ABOT Triathalon

(yes, you read that right)

This morning was the first ever ABOT Triathalon. Somehow, I always find myself at a command where the CO is a huge workout guy. Our Commodore LOVES to run so with the help of our resident feel-good-about-life Chaps, the first ever Triathalon was organized.


The triathalon consisted of Event 1: 50 push-up, 100 sit-up, 20 pull-ups. Then you jogged about ¼ mile and up 3 flights of stairs to the top of P5 (where we work) for a 15 minute bike ride. Event 3 was a 3 laps around the platform from P5 to P1 and back- THREE TIMES; each lap was about 1.3 miles

I had NO intention of doing all of this as I am ridiculously out of shape. Also, Friday morning is our day of rest since it’s like the holy day over here in the Middle East. It doesn’t really mean much, not like on a ship when you have NO meetings or drills (we only have 2 meetings a day anyways and the drills are all for the Iraqi guys; although on Friday’s they don’t do drills either). Basically, instead of having to get up for muster and morning meeting, you can sleep in. For some reason I felt really antsy and couldn’t sleep very well, even though I’d only gotten like 6 hours so around 8:30 I made my way down to the start of the triathalon (it started at 7:30). My intentions were to run just the 4 mile part so first I sprinted to P5 to start the run. Then the CDR of the SeaBees, (the mayor) was like “oh come on, you gotta do it- just for fun, no competition). So then we sprinted BACK to P4 to sign-up and give me a number. I squeaked through 50 push-ups and 50 sit-ups and ZERO pull-ups, giving me a 15 second penalty for every sit-up I didn’t do up to 100 and a one minute penalty for every pull-up I didn’t do up to 20. Then, I sprinted back to P5 for the bike-ride (survived that one, no problemo). Then I embarked on the run and made it all of 2 miles before I absolutely had to give up. However, in my defense, this was for a few good reasons:

1) I did not eat breakfast so I was getting SUPER hungry (I eat dinner at 6:30 and don’t eat after that before bed
2) It was about 90 degrees at 9am and I was not looking for any sort of heat casualty because:
3) When our DOC was running, her keys fell off her belt into the clear blue waters below. This meant that her office and all of the locked cabinets/drawers of medication, supplies and records were also locked with no way to get open expeditiously. I thought that it would be a bad time for a heat stress casualty. (Note- when I finally finished, aka- gave up, I saw the Sea Bee’s drilling into her office, so I’m sure they were all really excited about this additional task)
4) I am out of shape

However, I had a lot of fun, me & DOC were the only girls to run, however given all of my penalties from the sit-ups and push-ups and the fact that I still haven’t technically finished the run, I think I win the award in the “takes the longest to finish the triathalon” category. Oh well, I have a few months to finish before they were going to let me go anyways ☺

We invited people from the ships that are operating out here to participate. My friend Heather, from the JPJ jumped at the chance to hang out and rode over on her RHIB. Here is me and Heather after I "finished" the triathalon:












Unfortunately, I spent most of the time that she was here huffing and puffing and trying not to pass out (she did not compete, just wanted to get off the ship, totally understandable). However, she did bring over a bag of snacks: granola bars, chewing gum, burt's bee's chap stick and CHOCOLATE; like 10 pieces of dove dark chocolate. This was awesome because chocolate is sort of a hot commodity out here, you can't really have it shipped because it will melt while it waits in Kuwait to be delivered. So I was REALLY excited to get dove dark chocolate. I celebrated the triathalon by having a piece of chocolate for breakfast and inside I thought the Dove message was quite touching so I took a picture:

In case you can't read it, it says "life is precious and an opportunity for you to make every moment count." I thought that was a nice idea :) Alright, well, off to watch. Since I'm done all of my work-outs/work for today, I will just relax after watch. I might even have a Double XL! Hopefully I will get to talk to Dan who is now in east coast time zone for Homecomings and then maybe blog about food or something. Except, I don't have pictures of the awesome food so maybe tomorrow. Alright, well, have a great weekend everyone! Thank you all so much for your emails and comments and whatnot, the blog is a great way for me to feel like you are hopefully connecting with me but I love hearing from everyone; it is the best part of my day, reading emails from everyone :) Miss you!