Four Miles

And the race begins, literally. Mike and I have decided that we are going to run the half-marathon in a couple months here. Every few months they host a marathon on post that coincides with the ones at home. The last marathon was the ING Miami and I think the next one might be the Boston. Anyways, we decided to run a pre-marathon 4 mile run to see where we stood. As one may see from the picture, Mike (on the right) looks as though he might need to start out slowly. In fact, we decided that we would have to "train" at a snails pace here for the next few weeks to break in our running legs. Although I would like to run the full marathon, my regular workout doesn't give me the time to train for running, so a half marathon (13.1 miles) will have to do.

I really enjoy my work here now. I spend nights in the ER with some friendly soldiers of the 466th ASMC from upstate New York. Ironically they are very similar to Minnesotans, I even daresay they share the "Minnesota friendly" attitude. Mike works nights in the Intensive Care Ward so we spend most of the night enjoying the quiet hospital.

A recommendation: "The War Tapes". This is a film that I saw when I was up in Balad. It is a film that was shot entirely by soldiers while they were on deployment. Since we shared the same mission as them, watching that film was like watching the memory of our convoy missions playing through my head. It is an honest film, untainted by the media or a Hollywood producer. Watch this if you want to see what my first nine months were like here, but beware, the film is real footage and, as such, has graphic scenes of the reality of war.

You can buy the film here: http://thewartapes.com . It won the Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival and was the winner of the Best International Documentary of the Britdoc Festival.

Pax,
Nick

N.B.- The "beer" in my hand is actually a "near beer", NA Pauli Girl. If only it was real. . .