Army Weekend

This weekend I was off at my other job—Army guy. Saturday’s training had the potential to really challenging. We were scheduled to do water survival training at an outdoor pool on Fort Meade, MD. Things changed when we arrived and the training had been changed to the main indoor pool at the Fitness Center.

We started off with a 75 meter swim in full uniform to include boots. There are a couple of other triathletes and cyclists in the company, but I felt I could hold off all the swimmers and win this short swim. By the time I hit the 12 meter mark, my uniform was soaked and heavy. I looked to my left and right and saw the people that had started off hard were starting to drop back. All but ONE. To my immediate left was our chaplain and he was passing me. I decided I would hang on his back feet and then sprint the end. As he pulled in front of me I noticed he was not wearing boots. He was in his soak feet. At that point, I decided to let him go. There was not way I could beat a decent swimmer who was NOT wearing boots.

The other four stations were basic water survival stuff for the army—get out of your equipment as fast as possible so that you can keep your head above water. Other than swimming with your boots on, it was not very difficult.

I was also able to get about an hour on the bike. I mapped about a 4.? mile loop and did four loops over the period of a very humid hour. The route was not completely flat and it was not hilly. But here were some short climbs that I powered up to build leg strength and endurance.

I was unable to get in any work outs on Sunday. Just death by power point. But this week will be a strong training week. I will cap it off with the Leesburg 20K run on Sunday.