Personal Training in the Morning

Bam! Bam! Bam!
Three powerful slams on the door by our chain of command definitely woke us up.
My head rises immediately with tremor. I rapidly glance at the time on the clock. It read “5:30AM”
“Wake up New Cadets! Wake up!”
My roommate and I quickly got off the bed, and we swiftly took off our clothes and changed it to Personal Training uniform. PT uniform is basically just plain black training shorts with dull gray shirt along with our last name engrained on the left chest. Oh, by the way, your first name will be never used during Beast. We also had to wear our white plastic belt that goes diagonally around our body.
Every morning was our personal training time. More like one of the toughest physical workout, but very rewarding at the same time. Depending on how you performed on the running portion on the APFT, they will put you on fastest (black group), fast (gray group), normal (gold group), or slow (white group). Because I was very close to max the running portion on APFT, I was put on the fast running group, or also dubbed as “gray” group. Every other morning, we basically run two to three miles; also, the running route changes every time as well.
Because I love physical workout, and facing new challenges, morning run was actually a very rewarding experience for me. I ran as if my life was on the line on every morning run. I consistently improved every time, and my endurance started to ratchet up like the Apple stock that soared when the first “ipod” was released.
On every route, there will be at least one steep hill you will have to struggle and really fight your weak mentality side to overcome the difficulty. Don’t be one of those new cadets that fall out whenever the hill comes up, but try to be the one that leads and stays in front of everyone. You don’t want to be that sore loser that doesn’t finish until the end. I mean you will never be forced to run in the morning like this when Beast is over. So why not take advantage of it and really take it seriously and put your heart into it?
On the days that you don’t do morning run is when you go to the vast field next to the railroad where it is filled with various obstacles and pull-ups bars, and basically go through four obstacles three or four times every time. Pretty simple, right? The four obstacles are pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, and dips. I really liked this workout more than running.
Anyways, this is just a heads-up to all the future cadets that will be attending West Point next year!