12mi at 43#, 2:47, 11 JAN 08, Fort Campbell KY

iThink:
Hilary Duff, "Come Clean"
Aly & AJ, "Chemicals React"
Rob Zombie, "Feel So Numb"
The All-American Rejects, "Move Along"
The All-American Rejects, "It Ends Tonight"
"The All-American Soldier"
"Garryowen"


WX at 0800: 41.0 (5.0) 34.0 (1.1) 29.87 (1011) W 9
WX at 0700: 41.0 (5.0) 35.1 (1.7) 29.85 (1010) W 9
WX at 0600: 42.1 (5.6) 36.0 (2.2) 29.84 (1010) W 10
WX at 0500: 43.0 (6.1) 36.0 (2.2) 29.81 (1009) W 9

Odometer B1: 40mi

Z3.

I am now, after all this time, a graduate of the Basic Air Assault Course.

I was the second of 8 finishers today on the last major event of the Air Assault Course, the 12-mile road march. Road march uniform was body armor stripped with strike plates, a canteen, and an assault pack containing about 10 pounds of stuff.

I wasn't working all that particularly hard - but was running the vast majority of the course. My hip flexors, as a result, are well and verily trashed. Thankfully, much of the course was on pavement, so the likelihood of blisters and hot spots was reduced. I did, inadvertently, step through a puddle on the way in. Wet boots normally mean hamburger feet at the end of a long march. I was very lucky. Never a good indicator when I have occasion to mutter "shit!" when I walk through a puddle on what is, even on a good day, a pretty painful experience. It reminded me in a lot of ways of the Psycho WyCo 20-mile run I did last February. My feet are intact with no hot spots or blisters, although I'm walking around like I got beat up pretty good.

In the last mile, being the contrarian guy I am, I had the division song of the 82d Airborne Division (rather than the 101st) stuck in my head, along with the regimental song of the 7th Cavalry, a decidedly un-air assault unit. I am a very disobedient air assault trooper.

The roadmarching I've done over the last month was good for me. It is unlikely that I would have passed the road march had I decided to do it solely based on training base alone. This is one of those events where specificity is important. You don't get ready for a English test by studying history, although there are some commonalities. In the same way, you don't get ready for road marching by running without a load. I was exceedingly glad that I had trained with the heavy loads I did while I was at Fort Leavenworth; when I found out my working load was going to be about 40 pounds, I was damned glad I trained with a 60 pound working load in training. That helped me out - although I strated cramping up pretty bad near the end.

All thing said, it took a long time to actually earn Air Assault wings, a long, long while after the first time I was supposed to attend - back in 1991. What a long, strange trip it's been.

Splits
SEGMT AGGRGTE SEGMENT PERMI AVGPC DISTC
12.00 2:47:30 2:47:30 13:57 13:57 12.00