying to get a word in that I stop listening as intently and then get annoyed if I can not find the opportunity to speak.  I am usually much more talkative one-on-one, although I am also probably worse at listening one-on-one. It is usually dependent on the other person and their talkativeness.  If they like to talk a lot, I'll let them talk and just listen.  If they don't talk at all then I probably will not talk very much either.  I probably sound like goldilocks right now, but I'm comparing talking instead of porridge or beds.  Goodness.  Perhaps I enjoy writing on here because I have the ability to talk as much or as little as I want without interruptions and also spend most of the time doing my most common activity: over-analyzing myself.

 

In Iraq I discovered that when I try and multi-task my ability to hear decreases.  I didn't realize that until the potty-mouth contest started the last month of the deployment and someone would be shouting a swear word in the TOC, but I would be so wrapped up in what I was doing that I wouldn't hear a word.  MAJ P was actually the one to point it out because he had thought I had really good hearing until I started the contest.  The truth is that I didn't hear 75% of the things said or discussed by the guys, but I would read their body language as well as the obvious fact that they were whispering to each other and pick up that they were making some sort of less than wholesome comment. 

 

This post is truly pointless and I have no idea why I stayed up writing it. 

 

Best moment of the week:  Finding out I am going to be the UAV platoon leader.

Worst moment of the week:  unlike last week, one single moment doesn't stand out. 

Battle With A Cold

Just the other day I was congratulating myself on staying healthy for almost a year without even a cold. Now it is up in the air whether or not my healthy streak will last any longer.

 

Last night I went to bed with great plans to ride my bike and go running today, but this morning I woke up and realized that I was in the beginning stages of fighting a cold.  Around noon I went to go pick up my uniform and then headed to the store to by some supplies to make Heidi's chicken soup recipe.  The errands wore me out and I spent the rest of the afternoon on the couch watching TV after having made the soup.  Currently I'm debating how to spend this evening because I was planning on going to church and then Maj P's promotion party, but I don't think I have enough energy to do both of those things.  I don't actually feel that sick, but I can tell I am not completely well because I have absolutely no desire to go out and ride my bike or run, and it is a beautiful day outside for doing both of those things.  All I want to do is curl up in my bed.  Hopefully the chicken soup, lack of activity, and medicine that Andrea gave me will strangle this cold before it gets past this beginning stage and I'll be completely healthy tomorrow. 

PL Time!!!

I'm getting a platoon in a few weeks :) WAHOO!!!!!!!

New PR

Today was the first time in my life that I swam a mile. I started swimming when I got back from block leave, but didn't have a set swim workout until last week when I came across the site Zero to 1650 in Six Weeks. Swimming a mile has always sounded like an incredibly far distance to me, especially since I was averaging a little under 1000 yds with plenty of (long) breaks and variations in strokes. I looked at the Zero to 1650 plan and it seemed almost possible, so last Wednesday I decided to start it.

Since I'd already been swimming for a couple weeks I advanced myself to week three of the program, but unfortunately failed to realize that the repeat is in addition to the first swim, so instead of 1350 yds I only swam 1150 yds, but swam more consecutive laps than I had in many years. Then, on Friday I was a bit tired and decided to skip my noon swim. On Monday I moved on to week four of the program and this time counted the repeats correctly, thus completing 1500 yds with a few breathing breaks. The program has you repeat the same workout three times before moving on to the next week, so my plan today was to repeat Monday's workout.

I started swimming the first 600 yds and after 100 yds I realized I felt pretty decent, most likely because I had a dentist appointment this morning and so did not participate in PT. After a few more laps I had talked myself in to skipping ahead to the very last day of the program and going for the full mile without stopping and utilizing only the freestyle swimming stroke. I was more focused on completing the mile then on speed so I found a slow and steady breathing rhythm that I was able to keep up the entire time. I ended up completing 1650 yds in around 47 minutes, but then swam an extra 100 yds for good measure and finished in 50 minutes. The whole time I using the same motivation techniques by counting down the yards like I used to do with the meters while on the erg or during a race. In fact, in my mind I even saw the computer screen on the erg but instead of having the distance of a 2k or a 6k, it was my swimming distance.

After work today I was driving home and saw that the sun had not yet set, so I decided that I'd try pushing myself a bit more today, and also try and relieve some stress and frustration, by going for a run and timing myself on a 3.86 mile loop. Since I had already swam further than ever before in my life I was not sure if my time would be as good as I'd like, but I ended up with a PR of 33:28, or 8:41 min/mile. Of course, it was only the second time I've done that specific loop, but my first time I averaged 8:53.9 min/mile. That probably sounds fairly slow to most people, but for me with that distance it is a decent pace. One thing I do have to learn how to do is pace myself. I start out fairly fast for the first mile, then slow down to a slower pace that I maintain for most of the run, but pick it up again at the very end. I'd probably do a lot better if I started out slower and picked up the pace later on.