Sometimes I wonder

...if the Army is the right career for me.  Of all of my friends, I am most definitely the least "hooah" as we put it.  As in, I am the least gung ho about things such as going to Army schools.  Sure, I love a good challenge.  I mean... running is probably my favorite thing to do and people consistently tell me some variation of "you're nuts" when I tell them that running up a mountain or for hours on end is fun for me.  Hiking up a mountain in the snow is fun for me.  So it's not that I'm afraid of a challenge, it's more the environment surrounding the challenges.  The closer we get to graduation, the more everyone around us talks about being an officer.  The lives I may be responsible for - even in the field I'm going into, you just never know.  And then there's the fact that when I'm seriously lacking sleep I cease functioning properly.  I guess it is human nature to start acting and thinking differently when they are stressed and their entire lives are off-kilter, but I have been in situations much less stressful than deployments and have questioned my decision-making abilities when I'm under constant stress and a lack of sleep.  I remember the days of working 12 + hours a day without a day off for at least a month.  It became hard for me to function and keep my cool... and that was much less work than a deployment.  There was nobody shooting at me or mortars hitting the buildings around me.  Granted, I've matured quite a bit since I was 19 or 20 years old, but I still find myself losing my cool when I don't have my alone time every so often.  The summer was terrible after three weeks of little to no sleep followed by six more weeks of no real days off and little sleep.  This concerns me in my given field I'm about to go into. 

Plus, well... the constant competitiveness, the attitudes that you have to be tough all the time.  Of course, as you my reader may have noticed from my last entry, I tend to over-think, so sometimes I worry a little more than necessary.  Example being during our field training this past summer... I was so afraid I was going to fail because of the aforementioned aspects of my personality, and the fact that I am just not the best at tactical tasks... Well, I actually did pretty well (I think).  My graders told me I performed better under stress... Who knew?  And I guess the fact that I care about the people around me helps. 

Anyways, enough on that topic.  Onto one of my favorite topics:  RUNNING! :-)  I think my tendinitis is mostly gone!  I ran about 11 miles last night with pretty much no pain.  And my calves seem to have adjusted to this new method of running (I've recently adopted the Pose method).  The pose method uses your calves a LOT, you don't heel strike, and you also have a very quick turnover.  This is how I USED to run before people told me to lengthen my stride and run heel-to-toe (people used to comment that I ran up on my toes too much, but I never got injured).  It's different than most people have learned, but it's supposedly better for injuries AND it makes me run a whole lot faster :)  Either that or I've just gotten more fit... But my average pace for my runs have decreased from around a 9:35 minute average pace to a 9 minute per mile average pace.  That's with me slowing myself down... So, I think I'm finally about back to where I used to be before I ever got my knee injuries my freshman year.  3.5 years later... goodness. 

I'm in a thoughtful mood so I could blog for awhile, but for now I will work on my emotion detection training.  I suppose it fits with the mood I'm in.

~Nina