1, 2, 3, 4, United States Marine Corps!

Let's do a little update on me for a second. A couple weeks ago I ran an IST for the sake of finishing my pre-ship paperwork and making sure I could pass this time, and I did! My run stayed about the same, my flexed-arm hang went up a couple seconds, and I finally got a qualifying score on my crunches. Here are my stats:

1.5-mile run: 13:15

Flexed-Arm Hang: 00:35
Crunches: 47

Not too bad, I guess. Also, last week we finally ran the 3-mile; I've never ran that distance in my life, and I finished in about 29:00, which is enough to pass the female PFT (Physical Fitness Test). I was intimidated by the longer runs for a while, but doing that 3-mile really helped break a huge mental obstacle I was trying to deal with. I was so fearful and even began to doubt myself as to whether I could make it through boot camp, and instead of going out every day and doing something about it, I just moped. It was great to finally get out of that funk, but the next day when I went into the office to finish my final pre-ship paper work and weigh-in, Sgt. Brooks had me run a mile and half. Somehow I managed to go over the time limit and run a damn 15:30... Granted, I was wearing street shoes, had barely hydrated that morning (trying to keep my weight down), and I definitely was not wearing a sports bra.

However, today, I managed to redeem myself as far as the mile and a half is concerned: I ran it in 12:12. Too bad we kept running after that and I could barely keep up, if at all. Mile and a half run, indian runs, sprints, walking lunges, formation/cadence jog, then pull-up/flexed-arm hang pyramids with push-ups in between, then max crunches and planks after that. For some reason I only popped out 36 crunches this time, but I figure I can blame it on my sheer exhaustion - NO EXCUSES next time.

1.5-mile run: 12:12

Flexed-Arm Hang: 00:40

Crunches: 35

Tomorrow morning I'm supposed to go workout with the recruiters on Elmendorf AFB at 7:00AM, and I'll probably make it more of a routine, to make sure that I'm prepared.

Oh yeah; around the same time as my last IST, two weeks ago, I had also been helping out at the State Fair, trying to get referrals. So far, none have really turned up as good leads, but my best buddy from high school is actually going to MEPS on Monday to take the ASVAB, so hopefully that will be my second referral (if you get two people to enlist in the Marine Corps, it ensures that you'll be a Private First Class (E-2), a higher paygrade, out of boot camp as opposed to just a Private (E-1)). We'll see how that all works out.