Myrtle Beach

TRAINING LEAD-UP

Wednesday, Apr 8:

Glute and pec PT v1 in 28:53, then HDT "Jump Release" 25 min BW AMRAP with 5 rounds and 13 reps.  I added a 30 min Peloton Ride with Alex Toussaint's "90s Hip Hop Ride" at the end, since I was still feeling fresh after many rest days and went 8.7 mi, with 250 cal, 123 ave watts, 92 ave rpm, 38% ave resistance, 17.4mph ave.

Thursday, Apr 9:

Walked around uptown with my parents after work, to see the Shout! exhibits.  We started by going to First Ward park and made our way west from there.

There was a karaoke station, which was pretty awesome.  That music was blaring.  I wonder how the nearby building inhabitants felt about that.  At least it didn't seem like a residential area.

The eggs were back.  I like the cute ones.

They had stamp stations, which was fun.  We didn't find all of them, though.

Friday, Apr 10:

Went to Coleman's after work to tackle the Armored Eagle Training April Drill.

I managed to pass for the first time.  It helped that I was carrying OWB.  

• I did a forward lean to minimize rocking with recoil.
• I've been continuing to not apply thumb pressure, to avoid yanking shots right.
• I told myself "good shots" before each set.
• I tended to go faster on the second iteration.
• I made it but had to push the pace to do so.
• When my presentation is "good" and on-target the first time, I'm obviously faster, vs when I'm off by a bit and having to adjust.
• I liked the cost effectiveness of using a 1/4 sheet of paper as a target.

After that, I did compressed and uncompressed surprise breaks at 2yd for 6 mags.

It got a little better over time.  I started uncompressed but wasn't doing well and was yanking low, so I switched to compressed.  Shooting close, there's the hold to factor in, too, so I just ignored that, since the rounds should still stack as long as you're holding in the same spot every time.  

Not great, but something to keep working on and playing with.

I did the bill drill for 6 mags at 10yd on the 1/4 paper, to see where I was and work on multi-shot strings.  I'd often get only 5/6 on target.  I was always in the 5.XX second range.

I checked zero on my BCM and my LMT.  I had swapped out the BCM's firing pin with a spare from an LMT parts kit, and I wanted to see if that would fix my issue with popped primers.

I then went over to the next bay to run the BCM through its paces.  I did positional work on an array of barricades - lattice, tires, concrete pipes flat and upright, tank trap, pogo sticks.

I started running a drill on a car, and on a string of 3 shots from one position, the third malfunctioned.  I didn't have tools with me, so I'd have to figure that out later.  I made it safe but would have to take the gun apart and find the popped primer that was jamming everything up.

I was glad that I had my night setup rifle with me for NV stuff, so I switched to that... it would force me to do some longer distance stuff with the red dot!  It went better than expected.  

I did a bit of pistol as it turned dark enough for NODS.

It was hard to see all but the closest ~100yd ish rifle target and a 75yd and closer in pistol targets, so I didn't stay for too long after dark.  

Back at home, I was proud of myself for successfully disassembling the buffer tube and clearing the popped primer (and putting everything back together afterwards).

I also fully cleaned everything, so that I could hand it over to an armorer to diagnose.

Saturday, Apr 11:

Home - Day 16 - Savor & Dedicate - Day 29 - Celebrate Yoga with Adriene.  

Later in the day, I went out to King's Mountain NMP with my dad.  They had an after-hours "Star Party" that night.  

We squeezed in a little walk beforehand, with 2 mi in 44:26 on the Battlefield Loop plus a bit of filler.  I used MACV1s and 30# in the v3 shorty rucker.

At the Star Party, there were telescopes that you could use to look at planets and stars.

I also showed my dad my NODS.

MYRTLE BEACH 

Went to MB for a wedding on Sunday.  My parents came, too, so that we could do a little sightseeing beforehand.  We used to go maybe once every year or two when I was growing up.  It was fun to revisit those places and see what's changed.

Barefoot Landing

Broadway on the Beach

I played lots of Ingress along the way.

The Wedding

The wedding was nice.  I got to see an old GRT friend, too.

One cool thing they did was they had all the married couples go up after the first dance.  They gradually had the couples sit back down, with the most recently married ones sitting down first.  At the end, they had couples who had been married for many, many decades, and they gave advice to the new couple.

The speech from the bridesmaid was fantastic.

A friend of hers sang for a song while the couple danced, too.