Wake up call

Some people are morning people, Some are night folks. I am a mid-morning after 10AM but before 3PM person ;) Generally, I hate getting up early for anything. I hate getting up early period. Early is anything before lets say 8AM. Ok realistically before 7AM.

That’s why its meaningful when I am able to finally get up early to do a workout. For me when I am able to do that, it’s a signal that mentally I am ready for real training. This morning I got up at 5AM and went for a 6 mile run with Simba, my dog.

For me early morning workouts have always been symbolic of very serious training. The only other time in my life that I actually trained in the early morning was during ARMY training. Some of the best memories I have come from those days. One moment in particular really stands out, frozen in time. I was in airborne school at Ft Benning, Ga ( the REAL airborne school..HUAAA!). We would get up to do the early morning PT, but that day we were doing a Battalion level PT exercise. The Battalion had about 500 soldiers.

We were marching the battalion to the PT location and as we marched of course we sang cadence. In this case it was a song that called "Blood on the Risers". The Army never marches without a song. Anyhow here we were 500 strong and singing in complete harmony, its 5-6AM at this point, the sun is just starting to come up and we march through the “Canyon” which was a road with relatively tall buildings on either side. I remember the echo as we marched through, the rhythm of 500 sets of feet stepping at the exact same time, all of the heads of the people ahead of me moving left to right in sync. Then this Booming echo of our singing as we went through. It was awesome. Never in my life did I ever feel like part of something so big. AT that moment I felt invincible. I was 20, on my way to becoming a paratrooper, part of a long history of kick-ass soldiers, and I was surrounded by 500 of the best. As long as I live I will never forget that moment.

The ARMY had a lot of similar times, early in the morning, a lot.. not so nice like when I was "gigged" for having saw dust on my ear. Anyhow, I digress, I think because of this I think getting up early means business for me. Today I got up early and ran because I decided it was time to get real with my training, its an Ironman I am training for after all!

Until next time...

AIRBORNE!!!!!

Army Cadence Juke Box