Groundhog's Day

So yesterday was February 2nd. Groundhog's Day. We've often correlated life here with Bill Murray's same-day over and over again existence in the movie (AFN played it last night).

Fortunately since I've moved over to patrolling the Groundhog's Day syndrome has gone away. Every day is a little different. The challenges and chores are similar, but we do something a little bit different every day.

We had our physical fitness test a couple weeks ago, and while most everyone passed the results were less than stellar. So we started doing 'organized physical training' every other day. A different Sergeant will come up with a PT plan for that day and off we go. Usually it's pretty heavy on the basics, push-ups, abdominal workouts, and running. Yesterday one of my buddies was charged with leading PT. He's a straightforward, uncomplicated and very physically tough guy and he decided we should run. We'd done alot of push-up and abdominal work the last two sessions so his PT was going to be all about running. So....we ran for four miles. I haven't run that far in like forever. We went a little over three a few times at Camp Shelby during training, and managed to get by with it, but honestly I was in alot better shape then. Oddly enough I did way better on our little four mile run than I thought I would. I didn't really stop to walk very often (twice both for very short time periods) and finished in about the middle of the pack, well ahead of several of our 20 something soldiers who seemingly didn't feel like putting out.

So the old man still has it. I'm tougher than I thought I was.

Hope everyone back home is doing well. Miss you all.

MTFBWY