Marathon FB practice this afternoon.  The temps are rising here in the desert and so my skin is a little pink.  Better than that pasty white of the past few months.

Overslept this morning so I didn't make it to the gym.  I needed the Z's.

5k in the morning.  I'm not expecting a great performance but I am looking forward to another T-shirt for my pending quilt. :)

Sooooo tired...

Haven't been getting much sleep lately; late night issues are arising and keeping me from getting to bed at a decent time.  I overslept this morning and MAJ M had to come knock on my door.  Oops.

Being sleepy does not make me want to jump into a chilly pool at 0545, either.  Still, I was a diligent little Hawkeye and did what I was supposed to.

Still fighting a lot of fatigue and soreness from the events of this week.  My biathlon soreness carried over to my 2-mile yesterday which will carry over to the other 5k scheduled for Saturday.  (Saturday morning's meeting was canceled to encourage participation. WOO HOO!)  I'll treat Saturday's run as a scheduled tempo workout so my time will probably be a little off. (i.e. I'm trying not to eat the paste.)

LSD scheduled for lunch...

Diagnostic APFT for my Chaplain Assistant.  In October, he did the minimum in sit-ups.  He's been working "on his own" with some other NCO's and I wanted to check his progress with enough time to make necessary adjustments.  His push ups and sit ups improved but his run fell off dramatically.  In fact, he would have failed the run had this been for record.  Lucky for him his chaplain is a decent running coach.  I'll have him straightened out in about a month.

Me?  55 push ups (same as OCT), 65 sit ups (+12 reps/ +14 pts.), and 14:08 two mile (-0:08/ -2 pts.).  This all combined for a 258 aggregate, which is a 12 point improvement.  All without hardly any attention given to APFT improvement.  Everything I've been doing so far has been to improve SBR.  Over the next 30-60 days, I'll add some things to improve APFT, to include some speedwork.  My run is off because I'm focusing on LSD and not any speed work.  I have no doubt that I can shave 30-45 sec. with some speed and tempo work over the next month.

I'm still trying to get into my early morning swims.  I stood at the edge of the pool for about 3 minutes this morning.  The water wasn't freezing.  It was just cold enough to be comfortable once I got moving but that's cold for a first jolt in the morning.  So I stood there for a few minutes and had an internal debate with myself.  "I hate being wet first thing in the morning." "Yeah, but you need to swim." "I could come back later." "You have things to do later.  Look, you're already late, get your butt in the water."  "Crap.  I hate being wet in the morning." *sploosh*

Now, once the debate was over, I got after it and felt really good.  I noticed that when I get fatigued, I don't reach as much as I should and I try to stroke faster.  This morning I really focused on long, full pulls for propulsion.  Felt really good, really smooth, really fast.  Got to remember this little lesson.

Speed work this afternoon.  Forgot a couple of things: Football practice at 1630 this afternoon AND diagnostic PT test tomorrow morning.  My training schedule will be a bit off for the week but it'll get righted next week.

On a positive, pro-active note: I got my training schedule inputed and posted.  I'm really glad I did because it allows me to track how I'm doing on my goals.  Current plan is a mix of speed and long runs as I continue to up my distance AND add a bit of speed for an upcoming PT test.

Regular weight workout.  Some of the weights are lighter because I'm pretty sore/ fatigued from yesterday.  My back is especially tight from the sprint to the finish. (See RR for the whole story.)

Ahh...the rigors of deployed life.  I'm in the DFAC this morning for my cheese omlette and toast and the guy ahead of me orders his omlette with everything BUT jalapenos.  The guy on the other side of the plexiglass starts to put things on the omlette and puts on some green, pepper-like vegetable.  It was diced, so I couldn't be sure as to what type of pepper it was.  This guy was SURE it was jalapenos and he goes nuts. "No jalapenos!  no....forget it!" and he huffs away in a snit.  He then continues to mutter under his breath about the people who work in the DFAC and how they can't even get an omlette order right.   Me?  I'm thinking to myself, "I'm in a war zone and I'm able to get a fresh omlette every morning."  I'm trying to figure out at what point a screwed up omlette becomes something to get upset about.  There are so many other things that could ruin my day.  A failed egg dish is not one of them.  The joy of perspective.