Friday, November 22, 2013
Afghanistan, Week 1
We've been busy so far, working on replacing the Medevac company that's here now, learning how things operate over here, getting into a routine. I'm getting into a good workout regimen and eating healthy but haven't been studying much or flying at all. I'm excited for the dust to settle and get in a really good and productive routine.
There's a pretty cool running club here on Bagram that runs a lot of their own races and also shadows a lot of the bigger marathons worldwide. My commander, XO, and a few other people are planning on running the Boston Marathon shadow run in April and I think it's just the motivation I need to get in a lot of miles here. An 18-week training schedule starts on December 16th so I have about a month to get better acclimatized to the elevation. We're at around 5000' and my treadmill running has been pretty slow and short thus far.
Anyway, that's about all for now. It's amazing how healthy and productive I feel without alcohol dragging me down. Hopefully I'll be flying soon and have some fun stories. As the most junior pilot in the entire company, it may be a while but I'm hoping they didn't send me here just to get in shape and learn Japanese.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Lazy Days
Monday, November 11, 2013
Going to War
I have some very specific goals that I want to achieve and I think blogging will help me stay on track. Obviously the pushup bet was a failure but I credit the blog for keeping it going as long as it did. It's really my shoulder's fault that I wasn't able to complete the challenge. I don't really anticipate many of my goals failing because of physical reasons(knock on wood) so we're blogging to keep the motivation up. Here is a short list of things I would like to do over the next 9 months:
Learn decent Japanese
Play a few songs on the guitar
Be able to run a 3:29:36 marathon in September 2014
Lift weights/circuit train 6 days a week
Be ready for a Pilot in Command check ride in August 2014
The last one is the most important because it's the key to my main, unwritten goal, of coming home in one piece. We're probably going to have a lot of down time and learning more about safe flying is the number one goal. But you can only read so much about helicopters so I'm going to use the other goals to balance my deployed life.
For now, I'm just going to keep this small. Dookie and Jimmy will probably be the only readers. But I'm hoping that I'll make enough progress over the next few months to advertise the blog a little more and show people how much you can accomplish even in shitty situations. How you can find silver linings in everything. How you can go to war and come home stronger.
Wednesday, October 02, 2013
Welp
I'm also supposed to run a marathon on Sunday and I haven't run in 3 weeks, other than the 2-mile PT Test 2 weeks ago. I was still drunk and ran a 14:31 while all of my organs screamed at me. That's the other thing...it's not just that I haven't been running, I've been eating like crap and drinking my face off. All I do these days is work, eat, booze, and sleep. And sleep is definitely last on that list. I blame pre-deployment stress and I actually don't feel horribly guilty about it. I'm going to be gone for 9 months without pizza or beer so why not eat and drink as much as I can while I can. Anyway, I want to bail on the run but I'll probably do it just to see how much pain I can put myself through. I already have my tickets to MSP, may as well do something while I'm there.
Anyway, I'm going on some pretty sweet travels over the next few weeks and I'm hoping to have some good pics and photos for the blog. Let's hope my tendons magically repair themselves but I'm not holding my breath.
Friday, August 23, 2013
Tired
Doing some great Army training here. I have some sweet pics and video that I'll post when I get home. Unfortunately I only did 270 pushups today and it felt like a million. 60 in the AM and 60 before bed and then a few sets of 50 during the day. I really need to use some card games or ripdeck to get the numbers up there.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
I suck at life
Mostly I just suck at doing a lot of pushups. I did 210 on Monday, 60 on Tuesday, and 110 on Wednesday. The days have been busier than expected and I've been lazier than expected. I have 110 done this morning but I need more than 400/day to get my 2k. Let's try to start with 400 for one day, shall we?
Sunday, August 18, 2013
DC Weekend
This week 8 of the pilots in my company are flying 2 Blackhawks down to Texas for some training. It should be fun and I should get a lot of pushups done. Making 2k my goal, really no reason not to get there.
Friday, August 16, 2013
Busy
W/T: 260 Total-32275
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
70 straight
M/T: 120 Total-32015
Sunday, August 11, 2013
HUNGOVER
Only got 50 done today, right before bed. I'll do a lot this week, promise.
Week- 810 Total-31895
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Consistency
I've been pretty consistent since Wednesday and can feel myself getting into a flow. Thursday night I knocked out two sets of 50 at work and didn't get made fun of too badly. Friday morning I did my 50-40-30-20-10 pyramid and it kinda sucked but I made it without having to rest too much. Today I've done 210 and we're about to hit the bar so that'll probably be it. Here are the numbers but I won't have the sum since I'm blogging from my phone. Sum tomorrow. And maybe some day soon some bigger numbers.
Wednesday-150
Thursday-200
Friday-200
Saturday-210
Wednesday, August 07, 2013
I guess I'm doing alright
As the weekend creeps up, I find myself considering cheating and boozing it up but this 24-day detox cost some money and I think that'll be my saving grace; not wanting to waste money.
Thursday, 1 AUG: 200
Friday, 2 AUG: 150
Saturday, 3 AUG: 150
Sunday, 4 AUG: 250
Monday, 5 AUG: 60
Tuesday, 6 AUG: 50
Week-860 Total-31085
Thursday, August 01, 2013
August?
And yes, Dave, I wanted to add the 500 miles but my competition refused. But I'll definitely get there anyway. I just need to focus on pushups for a minute and get back on track. Even with these two horrible months, I'm happy that I'm ahead of pace and feel like the goal should still be easy to achieve.
Now goodnight. Hope I wake up before 2 PM.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Day One
Hello
On July 2nd I had 28450 and then my month has looked like this:
7/3: 100
7/4: 50
7/5: 50
7/6: 50
7/7: 50
7/8: 100
7/9: 50
7/10: 200
7/11: 50
7/12: 50
7/13: 250
7/14: 150
7/15: 200
7/16: 200
7/17: 100
7/18: 150
7/19: 75
7/20: 50
7/21: 50
7/22: 50
7/23: 100
7/24: 100
7/25: 50
7/26: 50
7/27: 50
7/28: 0
7/29: 0
That's only 1375 if I can count and that's a big zero the past two days. Super gross. I'll do more than that today and try to pull my life together. On a positive note, I have been flying a lot and it's really fun. This weekend is going to be another party weekend but I'm planning on 3-4 weeks of detox afterwards. August is the month we get momentum back, we promise.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Army Physical Training is blah
Monday, July 15, 2013
Improving
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Relaxed
Thursday - 50
Friday - 50/3.6
Saturday - 250
Sunday - 150
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Getting Better
Tuesday, July 09, 2013
Still Tired
Monday, July 08, 2013
Work
Sunday, July 07, 2013
Roughest weekend in a long time
Wednesday, July 03, 2013
Tuesday, July 02, 2013
Struggle Bus
Monday, July 01, 2013
Halfway Home
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Nashville
Spirit of the Blog
The past week was kind of shitty but I'm planning on picking it up as we reach the mid-point of the year. I've only done 50 today and still need to go for a 3-mile run. I think I'm going to make a conservative goal and go for 28K by the end of the month. Still ahead of track, despite the horrendous two months. Let's get my friend momentum rolling into my birthday month.
W: 150, 3.1miles
R: 150, 4miles
F: 100
S: 66
S: 50, 5miles
M: 0
T: 150
W: 300, 3.7
R: ???
Total: 966, 15.8miles
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Chillin like Bob Dylan
Monday, June 17, 2013
Inertia
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Old Man
I'm titling this old man because my lower back has been absolutely killing me. It was a little stiff after the PT test on Monday but nothing really came of that. Then I ran 5.7 miles on Friday morning and felt really good but throughout the day, my back really stiffened up and it almost felt unbearable. We went to a sweet house party and then a cool little bar with live music but I was miserable the whole time and probably not a lot of fun to hang out with. Yesterday, it started to loosen up a bit throughout the day and I was optimistic that the bad times were behind me. I drank a lot of tequila at dinner and I was feeling pretty good. Then this morning I woke up and it was worse than ever. I'm hobbling around real bad and while I can sit without pain, as soon as I do anything even remotely stressful to my back, sharp pains shoot up and down my body. It really sucks. I was planning on going for a short run this morning and trying to stretch it out but it's just not feasible. It's just so sore. Fuck getting old.
I did 100 pushups on Friday morning and then was in too much pain for the rest of the day to do any more. Yesterday I was feeling better and managed 150 before heading out to the park to listen to music and getting a little tipsy. Today I'm pretty sure I'm not going to do any. We're going to a BBQ at Ellen and Niko's house and I'm going to get shitfaced and self-medicate that way.
Tomorrow I drive back to Bama for my last week at Fort Rucker. It's still a bittersweet feeling but this trip Nashville has made it feel much more sweet. There's just so much more going on here and I love hanging out with Chris and Faith. Life is good...as long as my back decides to loosen up at some point.
Oh, I forgot, I bought a condo. Haha. It isn't perfect in every sense but it'll be really great for my purposes. The 2nd bedroom is tiny and wouldn't really be feasible to host a second roommate but it has its own full bathroom and will be fine for hosting guests. The master bedroom is huge so I'm going to keep my Queen bed up in Clarksville and buy a new King size bed. Faith has agreed to be my interior decorator and I'm pumped for her to turn my condo into a home...or whatever. She's done a great job decorating their house here and she knows me pretty well and will be a lot of help. The location is really great, 1.5 blocks from 5 Points which is a local hotspot with a bunch of bars and whatnot and then I'm 1.5 miles from downtown which is where I'll take all my guests when they come to town. I'm also 1.5 miles from Chris and Faith and we'll be hanging out a lot this summer. Can't effing wait.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Nashville
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Bored Bored Bored
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Lazy Days
Monday, May 20, 2013
PT stud
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Wasting Away
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Lazy Weekend
Thursday, May 09, 2013
Nights are Killing me
Wednesday, May 08, 2013
Felix Day!
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
Running
Monday, May 06, 2013
Springfest
Friday, May 03, 2013
No Fly again!
Thursday, May 02, 2013
No Fly No Bueno
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Visitors are Awesome
Running: Today-4mi YTD-267.92mi
Fri, 01Feb - 204.3
Fri, 01Mar - 203.4
Mon, 01Apr - 203.6