A Little Blurry

There is so much to say about my experience at boot camp and there is a football game on that i would like to watch as well. Honestly, I don’t remember much about the beginning of boot camp. Receiving and forming week or whatever else those weeks are called are such a blur to me.

Here is what I recall:

The first two days I did not sleep. No one slept. I was up for two days straight. I remember being thirsty, scared, homesick, and just plain frightened. When we did get water, we also go box chow. Box chow is the worst food ever. In the box is a terrible meat sandwich, chips, cookies, raisins, an apple, granola bar, and powder Gatorade. The drill instructor was screaming at me to eat the meat sandwich so I did. What was I going to say? “Um, excuse me. I’m vegetarian.” That was the only time I ate meat though.

Those first few days of no sleep and barely any food, I lost three pounds. In total, I lost 13 pounds surprisingly.

During phase one of boot camp you do martial arts. For me, I despised martial arts. It was repetive. In addition, I swear everything at boot camp had the fun sucked out of it. Martial arts could have been a blast, but it wasn’t. There was swim qualifications were during phase one too. I thought we would learn to swim so I was excited. However, the qualification for swimming was for you to know how to stay afloat. I passed the first day.

I can’t recall any more from phase one. There was initial PFT testing. That involves flexed arm hang, crunches, and a 1.5 mile run. I did 70 seconds for the flex arm hang, 144 crunches, and I came in first in the run. In all the runs, I came in first. The runs only went up to 3 miles though. For the final PFT test, I ran three miles in 18:04. That combined with my flex arm hang of 1:29 and my crunches, which were 149. My score of the PFT combined with my CFT score. With that, I won Ironwoman. I was the most physically fit of my company. Do you know how much that means to me? That’s like the only thing I remember of boot camp.

Phase 2? Well, we were at the rifle range. I remember that because I loved shooting. I got sharpshooter.

As for phase three, still a blur. I only remember Liberty Sunday, Family Day, and leaving the damn island. The Crucible went by rapidly that I don’t remember all the details.

I don’t know what was in the water, but it made my memory disappear. All I can is that I am so happy to be home although I leave February 13th for MCT school for 29 days. Booooo. I am not looking forward to it at all.

To conclude what I have to say, Marine boot camp is 90% mental and drill. It’s not physical whatsoever. I was challenged. I am a new person now. I would take a bullet for any girl in my platoon. I would fight for any American’s freedom. I still have barely any confidence, but I am a new person. I feel different. The experience was worth it.

As for now, I just want to get back to normal blogging where I talk about running constantly. I want to comment and read your blogs again, but I can’t seem to find the time.

Anyway, when I arrived home Saturday, I ran 16 miles. My pace was awful so I am not even going to say it. What can I expect? I haven’t ran that far in three months. In the end of my run, my calves were killing. However, the run itself was great. I did not turn on music for the first hour. Amazing run.

Today I returned to the gym.

I was expecting people to be like, “Hey, Christy. Where have you been for three months?” Instead, they were like, “Hey.” I get to go to my gym for free though. That’s rather awesome. My spin class was killer. My body is sore. See, I was not physical challenged at boot camp. Now I feel so behind. I know MCT school will kick my ass though.

My shirt kicks ass though.

Well, I apologize for how choppy this post is. I just wanted to get something on here. I’ll answer any questions you guys have about boot camp. Just let me know.

The questions I received so far are:

- Was the food good? Well, as a vegetarian, I did not eat much. Breakfast I would eat fruit, eggs, and cottage cheese. Lunch was spinach and veggies. Dinner was more spinach, veggies, and maybe rice. I got lucky if there was fish, egg salad, or tuna. Otherwise, I did not eat much. Eating now at home is making my stomach weary. I feel sick, but extremely hungry. I think I was in starvation mode because I cannot stop eating. I still weigh 111 though. I really suffered mentally with eating. I feel like my eating disorder re-kicked in and now it’s on my mind 24/7.

- Were there scheduled eating times or snacks allowed? We had scheduled time for chow. Breakfast was around 4:30 am, lunch was around 11:30, and dinner was at five. There were no snacks except for at The Crucible, since that is 54 hours long with hiking. We received MRE’s there (meals ready to eat). Those were good and we could snack on them throughout the day when there was time.

- How much running was there or any form of cardio? Not much. We did not run much at all.

- Best and worst memory? Like I said, my memory is awful. My worst memory is something I don’t even want to mention on here. My best is graduating.

- Daily routine? Chow, drill, classes maybe, PT maybe, chow, more drill, more classes maybe, chow, free time, letters, bed. My day started at 4:00 and ended at 8:00.

- Friendships? I made so many friends. Most of the girls I got along with where in their 20′s. Throughout my whole life I always got along with people who were older than me. Anyway, there was 54 girls in my platoon. Some girls I could not stand, but I would take a bullet for them.

I’ll end this post with recent eats and other eats from, like, November. Enjoy.

Jalapeno poppers
Mushroom pot pie
Flatbread w/ salad
Tofu sandwich w/ salad

That’s all, folks!  

Vegetarianism

Happy Mother’s Day to those of you who are moms, which is no one that reads my blog so whatever!

I’m glad you guys all love my puppy. If you don’t love puppies in general, there is something wrong with you. Kittens are just as cute too.

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I wanted to post about vegetarianism . I am not doing this to persuade anyone to become a vegetarian because I am simply going to lay down some facts that shocked me when I read the information. I understand becoming a vegetarian is not for everyone. You want a steak have it, but I think you should think twice about it.

Technically, I am a Pescetarian. I eat fish as well as dairy products even though I would like to give up milk completely. During the summer of 2010, I gave up most meat except for chicken just because I loved chicken a lot.

I first started dabbling in the world of vegetarianism  in the eighth grade when I gave up meat for Lent. It was tough for me actually. I was the biggest steak eater ever.

If you gave me a steak, I would eat it all including the fat. I loved bacon and beef. As I type this, I feel disgusted in myself that I ate the fat off bacon all the time. It was gross, but at the time, I thought nothing of it. I thought it was all right to order a ‘hamburger’ from fast food joints when I’m sure their meat was only 50% meat. Anyway, after Lent, I ate meat again. However, I stopped eating steak at the end of my eight-grade year when I went to a fancy restaurant. My godmother convinced me to order their largest steak and they laid it down on my table. It was so thick and the blood dripped when I stabbed my fork into it. I was disgusted so I stopped eating steak.

I continued to eat meat until last summer. It was mostly because I wanted to be healthier yet it also had to do with my eating disorder. I’m pleased to say, though, that now I don’t eat meat because I love animals dearly and I have found vast amount of information in the dangers of eating meat. These dangers affect us individually and our environment.

More and more Americans are eating meat unfortunately. There is a rise in eating everyday at fast food places where people think nothing of that ‘all white meat chicken ‘ they are eating. According to the Environmental Magazine, “Strong growth in meat production and consumption continues despite mounting evidence that meat-based diets are unhealthy, and that just about every aspect of meat production… is an environmental disaster with wide and sometimes catastrophic consequences.” In addition, “More than a third of all raw materials and fossil fuels consumed in the U.S. are used in animal production. Beef production alone uses more water than is consumed in growing the nation’s entire fruit and vegetable crop.”

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have my diet be based with veggies, fruit, grains, and fish than beef.

Just think about the animals, too. Many of the animals are in high stressed environments and end up dying from stress. Cows, pigs, and chicken barely have any space either. Cows may have a bit more room, but pigs have about 14 square feet of space.

Do I wish more people were vegetarians? Of course I do. If you follow vegetarianism  correctly, you can have a healthy diet. Regrettably, most people who stop eating meat start replacing meat with starches. That’s how I was in eighth grade. Oh, no meat? I’ll just have chips.

Many think that if you’re a vegetarian, you do not get enough protein.

That is not true. I eat Greek yogurt, eggs, quinoa, lentils, cottage cheese, spinach, etc. I get more protein than probably most meat eaters do.

If you eat meat currently, I encourage you to try to eliminate the amount of meat you eat. Possibly have a meatless Monday. If you want more information on the case against meat, visit http://www.emagazine.com/archive/142

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My weekend was uneventful. I spent most of it at the gym, the grocery store, and the bookstore. I spent over an hour in the bookstore because, hey, I’m a geek.

My workouts included…
Saturday: Hour spin class + 37 minutes or so on the elliptical
Sunday: 40 minutes of weights + hour spin class + 21 minutes on the elliptical

I wanted to do a long run today, but I decided since I did something to my knee on Friday I should hold off. It felt fine today, but I just wanted to play it safe.

I did create a training program for my trail race, yet I am not following it. I just run. I’ll be adding hills and what not, but I’m not going to get all obsessed with a training program because for me, that takes the fun out of running. I also find training programs to be ludicrous. I just want to do what I want to do. I plan on increasing my running mileage this week! Woooo.

Honorable eats: 

Do you eat meat?

Brag about your weekend. Make me jealous. What did you do?

Do you follow a training program or do you just run how much you want?