Fleet of feet...

...is NOT what I am...

Yesterday morning, JTFB celebrated the Air Force's 62nd birthday in true military fashion...by running a 3.5 mile flight line run. We are in the mountains and the farthest I've ran since I got here is only 2 miles...so I wasn't sure how I would do. So, I set 2 goals for myself: 1) get a T-shirt (only the first 200 people to finish got one) and 2) don't get picked up by the ambulance. I was very proud of myself as I accomplished BOTH of these goals. I do want to improve my run time, but I never stopped running, despite the leaking camel-back canteen I was wearing that wouldn't allow me to drink from it, so I just carried an extra 4-lb load on my back and still cramped up half-way through the run...so much for military-issue gear...:/

Remember what I said in the last post about my gazelle-like LT posse? Well as I was standing at the finish line after the race, waiting for the non-t-shirt-recipients to cross the finish line, I saw Jen and Marydell standing near the water buffalo (big orange water cooler). So I sarcastically asked Jen, "Did you finish in under 10 minutes?" "NO..."she said and just smiled. As if on cue, the MC got on the bull horn to announce the top finishers. "COMING IN FIRST FOR THE FEMALES, LT JEN RICHARD!!"...wow...she is THAT fast...then"COMING IN THIRD, LT MARYDELL WESTMANN!!" ...hmmm...I am now convinced that I need to find another herd of slower-moving-than-me gazelles to run with so that I won't be the one picked off by the lion...that or keep to the trees with the rest of the monkeys...

ANYWAY...my promotion party was OUTSTANDING! Everyone that I wanted to show up managed to make it out...and THEN some! I bought just enough food...and it all went...and had just enough left over to keep the bar tab running for about 2.5 hours...and I still came in under budget! It was the most fun I've had since I got here! I thought maybe 50 people would come, but closer to 100 showed up and my troops did all the set-up, clean-up, bartending and cooking without me even asking...there are a lot of great people here.

I have to give my boss a little credit too. Apparently using a sharpie to color in the butter bars is called a "Field Promotion" in the Army. So I guess it wasn't that bad. It actually looked pretty convincing! I'll post some pictures as soon as I can download them from my camera.

I'm now officially an Lt of a different color!

...Jane...out...