Title: A Long Weekend at Camp
Author: red rooster dawn
Summary: The Admiral invites the staff to Camp Maplewood for a weekend of bonding. Harm and Mac have fun with their friends movements.
part ten The challenge continues
1130 Minutes
Mic was the tenth person to start. He knew he wasn't the fastest runner in the world, but he was in excellent shape if he did say so himself. He was five feet eleven inches, two hundred ten pounds of prime beefcake.
He figured he would make up time doing the obstacle part of the course. It had been a good week for him as he had renewed acquaintances with many of the people he had worked with at JAG. Many of them were happy to see him again.
Even Mac surprised him. He thought she would have been angry at seeing again, but she wasn't. In fact she seemed to be quite happy, even happier than she was when they were together. Harm must have something to do with it.
He always thought there was something between them. Maybe Harm finally took the stick out of his six and was with Mac now. Mac deserved to be happy she was a very special lady. He thought he was very fortunate to have had her in his life even if was only for a short time.
He chugged along the path coming to the cargo nets which he easily scaled. He had made up time on the Admiral. He was a little more than halfway across. It wouldn't be long before he caught him.
1240 Minutes
Meg took her time crossing the bridge. She didn't want to slip and hurt herself. Besides she didn't want to make it too hard for Kate to catch up. She wanted to do this run together with Kate.
She turned and saw that Kate was halfway across the bridge. She shimmied down the rope and continued on. She didn't want to fall too far behind Carolyn. It would difficult enough as it was to catch her without letting farther ahead.
1255 Minutes
Harriet's quicker paced allowed her to get to the next obstacle ahead of Loren. She took a quick look behind her to see Loren had fallen back a little. She was pleased with that revelation. She started across the log bridge that ran through the swamp.
She thought of herself as someone with good balance. She would try to move quicker across this obstacle. The logs were ten inches in diameter as to only two inches for the rope. She would try to shuffle her feet quickly along the logs.
1300 Minutes
Jack was the eleventh person to start. He was quite please with himself to be one of the last people to start. It had been a good week even though he didn't like pretending to be a marine.
He wasn't a fan of camping, but he had enjoyed the company immensely. He always love spending time with Harm and Mac. They were good people, especially Harm his best friend. Mac reminded him of Diane, which had him thinking about his academy days.
They were the best years of his life despite the anal retentive attitude of the senior instructors. Even seeing Sturgis again was good. It had been ten years since he had last seen him. He was always good to play jokes on.
He enjoyed the different activities they had participated in. He enjoyed the time he spent with everyone telling stories and having fun. He was going to miss the company of all these fine people.
He quickly covered the half mile coming to the cargo nets. He scaled the net quickly and was quickly across the rope bridge. He wasn't concern with anyone behind him. He wanted to catch the smug Aussie. If he didn't beat anyone else, he wanted to be him.
1305 Minutes
Loren came around the turn and saw Harriet moving quickly. She had picked up a few more seconds on Harriet. She looked back and saw Bud. He was gaining on her. She could only hope that she could transverse the log bridge quickly.
She was directed to use a different log bridge than the one Harriet was using. She quickly shuffled along. She wanted to catch Harriet before she left the bridge. If she did, she would be leading the race if only for a short period.
1320 Minutes
Bud was pleased with himself. He was running better than he had expected. He found himself gaining on Loren. If he was lucky he would past her on the log bridge.
He looked ahead and saw that Harriet was almost a hundred yards ahead. Loren looked to be halfway between Harriet and him. They were both moving pretty well.
The marine directed him to the third bridge. This was easy he thought as he was almost running. He thought back to what Gunny called this type of running. Oh yeah, he was doing the airborne shuffle.
Caitlin finished crossing the rope bridge. She had seen Meg up ahead of her. She didn't seemed to be running too quickly. She hoped it wouldn't be long before she caught up to Meg so that they finish the race together.
1420 Minutes
Carolyn made good time on the second leg of the run. She was in a good groove and felt like she was running faster this leg. She saw Loren and Harriet nearing the end of the bridge. She couldn't tell who was ahead.
She could see that Bud was catching up. It looked like he would pass them soon. But then it happened, she saw Bud take a header into the swamp. She hoped that he was okay. Maybe she could catch up to him if she hurried.
The marine directed Carolyn to take the last bridge not taken. She was running along the bridge quickly. It wasn't that hard. She had been a gymnast in grade school. She could always run on the balance beam.
1430 Minutes
Gunny was the twelfth person and first marine to start. He had been pumping himself up for the race. Semper Fi was on the line. There was only two marines in the group, him and the Colonel. He wanted to do good by her.
He also wanted to beat Jack and Mic. Jack was a blow heart. He had many stories to tell, but could he do anything physical. He was after all only jet jockey. They sat on their six while they were at work and slept on it the rest of the day.
He was about to start when Jason came up to him. What did he want now? He hoped he wasn't going to tell him that he was going to beat him. He had a three minute head start on Jason. He doubt Jason could make up the time.
"What do you want Jason?" asked Gunny impatiently.
"I have some toilet paper for you." smiled Jason.
"What do I need toilet paper for Jason? I'm not going to the latrine." replied Gunny.
"You have been constipated all week. You haven't gone today. I think it's a good idea to take some with you. I gave some to the Admiral. You might as well be prepare just in case." grinned Jason
Gunny was a little peeved. Jason had distracted him long enough and he was late getting started. He took off running faster than he had intended letting his emotions take over. It wasn't long before he was at the first obstacle.
He scaled the cargo net with ease and started across the rope bridge. He could see Jack at the end of the bridge getting ready to shimmy down the rope.
Skates was finally across the rope bridge. It shouldn't have been so hard. She had always thought crossing a rope bridge would be easy. She had seen many people do it before on television.
She looked back to see that Jennifer had made up a lot of ground on her. She was already halfway across the bridge. She looked like she was moving along quite quickly and smoothly.
She went down the rope quickly and took off running. It was the only way she knew that she could gain back the time she had lost on the bridge.
1500 Minutes
Jennifer had completed crossing the rope bridge. She could sense that she was catching up to Skates. If that was true then she was probably catching up to everyone else. She felt a surge of glee at the thought. Jason would be so proud of her.
She took a look back and saw that the Admiral hadn't reached the bridge yet. She had confidence that she would catch those in front of her before the Admiral caught her. She was down the rope and running hoping to put even more distance between them.
Harriet didn't dare look back. She was afraid that if she did, she might fall off the bridge. There was one thing she did know, Loren was getting closer, she could hear her feet pounding on the bridge.
Loren caught up to Harriet by the end of the bridge. Her motivation had been to catch Harriet before Bud caught her. She had accomplished her goal, but she knew Bud was close behind. She could hear his heavy footsteps pounding on the bridge behind her.
She didn't know how far behind he was because she was afraid that she would fall off if she took her eyes off the narrow bridge. She was about to say something to Harriet when she heard a splash.
She turned around to see water splashing up over the bridge and Bud was no where in sight. He must have fallen off in his rush to catch up to her.
"What happened?" asked Harriet. She had heard the splash too.
"I think Bud fell in. He wasn't too far behind me." replied Loren.
"We should help him." wailed Harriet.
"He'll be okay. There's a marine standing right behind you that will help him if he needs help. It's part of the game Harriet. He would want you go on." replied Loren as she took off running. She could see someone crossing the bridge quickly. She needed to take advantage of being on dry land.
While Harriet wanted to wait to see if Bud was alright, she knew Loren was right. She turned and started running again. Her goal was to stay with Loren and not let her get too far ahead.
1540 Minutes
Meg ran the second leg a little quicker than the first leg. She didn't want to fall too far behind Carolyn. She also wanted Kate to run quicker to catch her. They didn't want any of the men to catch them too soon.
1550 Minutes
Bud had been moving quickly across the bridge. He was catching up to Loren and Harriet quickly. He was only a few steps away when he felt the urge. Once again he felt the movement coming. He didn't know what to do.
In the process of thinking about the movement he lost focus of what he was doing. His foot miss the log and into the swamp he went. Might as well pulled down his pants he thought and release his load.
It wasn't long before Carolyn caught up to Bud. She had seen him fall into the swamp. As she ran by Bud she yelled out "Are you alright Bud?"
"Yeah, I'm okay. I just had to use the facilities." replied Bud as he hopped back onto the bridge.
Carolyn finish crossing the bridge and was back to running again. She had caught Bud. Now it was time to catch up to Harriet and Loren. She could sense that she would soon be leading the race if only for a short time.
1600 Minutes
Mac was the thirteenth person to start. She was a little concern with giving so many people such so big a head starts. It meant she would probably have to run faster than she wanted to considering that there were obstacles to tackle.
She would have to attack the obstacles more leading to the possibility of screwing up. Her salvation was the secret ingredient that everyone consumed this afternoon at lunch. It was the great equalizer. She laughed at that thought.
Of course since she was starting near the back of the pack, she could spend more time with Harm. They had gone off to be by themselves until the appropriate time. They shared a kiss or two before heading to the starting line.
Mac ran quickly. She got to the first obstacle in time to see Gunny nearing the end. She quickly scaled the cargo net and started down the rope bridge. She had done this many times in the past. She had gotten quite good.
She figured if she could catch Gunny, she would catch most of the others. Gunny would run a good smart race. He wouldn't be distracted by Jason since he wasn't running with him. He would set a good pace that she would eventually overcome.
1610 Minutes
Caitlin was making good time. She wanted to catch up to Meg. She looked ahead to see Meg was halfway across the log bridge. She was surprised to see Bud near the end of the bridge in the water. She saw Carolyn running away. She wondered what had happened to Bud.
She would have to wait until she caught up to Meg to find out. This was easy as she ran over the bridge. She was sure she would make up time on the others that were ahead of her.