The Rain and The Day From Hell

I once lived in Georgia where it rained all the time. Apparently, mostly everywhere outside of California it rains in the summertime and all vegetation dies in the wintertime. When it rains in California I sometimes get irritated because people forget how to drive, I’m stuck in traffic and everything is wet. But then I remember how I loved the rain in Georgia. In the beginning it was irritating, but then I would walk in the rain everywhere I went. When it rained it was relief from the 110 degree weather and 100% humidity. I hated physical training when the actual temperature was 120 degrees (it was actually 100 degrees but with the humidity factor it was 120 degrees). When it rained the temperature would drop like 30 degrees and I could run in the rain forever, even though I was so wet I weighed 10 pounds more. I just didn’t want the rain to stop because if you’ve ever been in the South after it has rained you know what I’m talking about.

The Day from Hell was the first day I had physical training. I don’t know if it was because it was my first physical training day or it was just really the day from hell. Our instructor was like the bad cop in The Terminator 2. He just wouldn’t stop. Two minutes after we started doing calisthenics there was a lot of thunder and it started raining, but no lighting. If there was lighting we would have stopped, but no we went on for about 1 ½ hour of CRAZY calisthenics. If you slowed down our instructor stared at us with piercing eyes and somehow found the strength to continue.

At one point I had dirt on my face, in my teeth, and my arms were collapsing and thought to myself, “What am I doing?!” Then I thought to myself, “Thank God it is raining or else I probably would have fainted.” I’m not physically strong but I pushed myself to do it but there were some guys around me that were in so much pain, it was kind of sad. Later we stretch for about ½ hour and it hurt. Let’s say the only thing that didn’t hurt later that night was my hair. I woke up in the middle of the night to roll over in my bed and I had a wave of pain went through my body.

A few months later our instructor actually apologized because he even thought that day was really harsh.