Marshall Ramsey

Yesterday, I watched the first episode of Band of Brothers. It’s the one where Easy Company forms and trains at Camp Toccoa in the North Georgia Mountains. They are pushed hard by the ruthless Capt. Sobel and forced to run up Currahee Mountain (which means we stand alone.).  Three up and three down.  It’s a 900 ft. gain in elevation from the surrounding countryside and the last mile is nearly straight up. It’s a brutal run.  But Easy Company makes it. They push together as a team.  (Even after eating an ill-timed spaghetti dinner.)

Watch the two-minute scene here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgTFNUUl9mg

Today my line started with the Gauntlet and the mini gauntlet. We ran the home and visitor stands twice. We then went into the weight room. From there, we ran 10 combo gasser/40-yard dashes with Wayne (which was surprisingly tough).  Wayne did a good job pushing us to run faster — even through we were pretty tired. And then we went to Paul.

Paul painted a scenario where we had to have the strength to carry a loved one out of a disaster. He then gave up a 25 lb. weight and we ran a 50-yard box for the whole session. It was tough — mentally as much as it was physically, especially just coming out of Wayne’s drills.

I kept thinking about Easy Company. About how they ran three up and three down.  How they went on to D-day and then to Germany.

It made carrying a 25 lb. weight much easier.

All on a Mental Monday.

P.S. You can run Currahee Mountain now as a 10K run to help fun efforts to preserve the history of Camp Toccoa.  It’s on June 2 (we just missed it) but I’m sure they’ll have the race next year.

PLS training (which I am in the middle of) lasts 12 weeks. It’s four days a week of intense training for one hour. We workout at 5 a.m. starting on Monday and go through Thursday.  And then we have three days off.  I normally run two of the days and throw a rest day in there for the third. My body is old and needs at least one day of rest. I’ll run a shorter run on Friday and then a long run on either Saturday or Sunday.  Today I ran 4.5 miles — but I did something a little different.  I drove and met some of my PLS friends and we ran on Highland Colony Parkway together.

Of course, if I am just running from home, I can sleep later. There is no drive at all — it’s just run and then run back home.  But even though I still had to get up at 4:09, I enjoyed today immensely. I enjoyed seeing my linemates (Line 4 was well represented).  I enjoyed having someone to talk to while I was running. And I enjoyed the competition to push me a little harder than I would normally run.  I ran 4.5 miles in a little less than 45 minutes. That’s not a bad time for a training run.

One of the amazing things about the training program I am in is that no matter how good of shape I think I’m in, they find a way to push me to my limit and make me sore the next day.  My legs are VERY tired from this weeks intense legapalooza.

We’ll see if I can wake up early enough to get in a good long run tomorrow.  I want to beat the heat and humidity.