I got up at 5am, after a pretty good night’s sleep considering the pre-race anxiety that I was going to miss the 2 alarms I set. I didn’t want to be the jerk who needed them to bang on the door at 5:30 when it was time to leave.
I got my first peek at Kuwait while heading to the bathroom. Tan. Everything is tan. The buildings, the vehicles, the facilities, the sand. Tan. Different shades of tan! So 5:30, I was down in the lobby and everyone else was there too. Good to go. We get the word that we’ll leave at 6:20 so we hop off for breakfast. Great buffet type meal with full breakfast, omelet’s, fruit, yogurt, pastries, juice, etc. We chat for a while and head back to the barracks, meet up with the group and load up the trucks. 
On the bus ride to the airport, we talked about camel spiders (Google it. Ug!) took pictures, laughed about the trip, got a few precautions from the people who’ve been here before (don’t drink the water…unless you want to lose a lot of weight on this trip!) and got excited for our flight to Iraq. 
We had a security escort which was pretty cool. They'd drive really close to us, and essentially block other drivers from driving next to us. Very high speed!
We arrived at the base around 7am and go sit in the waiting room. It’s getting warm out, but it’s still not bad….but it’s only 7am! We sit and wait. The word after about a half hour is that our plane is about a half hour away. Great! We all are chatting excitedly. Time passes. I’m not really paying attention to time, until suddenly it’s 9am…..and our plane is about a half hour away. Riiiiiight!
Then Cpt Jessie Stewart comes in and starts telling us about his experience in the war. He’s been home for 18 months since September 11, 2001. He’s an ironman triathlete, and is running a 100 miler on one of the bases in Iraq in honor of the 14 soldiers that were in his command that he lost in a certain devastating battle they fought and to raise money for a scholarship fund for their children. The Spartan 100 is the name of the run, and he’s already had $35,000 pledged to the fund with the goal of $100,000. He was really excited to meet Frank, but was also glad to meet Bart and Rob based on their contacts within the industry and what they can (and will) do for him and the project! He has a masters degree and is a very well spoken, very intelligent, very patriotic guy who had the 16 of us at full attention listening to his stories. Absolutely amazing guy, and a real REAL hero! He also worked with one of the Iraqi towns he was working in to get wheelchairs for the children and people with disabilities. When he couldn’t get the funding, he got the supplies and built them out of mountain bike tires and plastic lawn chairs. When a wheelchair company in the US found out about it, they called him and donated 120 super high speed wheel chairs, and had them delivered. As a result of this amazing work that he did, a local insurgent came up and identified himself as such, but said that he was so impressed with what the soldiers were doing for his community that his opinion of America was changing. The next day he tipped Cpt Stewart off to a IED on the road in the path of a high ranking military officer who was coming through that area the next day. This insurgent saved this officer’s life and probably that of more soldiers, all as a result of this soldiers push to make the community better. Amazing legacy, and such an amazing example to the thousands of Americans he comes into contact with. I’m so honored to have met him.So around 10, I’m starting to get hungry, and Zach comes in to inform us that our plane will be here at 3 and lunch is in an hour! Sure glad we got up at 5am, but that’s the name of the name of the game. Hurry up and wait! So we’ve all settled in, Rob, Bart, Sandy and Frank went to do a Runner’s World remote video taping, and I’m going to sit and watch Pleasantville. Oh, and it’s hot out there! 125ish? But honestly, it’s so dry, that it honestly doesn’t seem that bad, but I haven’t had to do anything in it for any period of time.
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