BOLC II - Week 3 - Days 1&2

Range days. Lots of downtime.

Monday was a run day, 3 miles of running around a mile track (somewhat hamsterish, but better than doing it on a 1/4 mile track, thats enough to make you dizzy). Then we got our weapons and moved out to the range. Today was zero day, where you use your weapon to aim at a target simulating a 300m target (though its only 25m away.... its just really small) and have to get your shots grouped into a tight group (5 of 6 shots need to be within a 3cm circle, right in the middle of the target). This involves a lot of stopping and starting as you also adjust your sights so that the rounds are walked into the correct location. You fire 3 shots, wait until everyone is done and is away from their weapons, walk down, see where your shots hit the target, then go back and adjust. Pretty time consuming. It took me a couple of tries to finally get it, as I started to remember and reassert my marksmanship fundamentals (breathing, trigger pull, sight picture). It was hot, even though we went in the morning. We were wearing our IBA (Interdictor body Armor, the same stuff they use in Iraq), equipment harness, kevlar helmets and eye protection on the range. Its impressively hot. Then we came back, did some weapon cleaning (always a good practice), then had some student led classes before calling it an evening. I went over to the gym and hit the hot tub to cap off the day.

Tuesday morning we did something different for PT. We did Crossfit training, a combo of situps, dips, elevated pushups and pull/chin-ups. Pretty good cross training. Then we did the classic military "hurry up and wait routine", where we were ready to head to the range by 830 (in all our gear). Then we took off the gear and had student led classes for the next 2 hours (got mine out of the way and got a go). A long lunch and then we moved to range (god, even walking in all this gear is tiring). We did ALT-C training today, where we shot at a paper target at 25m. 40 rounds, 20 from the prone supported, 10 from the prone unsupported and 10 from the kneeling (still an odd position, its not what I trained on). I did pretty well, getting a 28 on the score (you are supposed to put 4 shots into 10 different targets, all sized so that they look like what they would be at that distance). After that we had a few more little tasks and were done by around 3pm. I executed the Army standard and took a nice nap before dinner. A quick trip to the gym and another visit to the beloved hot tub.