It’s midnight, it’s raining and I’m running. I’m less than a mile from the house I just left when the downpour commences. I could turn around but I don’t. The hard rain starts to pelt me as it drives into my face and my renders my glasses useless. I start to shiver.

A cold stream of water is gushing down the crack of my ass as if to drive me forward. Against the torrent I am forced to negotiate the double yellow lines in the middle of the road. Water puddles quickly out here because the road bakes itself shut in the intense heat. People have drowned in under ten minutes in a desert flash flood.

I am just about blind at this point as nature has its way with me but I am a happy, soggy Olympian in my duress as I remember the training I received during my military years. Little did I know back then how those Spartan torture sessions would benefit me today as an elder athlete.

Those years hardened me. They made a man out of me and taught me the value of mental toughness and physical conditioning. What I thought was a curse fifty years ago now allows me to do hard work without fatigue and avoid succumbing to preventable disease and illness.

We suffered mightily in those days as we prepared for war. They marched us, they ran us, they crawled us, they tormented us. Some of us considered going A.W.O. Loose. But they knew what they were doing. If we got killed in combat they damn sure weren’t gonna have us on their conscience.

We suffered but they suffered right along with us. I have to believe I would be nowhere near the physical shape I’m in today if it wasn’t for that experience.

I have had many water shed moments in my life but the best gift I ever received just happened to be wrapped in olive drab.  🙂