I've started to feel like Dr. House, I've been popping my pain killers like Tic, Tacs. This is Grad Day and I'm really trying to get better so I can work out today. It would be really sad to not be able to do anything on our last day, this day will require our best performance from us all, I physically and mentally… My back was still hurting quite a bit from my accident at Erin’s, I was feeling pain when I was trying to stand-up or even trying to sit down, but I really wanted to go to SOF, I guess that I’ve really learned to feel the love for this workout, I think this is the only time I’ve been looking forward to actually work out, I really don’t want to quit, this is the last day of the month, and I want to be all I can be (as corny as that sounds).
We where warming up, and my back was hurting while running, I had to slow down. The Instructors said that if I couldn’t stand the pain that I was allowed to stop, I just fell down the stairs and it was understandable that I was in pain, I had to look after my self, working out was one way of doing it, but taking care of my injuries was more important.
Stretching was painful; my back pain was getting worst… We started our mission of the day, we had to guess numbers to unlock a security lock… and we could guess from 1 – 99… we could go over or hit bang on the actual first number of the combination, if we where short we had to try again, if we where over we could move on, but wait, its not that easy, just guessing is not fun, the number we said was paired to a workout, lets say for the fin of it we guessed as a team 35, we had to do 35 Burpies and if we got it wrong we guessed again, 45, then we did that many Burpies and we actually guessed pass the real number, that means, we could guess the 2 number of 3 of the combination… confusing?! It was for us… The instructors noticed that I couldn’t do the workouts, they allowed me to do something else to compensate for my back pain, the asked me to do crunches, as I was laying down on the grass to start, I was struggling to get into position with my back pain, that’s when they decided not to let me do the last day of SOF. I was disappointed at my self; I’m not as tough as I thought I was. I turned by back to the instructors and stopped to think about all the effort I’ve put in to this, and all went down the drain on the last week, I really wanted to work out. My eyes started to tear up, I felt like I was letting my self down, and even worst, I felt like I was letting my team down.
I insisted on working out, they instructed to me to walk away, my health was more important that the last day, I didn’t had to prove anything to any one, that didn’t made me a quitter, just proved how stubborn I am… I went to my car and waited listening to the radio station while I saw in the distance how my team was working their tail off… and I couldn’t do anything about it… I wanted to help, but I wasn’t allowed to… the end of the 90 minute session arrived. Everyone started to line up for the diploma ceremony. I got my program completion diploma… and then, Instructor Quian said he had one more special diploma to give, to someone whom he and the one of our other instructors and the corporal thought they made the most improvement during this month, it didn’t matter if they where the last in all the events, the one that didn’t manage to lift the most weight, the dedication, and the ability and willingness to help the team and the teammates, to cheer on for everyone and still manage to make people laugh, find the funness to everyting, and everyone that knew Instructor Quian knew that that was a Diploma that he didn’t easily granted… He said my name… I was in shock… I never thought I was going to be the one being called for that… It took me like 2 seconds for me to realize that it was me… I was happy but still didn’t think I deserved it… I really wanted to help out during this last day…
I guess that the willingness to help others over your own pain, overcoming your own limits, and being able to push your self harder and harder every day and being able to push your friends harder and harder is one of the biggest things I learned at SOF. Would I come back?! In a heart beat… but now I know that I need to recover from my back first before I do, because I want to be able to look up high and say with pride. I am a Soldier of Fitness. Oorah!
