Winters are crazy

I've never enjoyed winter. It seems that everything I enjoy is put on hold in the winter with the exception of skiing. I live for the sun, I live for riding my bike on warm days, running in the heat, swimming on my back looking at the blue sky. That doesn't happen in the winter. The tougher part of that is in order to be fit enough to enjoy the summer, one has to slog away on the treadmills, rowing machines and bike trainer day in day out. While it helps me catch up on my netflix movie list, I still find it really challenging.

I came up with an idea yesterday and am curious to see how it unfolds. One of my classmates here at NWC died suddenly soon after school started. He was a Navy Captain in the Senegalese Navy. We as students have raised a little money for his family back home, but haven't really met our standard as a class of senior military professionals. I've been scratching my grape over this one. I think one of the reasons most have been silent on this one, is his situation scares the living bejesus out of us! We could be him. He was 52 years old just running on the treadmill in the afternoon after school and dropped dead. Dude, that is 8 years from now for me. It really brings it home for me how short this journey really is...or can be. What it does for me is ramp up my motivation to get the things done in my life that I deem important and make sure other things are squared away so that when my number pops, I've done it and no one gets left handling my details- they've already been taken care of.

So I decided yesterday that I will dedicate my Boston Marathon to Captain Matar. I'm going to challenge my 200 some odd classmates to back me with a buck a mile, 10 dollar bonus if I break 3:20, 15 dollar bonus if I break 3:10, double their contribution if I break 3:00. My hope is that it will shine the light back on Matar and possibly rally the troops as we start to wane half way through the school year with the weight of the course load and upcoming due papers.

Its just a thought.

Jonser

Welcome to my blog

Welcome to my blog. It is my intent to share in this blog the thoughts that come rumbling through my grape on training, coaching, physiology, life and anything else that just comes from within. Enjoy!

One of the biggest weeks of my life...comin' up!

Next Saturday I get the awesome opportunity of taking command of my navy squadron. As I sit here looking at my current life through a set of very jetlagged eyes (I just returned from Hong Kong today) I see so much that I hope to do in the next 15 months, but at the same time, know that I'm going to be challenged in ways I cannot yet fathom. I do know this- I'm going to give this gig every ounce of my soul. I think there have been times over the last three years where I've kept my emotions in check with regard to the upcoming Commanding Officer role because I felt the navy reserves might make that job go away through realignment or decommissioning and I didn't want to go down that emotional gopher hole of a loss from something that may have never been mine in the first place. Kind of an abstract statement, but one I stand by. I hope to use this blog as a bit of a truth serum to give my inner voice a chance to speak through journaling. I've done this for years with a pen and paper, but a blog is a more user friendly forum for me. Nobody is more curious than me how this will go.