Rock'n'Roll Half Marathon

I ran the Rock'n'Roll Half Marathon in Nashville today! Finally, after what seems like a million miles of training. 

It poured in Nashville before the race. Like, we had to hide in a car wash to get out of the rain (we were not the only people in there). The race was postponed almost a half an hour to try to avoid having runners on the course during a storm. When it came time to actually run, it wasn't raining anymore, but I was already soaked. My poor shoes and socks were soaked. My worst fear was that the weather was going to do a typical Tennessee thing and rain really hard, then the sun would come out and immediately there would be oppressive humidity. But the sun never really came out. 

Thanks for doing me a solid, Sun. I appreciate it.

I'd say the first 7 miles were pretty easy. I kept a good 9-10 minute pace. Then I decided to grab a little cup of Gatorade and eat a Poweraid energy gel packet. That was probably my worst mistake. I got a horrible cramp in my left side that I couldn't shake the entire rest of the race. It slowed me down considerably. 

But I finished the race. I finished it slower than I had wanted to, but there were more hills in Nashville than I anticipated running up. I'm a slow poke up hills. 

I can't wait to do another one! But first up, I'm going to house this Burger King and take a loooong nap on the couch with some french bulldogs. 

Force Skills Competition Again

Lucky me, I got to be here for another Force Skills Competition. I graded the Combat Life Saver lane again. The competitors were much more competitive this go around.

We put a patient under the vehicle this year. He wrapped his leg up in there and then went "unconscious". Every single team hated that patient. I thought it was great. Some of the methods to free the patient were a little rough, and one team decided to not free him at all and did all the treatments wedged under the vehicle. To each their own, I suppose. I wasn't grading on the ability to actually MEDEVAC the patient so they didn't lose any points.

 

 

 

I had fun grading the competition again. I feel very important here as the unofficial official Combat Lifesaver director of training. That's the title I gave myself. No one has challenged it, so it made it real. I'm not going to be nearly as special when I redeploy and my title is squad leader again.

Fun Color Run

North Camp had a 4th of July Color Run this morning. This was my first Color Run. I see they've grown in popularity over the past year or so. I always look at the pictures and I think to myself, "That looks so fun." But then I never do one; that must mean I don't like fun.

 

I decided to give fun a shot this morning.

 

My assumption that it was going to be fun was a little skewed. I seemed to forget the part that there was still running involved in a Color Run. I focused on all the colorful pictures of people smiling at the end. And blocked out the running. 

 

The route was 5k and there were 4 points where colored powder was thrown. Maybe if we had more color to throw or less distance to run, the event would have been better. It was really humid this morning, which made the running significantly less fun- not that I ever find running to be fun.

 

 

 

 

But once the running was over, and we all got to see how messy and colorful we were, things started to look up for the Color Run. Now I was the smiling face at the end of the race, like in all those pictures. I suddenly felt like I had fun. Right now I feel like if you asked me if I would do another Color Run, I would tell you I would, because I'm still on the high of not running anymore.

 

I had fun this morning. I gave fun a shot, and I was successful.

 

Now, hopefully all this dye will wash out of my hair. I've washed it twice, and I still have blue streaks.

Masada & The Dead Sea

I am currently on an MWR bus trip to Israel. Today was the first day of the trip, so we spent half the day traveling. Not because North Camp is really very far from Jerusalem, but because it takes hours to get through the boarder between Egypt and Israel-- it really depends on how the guards feel that day as to how long you'll wait.

The other half of the day we toured Masada and swam in the Dead Sea.

Masada was really cool. I didn't have the slightest clue what it was until today. I'm not a Jewish or Roman history buff. I had a whole lot of knowledge dropped on me today about a Jewish King from around year 20 who built an enormous hide out called Masada in the desert of Israel so he could hide from his people when they had uprisings and wanted to kill him. This dude spared no expense on his hideout-- it was really legit and carved into the rock on the side of a cliff. Then long after he was dead a bunch of Jewish zealots moved into Masada and the Romans wanted to kill them. The Romans spent a lot of man hours making ramps to get up to Masada and they failed for a few years. But then they finally lit the front gates to Masada on fire and gained entry. But-- oh no!! All the Jews stabbed each other to death and committed suicide before the Romans got to the top of the hill. Bummer for the Romans who wanted to enslave the Jews.

 

 

 

 

But anyways, history aside, I toured the mountain top complex and it was really cool. Masada overlooks the Dead Sea. Which is where we went next.

 

 

The Dead Sea was so awesome. I was so buoyant that I didn't need to tread water to stay afloat. It just looked like we were all standing in chest deep water. I swam out and had trouble sitting back up because my legs wanted to float out from under me! The water is so ridiculously salty. We were advised not to put our heads underwater because it would burn our faces. I went ahead and followed that advise. I didn't want to melt off my face. After I got out of the water and rinsed off, I realized my skin was incredibly soft and smooth. I always thought that Dead Sea skin treatment stuff was a bunch of bullshit but apparently it's not! So next time you're at the mall and some pushy dude at a kiosk tries to sell you that skin care stuff from the Dead Sea, go ahead and consider it.

Draw Me

I overheard, "Draw me like one of your French girls," coming from the clinic's waiting room. I wondered if I really wanted to know what was going on. I work with some strange individuals. My curiosity got the best of me. I walked in on this:
 

 

Sometimes it's better to not be a witness to everything that happens in my clinic. 

Gephart is quite the artist though. He captured Rockwell's arrogance quite accurately.

I love my Soldiers. They're so much fun.

Splash For Cash

There are lots of monetary incentives while you are deployed to a combat zone. Although I'm technically not in a combat zone, we get many of the same perks. We get hazardous duty pay and family separation pay just like the Soldiers in Afghanistan do. But the only way we qualify to for a tax free paycheck, like combat deployed Soldiers, is to do Combat Water Survival Training (CWST) every month in the Red Sea.

This has been coined Splash For Cash.

So every month all the American Soldiers who are stationed at North Camp take a trip to South Camp so we can earn our tax free status. (South Camp is like paradise and has a private beach right on the Red Sea.) And this is how CWST works: you swim out to a buoy about 50 meters into the sea in your ACUs and boots and tread water for 5 minutes and then float on your back for 5 minutes. Then you swim back to shore. And you're done. It's like making $25 a minute. Who else can say they have a job that pays so well!?

I had an absolute blast! I had forgotten how much I love swimming in the ocean since its been years since I moved away from San Diego. I love swimming with the waves, and it was super easy to stay afloat in the Red Sea because it's so salty. There were jellyfish all over the place, but I wasn't stung. I wish I could have stayed out in the water all afternoon.

 

Life vests are provided to wear under your ACU top if you are interested, but I didn't use one. I'm too cool for that. It's a good thing a lot of people did use them; most had never swam in the ocean before and the waves were kind of choppy today. Poor swimmers galore. And I looked like a badass swimming around like it wasn't a big deal.

 

So I splashed for cash today and it was awesome. I can't wait to come back down to South Camp to do this again next month. 

Oktoberfest 2013

James and I went to Oktoberfest with a few friends on Friday night. This year it was held at the Clarksville Speedway which is just up the road from our house. We rode with some friends to the Speedway and intended to walk back so we could enjoy ourselves the way you're supposed to at Oktoberfest. I even wore my PT belt around my waist so I wouldn't get ran over on the way home. But, luckily, one of the girls we were with was 19 (is that really that lucky though?) so we had a sober ride home and didn't have to walk.

 

Oktoberfest in Clarksville, Tennessee is probably the lamest Oktoberfest in the world. Especially since there are so many Soldiers in the area who've been stationed in Germany and know what a real Oktoberfest is like. We went to get out of the house, drink big plastic steins of beer and to eat delicious bratwursts.

 

Yummy! Brats on hamburger buns!

James brought his own BIGGER plastic mug from home.

 

It was an unseasonably warm Oktoberfest this year. We probably would have stayed longer if it hadn't been so warm in the tents. I'm sure we'll go again next year if I'm already home from Egypt; those brats were super yummy and I'm not the kind of girl who turns down cold beer served in plastic.