EMEDs Running Club

Anyone who reads this blog probably knows me well enough to be aware that I like to have something in my life (when I have the time) to physically challenge me - a goal to focus my efforts and pit my will against. When I first arrived in Kirkuk, my plan was to run a marathon during the hottest part of the summer - just to say that I did. After consultation with my local medical provider (my roommate Greg the general surgeon), I started my training with the plan to ensure that I drank plenty of water to replace the fluid lost during exercise.

Especially when the thermometer looked like this:
After a few days sweating in the heat (the hottest day I ran in was 117' F) and maintaining a sustained heart rate that was way too high for how slow I was running, I realized that I might have trouble packing enough water to replace my losses. There are various places where supplies of water are stashed along the run, but that water is pretty dang hot - making it less than refreshing despite the fact that it is wet. These issues, coupled with the fact that I was getting good outside advice (like "I'm not sure that you aren't too stubborn to stop even if you know you should"), motivated me to rethink my goals and plans.
I decided that I would plan to run a marathon on my birthday (09/09/09), after the temperature had cooled a bit from the summer highs and still on a notable date. Most folks don't run outside here on base, especially in the summer, thinking that the temperature and the dust are too much to make it enjoyable. We (Glen, Greg and I) started running at 5:15 AM and found that the coolness of the morning, combined with some really beautiful sunrises, made the trips very enjoyable.

Here is a picture of Greg and me doing a hill workout on one of the high points of the base.

Amber even sent us some cool head-bands (at my request) so that we could keep the sweat from running into our eyes while we ran.

Pretty soon word got out to the rest of the hospital personnel, and we started to have others join our morning forays. We have continued to swell in ranks and have formally become recognized as the EMEDS running club. Here is a picture of some of the club on a "hill day."

(from left to right: Me, Greg, Col White, Alex (FP doc), SMSgt Pehrson, A1C Sleeman, TSgt Minshew)

Shortly after this picture was taken on top of the "hill," we found out that we weren't supposed to be running there because all of the hills in our area are really acheological "tails" that are the remnants of some ancient dwelling. Apparently the human garbage/refuse, etc over the years made the ground around the ancient dwelling harder than the surrounding terrain, leaving a "hill" in places where the rest of the dirt blew away. Unfortunately, that meant that they shut down our running hill - leaving us without a location for our hill workouts.

On a more positive note - with the help of the running club and our Services section here on base we have managed to schedule the First Annual Kirkuk Regional Air Base Marathon and Half-Marathon on 07 NOV. That will give a lot more people time to prepare and I'll still run a solo 26.2 on my birthday :).