I don't have any answers to your questions but wanted to say thanks for your service, be safe and good luck with the training.

---

************************
#WeAreTheForge #BlackGunsMatter

"Look, will you guys at leats accept that you are a bunch of dumb asses and just trust me on this one? Please?" BarryP 7/30/2012

step 1: change your name from Army Clyde to Army Lean. Take advantage of this year free from social and family stressors and inputs. Control everything you can control, which isn't much while deployed, and eat right.

I did this on my last deployment... lost 30 lbs. Avoid sugar, cheese, salad dressing, butter, etc. Eat only lean meat and vegetables at night. Work out frequently, drink water, you know the deal.

step 2: whatever you do, try to put your bike in a tri- or quad-con or TAT on your aircraft or anything that is going strat air so you get it sooner. Containers go overland and are slower.

step 3: I like using the Aerus bike bag, not too inexpensive and combined with being in the military you're 50/50 at least to avoid charges. That being said, the bag fools noone, it's the military ID that does it. OTOH a nice hard case sitting in back of your container looks like the case for TOC equipment or some other military item so you might fool some people.

good luck!

---

Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

Hey Eric, thanks for the tips. Funny you mention changing my name, since I've been considering that anyway. Since coming back from my last trip, I've gone from 235 down to 205 by simply changing my eating habits and watching what goes into my body, and increasing iso-metric core training (TRX) as opposed to heavy weight training. Because I am in a specialized type of unit, I have my own ISU 90 that I will travel with, so I will be putting my bike in there. Getting it through customs is not an issue. We are Beijing our own cook with us, so I'll have a little bit of input into what is made, yet the Army supply system doesn't really support a guy who eats organic and doesn't eat beef or highly preserved foods. All in all, I'm looking forward to finding ways to overcome challenges of training along with missions and everything else that goes with my job.

Great post - hoping I can help you out. When you get a chance, PM me and I can give you more details.

Do you know where you are going? Most of the larger operations will have regular supply flights, great gyms and good logistics. If you are in an SMU or on an ODA at a remote FOB or safe house your options might be limited.

To answer your bike question I would check out some of the padded/fabric cases out there. When I fly commercial I use a Tri-All case but it is a freakin' tank. When I have access to a private plane or C130/17 I borrow a friend's BikePro case and strap it to the top of an ISU-90 or on the floor.

Regarding food and eating same rules apply - larger bases have more options but some guys don't know when to stop hitting the chow line. Good that you are bring your own cook but you might be in a shared facility. I also find that most military food service (92Gs) cook the classic salad, salisbury steak, chili mac. If you are a clean eater, you may want to spend some time in the kitchen helping them out and most appreciate it and will do wonders for you. If you have contract food service, goodies from the countryside, a recognition certificate or unit coins go a long way to helping you get steamed veggies, egg whites and late night meals if you are on mission or duty.

If you are operating near any SEAL/NSW types make sure to introduce yourself and check out their workout kit. I am sure it varies from command to command and unit to unit but I have helped unload pallets of weights and workout equipment in some pretty remote locations.

For your workouts, not sure what you are looking to do but cycling will by far be the easiest to work on. I occasionally use the coach Troy DVDs. Some of my friends swear by them. If you can score a Computrainer or PowerTap/SRM before you go you may be able to do some amazing things while living in captivity. Make sure your bike fit is dialed in before you leave and mark your stem/saddle/seatpost/handlebars before you take your bike apart.

Running - embrace the horror but you might be doing some treadmill running. You can make it fun - that might be a stretch - but you can do some testing and time trials to kick your ass and do it on a schedule to monitor and manage your progress. Some of the larger operations have actual multi-mile running tracks - Bagram is an example. I have friends that lived and worked in safe houses and would hit the hills with a Camelback, pistol and a cell phone for regular runs.

Swimming - think this is self explanatory. If you can get back to Al Sayliyah for some "coordination meetings" or other "mission planning" requirements the ARCENT pool is pretty nice and you could get some long runs and swims in if you plan it right.

Might be a crazy long shot but if you can get from Bagram/Kabul back to Doha you can fly commercial to UAE/Dubai and race there if you plan a 4 day pass far enough in advance and the mission gods smile favorably. Tour of Qatar might also be something to see when you are there.

And oh yeah, like Eric35-39 said, drop the "clyde". Maybe something along the lines of "dream crusher", "destroyer of worlds", or "sultan or suffering".

For any non-military types reading this I don't want to give this impression that Afghanistan is a country club. Key thing is that there is not much to do. If you are not outside the wire on 24 hour mission you are probably working 12 hour days, sleeping 7, personal hygene .5 and eating 1.5 - that still leaves 3 hours a day to train - that's a hearty 21 hour training week. Do that for 6 months and you should be a badass compared to when you left. It's a combat deployment and most of it will suck versus being home but you can make the most of it. Hope this post helps.

Good luck to you and thanks for your service. As far as races go--check out Great Floridian in October in Florida. Also, Beach to Battleship in N.C. in November.

Happy Training!

KK

Nothing useful to add other than good luck on your deployment.

I suggest that you change your screen name to EricReid40-44's Dreamcrusher!!! If you can get there then you'll be in Kona qualifier shape

Guys like you inspire me!

---

Michael in Kansas
"Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit"
"Its not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up" Lombardi

I wanted to revive this thread since I am deploying from November 2012-May 2013. I am a DOD civilian and I will be in Kabul at ISAF HQ. I've got three Ironmans under my belt and would like to retain as much race-specific fitness as possible so I can have a solid IM at Florida 2013, or, maybe, Placid 2013 (foundation slots still available!). My most recent IM was a 10:06 in M25-29 at IM MT, so the goal next time is to KQ.

How did you guys ride your trainers while you were over there? My accomodations are going to be a 3-person room in a Connex box, so riding my trainer in there for 2-3 hours would be, well, inconsiderate and probably get me shot :) Were you guys able to store it at the gym on your base and ride it there?

Swimming is another thing - I have "heard" they put a heated cover on the Kabul embassy pool in the winter but haven't been able to confirm. Anyone been there in the winter?

Any and all thoughts are welcome! Please PM me if you have anything to share. Thanks! :)

Must be nice. I'm headed to the southern provinces in the spring, and I'm pretty sure there's no pool. Not even sure I'll have a bike. I'll just have to wait till I get there and see what the options are. I'm active duty Army so we get all the best spots. :)

Man I'm sorry as I was just over there and didn't pay any attention to what went on at the embassy pool this past winter as I was really busy doing other things.

I can tell you that from where I worked ( a JOC type operation when I was in Kabul) we had access theater-wide aerostat and UAV feeds and the aerostats over Kabul seemed to always have their cameras on the embassy pool in the afternoons when the embassy chicks were swimming there.

YMMV

/r

---

Steve

I was in Helmand from Mar 2011-Feb 2012. I shared a can with another guy so couldn't ride there, but shipped my trainer and an old road bike and rode it in the gym. The first gym manager let me keep them there, but the next one didn't so I had to bring both from my can to the gym and back every day. Not that big a deal, and I got lots of hours in. Made big gains over the year. No pool in that part of the country, though.

Good to know. I'll have to pack up my bike and trainer before I leave so my wife can ship them once I know I have a place to put them. Fortunately I'm headed to a bigger base where running the fence line shouldn't be dangerous.

So I was deployed to RC South (Kandahar mostly) for 15 months from Dec 2007 through March 2009. I raced Coeur d'Alene as my first IM in June of 2009. Conditions weren't ideal for training, but I was able to finish in 11:20, so given the situation I was happy with that as my first IM time.

Running should be your bread and butter. Fit in as much running as possible. I ran at 3am in order to avoid the heat and since that was about the only time I could fit in training.

Biking was limited to the trainer and in some interesting locations; nice thing about being an officer was usually only having 1 roomate. I first had a tiny plywood hut that I squeezed into, but it had power, so I was in business. Then I moved into a tent, which made things a little more difficult. Finally I spent a good period in a connex style box, which was perfect because I had a little more privacy and only had to annoy 1 person. I worked out training times with the other folks and fit in a very low volume of cycling, but I made it very efficient and effective. No long rides (longest probably 90min) but all very hard.

For swimming, well, you're a lucky man if there's a pool in Kabul. Other than convoying through Kabul, I've never had a chance to check out the embassy. I tried dryland swimming techniques using elastic bands, but found it was wasted time. I instead used that time for yoga or more running.


Just a few pictures. I knew I was keeping these for a reason. They're in my hootch that I shared with my "roomate" for a short period of time....just so happened to be my wife!

---

-Andrew

First, good luck and watch your six over there. Even the embassy is not as cush as it seems, and ISAF HQ and the embassy are not the same walled compounds.
Training in Kabul this past spring (on a dreadmill and with my bike on an indoor trainer) did help me for when I got home, but then 15 months of being away caught up with me and my training went into the pot. Still finished IMLP despite a stupid bike crash at mile 40, but I chalk that up to pure Irish stubborness.
Most cities have worse air quality in the summer, Kabul is just the opposite. The city residents will burn ANYTHING to stay warm in the winter. Seeing the permanant black fog over the main city from where I was on the Eastern edge at Camp Alamo was quite the sight. I'll try to post a photo, it makes Beijing look clean.
Do what you can between shifts, after ensuring that you're prepared for your next shift. There is no schedule for anyone, uniformed or not, in a warzone.
Feel free to PM me for other details.
SMC

One more thing, if you can give yourself a few months to get ready for the IM when you get back, you should be in good shape. I had basically 3 months exactly from when we finished redeploying to race day. There was a lot of swimming a cycling going on during those three months, but it was a good way to decompress anyway.

---

-Andrew

I was at Kabul International Airport (KAIA) from Oct 09 - Oct 10, serving as a USAF officer training the Afghan Air Force, or at least trying to:) There is an "ISAF HQ" at KAIA also but it sounds like you're going to the "big" HQ in downtown Kabul. IIRC, the big HQ has limited outdoor running with many turns required to get a mile in. If by chance you end up at the KAIA HQ, you can run a 3 Km loop within the compound. If you spend any time at Bagram Air Field (BAF), they do indeed have a big perimeter that you can run around which IIRC is about 8-9 miles. During my year at KAIA, there was some sort of running race at least every month, and more frequently if you include organized PT "practice runs" of 1.5-2.0 miles, which always were balls to the wall races. During my year at KAIA, I ran 3 half-marys, 3 x 10Ks, 4 x 5 Ks, and about 6 of the 1.5/2.0 mi PT races.

Regarding taking your bike and trainer, I never saw anyone doing this and none of rooms I've been in over my 6 deployments (KAIA was #6) were big enough to fit a trainer into. Apparently some other guys have had better luck. If you can't fit it in your room, you can always ride the spin bikes at the gym and do the Stairmaster.

Regarding the Embassy pool, never made it over there but I do think using the Stretch Cords has some value in terms of maintaining pulling strength in your arms and shoulders. Only thing is you don't get the full motion unless you recover your arms exactly as you would in the pool. If you do that, they're the best simulation of swimming you can do in the desert.

In closing, good luck and Godspeed!!!

---

"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Thanks guys - very helpful pointers. I think the best thing to do is register for IM Florida for NOV 2013. All of my colleagues who've gone over to do the job I will be doing say working out 1.5-2 hours a day is no problem because, well, it's the only form of recreation allowed. But IM "specificity" is going to be hard to get, even if that pool is open. I think I'll be able to maintain my fitness while I am there, then I'll have from May-November 2013 to get my race-specific fitness back, which should be enough time to tee up a Kona-worthy performance.

Thank you for your service guys. Best of luck in your races this year.

IM Fla in 2013 sounds like a reasonable goal. Are you going to be stationed at Camp Eggers???

---

"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I'll be nearby at ISAF HQ, so right down the street. One of my coworkers just got back from Eggers. Said he still can't get the smell of smoldering human shit out of his clothes :)

You going to be over there?

Nah, I've volunteered 3 times since my last tour ended in Oct 2010, but my commander will not approve me for deployment. I was wound up pretty tight after that last deployment and I kind of lashed out verbally at some folks at the medical clinic, so he thinks I'm verging on PTSD and so won't send me again. I guess after 6 tours (38 months in-country) in 7 years it is time for a few years of relative normality. Once the current commander rotates out in another 6 months or so, maybe the new guy will approve me for one more before we pull out in 2014.

---

"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."