The Military and me.

As I stated in my first post I had aspirations of joining the military. I did all of the motions and went through all of the processing to join. Some are probably wondering how this could have  any effect on shaping my path as a runner.  Well, as you may know the military has this process called basic training, and during this training you are required to exercise as well as learn how to become a soldier. At some point in the process you are required to pass three physical fitness tests.  The three are predetermined by your age and include a specific amount and allotted time.  You must be able to pass tests in sit ups, push ups, and running before you can graduate and move on to your schooling. I understood that I needed to do this and seeing how the military was my main motivation for losing weight and becoming physically fit it stands to reason that this would shape my training.  As I mentioned previously, I thought that I would be required to run one mile in 13:00 minutes so or less so I started out with that as may goal to achieve. With my three to five days of running I steadily worked toward the goal and achieved my goal sometime late June or mid July. By this time I had lost a considerable amount of weight and felt I was where I needed to be to complete my application process and enter into service. As I was meeting with the recruiter I was expounding my accomplishments and and that I felt I was ready. The recruiter then informed me that I needed to lose more weight and had to run two miles in around 17:00 minutes. Needless to say I was crushed, and slightly depressed. All of the work that I had done wasn't enough, and my best wasn't near enough. At this time I was doing a little bit over two miles per workout but it was split between walking and running with varying percentages of run. Even though I very seldom ran less than 50% of my morning outing I needed to do better. So I now had a new goal to achieve. After much training and bumping my running days up to a full on six days a week this goal was met and exceeded. By now I have been running through the summer and into the fall during all types of weather letting nothing stand in my way all the while going through the steps to gain entrance to the military. At some point during this process I came to the realization that there was a very real chance that I wasn't going to be able to join or that something would prevent me from joining.  My fears were starting to surface, what was I going to do I was going to fail. Would I become lazy and gain all of the weight back I had to do something. Well the answer came from a U.S. Army tweet. It was mid November and the weather was becoming cold, and I was starting to ponder what to for my exercise during the winter and how cold was too cold to run in. The answer was in that tweet about running in the winter, it was an article written by and ultrarunner and I had my answer. I wanted to become and ultrarunner!  To put this chapter to bed I eventually went to MEPS and made it through the exams all I had to do was sign the papers. I chose not to sign, and I am glad to have a new path in my life. Had it not been for the hurry up and wait philosophy I may not be on the path to my first marathon and ultra later this year.