Greetings once again from beautiful Hawaii! It was a great Hawaii day - beautiful blue skies, puffy white clouds, lots of golden sunshine, and multiple exercise sessions today!
First, let's talk about running (and other related triathlon-type endurance sports). This morning I did probably the best run (and certainly one of the longest) I have done since last August when I quit running because of my balky left Achilles. It was just over 4 miles, with several light to moderate hills built in and several "fartlek" - type speed intervals as well! And no protests from the Achilles, then or now! We'll see how it feels tomorrow, though... I also managed to hit the gym at lunchtime and followed it with a 1000 yd swim. Add that on top of the 1-hour bike ride I did yesterday morning, and I am on a roll! It feels really good to be back in business, although it is hard not to try to compare the types of paces I am able to hold now (fairly slow) to what I once did, before the deployment and injury. It has been a tough year and a half! But I think I am finally moving past this difficult period in my overall record of athletic endeavours. This training I am doing is going towards an upcoming race! Yes! It is time to get back out and start doing a few events, in the hopes that the small ones will put me on a roll towards bigger events in the not-too-distant future. My first race since 2006 is coming up this weekend! Saturday AM there is a 5k race right here on the base that I will run. I expect to run very slow in comparison to my former 5k personal records (PRs), but that's OK, for now. I am just trying to get back out there and see how it feels to run a race. If the 5k goes well, I will follow it up in a few weeks with a sprint triathlon in the small town outside the gate to the base. There are plenty of other events scheduled 'round the island (road races, bike rides, bike races, open water swims, triathlons, etc.) that I can add to the schedule with ease should these couple of initial events go well (and I have every reason to believe that they will). My ultimate near- and mid-term goal is to regain some semblance of consistency in my training that will allow me to run a Half Ironman race around midyear and maybe a marathon later in the fall. (See one of my previous posts for a few hints / details about what /where these races may be.) I think it is definitely possible. If you want to check out the race results after Saturday, look here. (You will probably have to scroll down quite a ways - I told you, I am slow now!)
Yesterday was Easter. We observed the occasion by attending religious services at our local house of worship. Silly us, we forgot to take the camera, and the service was followed by an Easter egg hunt for the youngsters on the green outside the worship hall. John had a hey-day scooping up eggs and filled his basket in no time flat. He had a great time. No photos exist of this joyous time (Sorry, we don't normally take the camera to church! By the time we thought of it, we were halfway there.), BUT... we have created a work-around. In recognizing that this event, John's first Easter egg hunt, should be immortalized on film, we re-created the event with the eggs he seized at the church by hiding them in the back yard of our house. So, the photos you will see posted here are not quite the originals, i.e. they are not of John's "official" first Easter egg hunt, but a close second. Regardless, I think you will agree that he is a cute little fellow!
Last weekend Barb and I went to Kauai. It was just the two of us; our friends here on base agreed to watch John for the weekend and let us go unrestrained by child in exchange for returning the favor with their young son at a future time (their son is John's favorite playmate). Kauai is quite striking in its beauty. We had only two days there, so we had to pick and choose what we wanted to do and see. I think we made some pretty good choices. We did some snorkeling the first day, then drove up to the North shore to see the big waves (much like Oahu's North shore, quite frankly, except the road up there on Kauai reminded me of the Road to Hana on Maui in that it is quite filled with tight turns, often is very narrow (in many places, it is actually only one lane wide!), and features one-way, one-lane bridges, a couple of which are wooden! The second day we drove from our hotel on the East coast of the island all the way out to the West side of the island to see the much-ballyhooed Waimea Canyon, the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific." True fact: I have not been to the Grand Canyon in the American Southwest (I know, I know, how sad! I plan to fix myself at my earliest opportunity.), so I can't compare the two except with what I have seen in photos. You decide: here are some of our photos of Waimea Canyon. We also went on a hike along a ridge overlooking the Na Pali coast. It was absolutely gorgeous up there! Check it out:
I hope we get a chance to return to Kauai! It was a great trip! Except for the busted-open head I got. (Don't ask how this happened; just know that it was due to clumsiness.)
This week is a big week for me, career-wise. It's Olmsted decision week! I think the big day is actually tomorrow, 25 March, if I remember correctly. The Board of Directors of the Olmsted Foundation meet this week at an undisclosed location to decide which of the services' candidates will be selected for the program. I haven't heard much from the Foundation since my interview with them on 21 Dec 2007, except for routine responses to a couple of information updates I sent to them with materials to include in my candidate record that will be briefed to the Board this week to allow them to make their decision. I was told that representatives from each of the services will be present at the Board's meeting and that that person will contact me either tomorrow or Wednesday with the word. Through official channels (remember the MARADMIN messages I mentioned way back when when I applied for the program?), word probably won't come until sometime in May, based on historical precedent. I expect to know by the end of the month, at the latest. I just want to get the decision over with, be it "up" or "down". If I'm in, wonderful, I really think the program is the best thing going! But if I'm not, I need to know as soon as I can - I need to get where I am moving to this year figured out! Not long after I find out, I will post the results here for all who are interested.
I don't know if I have talked about the professional military education (PME) seminar I am currently enrolled in this forum. It's called Expeditionary Warfare School Distance Education Program (EWSDEP). This is the prescribed PME requirement for company-level Marine officers. The seminar program is broken out into two academic years. I am currently in the first year, almost done with it, in fact. I started class last October and we will finish the first year next month.
I only mention all of that because once that is over, I want to take some summer grad school classes. Ideally, I could take a class from HPU in the Master of Arts in Diplomacy and Military Studies (MA/DMS) program that I started in back in 2006 before deploying to the Philippines, but my fear is that I am still going to be traveling too much because of work to make it worth even trying. For example, it currently looks like I will be in Thailand for most of May. I have heard that Dr. Allan Millett will be teaching at HPU in the MA/DMS program again this summer and I would love to take another class with him (although not the same one; unfortunately, I think he may only be teaching the same "20th Century Military History" course that I took from him in 2006 - topic was the Korean War). I plan to research this further in the next few days so I am informed in my decision-making. If HPU is a no-go, then I think it is time for me to start online grad school classes; I really think that the advantages offered by the asynchronous mode online courses are offered in lends itself towards my current time and availability limitations, but I do want to take a traditional, attend-in-person class if at all possible (I think I learn better that way). Anyhow, I am resolved to continue my graduate education this summer, even if it is a single course. I have a feeling a much more robust graduate school regimen is not too far in my future, be it with the Olmsted Scholar Program or simply grad school taken in conjunction with my next duty station...
Final topic for tonight is this: who has heard of Crossfit? I just learned of it this weekend. I feel somewhat in arrears; after all, it is a fitness training system, and me, the exercise science major, NSCA and ACSM certified fitness profession, I had never even heard of the program! (Thanks to Niall for telling me about it.) I checked out their website, and I need to do additional reading of their materials, but in reading their October 2002 edition of The Crossfit Journal (you can download it from their website), I find that I either agree with or do not disagree with most everything in it! They discuss their definition of fitness, the 10 factors that contribute to their concept of overall fitness, and the three metabolic pathways and how to condition each. Spot on! The NSCA recently started a Tactical Strength and Conditioning (TSAC) program that, from what I can tell, is aimed at the same clientele (military, fire, police, first responder personnel, etc) who need functional fitness, not pretty, showy bodybuilder muscles. I welcome this change in the fitness industry; too long has it been the other way.
All for tonight. Time for growth sleep!
(Below is a test - can you see The Crossfit Journal edition mentioned above?)
1 comment:
Yup, I see it. TCB, GED.
Cone
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