Photo By 1st Sgt. Rob Barker | Maj. Dale Nelson, a chaplain with the 310th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, stays...... read more read more
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JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq – Runners have their own motivation for running. For example, some do it to stay fit and some do it to relieve stress. One soldier deployed to Joint Base Balad, Iraq, started running for another reason.
It all began when Maj. Dale Nelson, now a chaplain with the 310th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, was a 10-year-old in grade school.
His class had a race, and the results did not end in his favor.
“For physical education class they had us run that day, and I didn’t do very well, plus I got very sick,” said Nelson, a South Beloit, Ill., native. “So after that I just determined that was just not going to happen again.”
Nelson’s drive to better himself physically had just begun.
“So I started running on my own,” Nelson said. “All through grade school, junior high, high school, I ran. At that time, I didn’t run for time. I ran for other things; for enjoyment. In junior high and high school I ran to be in shape for football and wrestling.”
His running didn’t stop when he graduated. He joined the Army shortly after high school and put that training to good use.
“In the Army, I got down where I could run a mile in five minutes,” he said.“That was in my 20s. At one time I did get pretty fast.”
At that time, Nelson was an enlisted soldier with the 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg, N.C. He spent nine years enlisted, and then decided he wanted to become a chaplain to help other soldiers.
“I was in the active Army studying with some people and got really touched and moved and it changed my life,” Nelson said. “I wanted to be able to be a change to other people’s lives. I wanted to serve and help other people.”
Nelson, who has been a minister with the Church of Christ for 30 years in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, didn’t let becoming an Army chaplain change his motivation to run. It actually increased his drive to become spiritually and physically fit.
“I’m motivated,” said Nelson, who is on his second overseas deployment. “It’s part of my spiritual routine. To exercise in and of itself gives some benefit, but it’s only a short benefit. You hope to get in better shape by exercising. There’s actually no 100 percent guarantee. Generally, that should be the case, but strange things do sometimes happen. If you approach it as part of your spiritual plan, you’re always doing better.”
Nelson is achieving his desired results. He recently got 295 out of 300 on his physical fitness test, but he really wanted to score a 300. He still wears his physical fitness excellence badge with honor though.
“A number of times I’ve had a perfect score,” he said. “So I’m always trying for that. There’s always a little bit of disappointment if I don’t get that. But at the same time, I did as well as I thought I could.”
Running is not the only way Nelson stays in shape these days. He maintains a healthy diet, and hits the gym regularly.
“I try to get a balance of [foods] we are supposed to get,” said Nelson. “I try not to eat too much, which has been really hard with the dining facility and all the food and all of the choices.
“I also lift weights. I pretty much work out every muscle. I like to lift weights where you do arms one day and legs the next. Because of shortness of time here, quite often when I go in I do everything. I also get on the elliptic machine. I’ll do that two or three times a week. [Also] I started to do some swimming.”
Lifting weights and eating smartly combined with two or three days of elliptical and three or four days of running four to seven miles, helps Nelson achieve his goal of being spiritually and physically fit. .
“The workout facilities here at [Joint Base] Balad are excellent,” he said. “The gyms are really nice. They have just about anything a person could want. They have all kinds of extra stuff, too. How many places can a person be deployed to when you have indoor and outdoor pools? There are a lot of nice things here.”
He encourages soldiers to use the facilities provided to them and stay fit.
“I would tell soldiers to be spiritually and physically fit,” Nelson said. “You need to develop a plan that works for you and you need to stay with it with consistency. Not to be discouraged when others are on a different track. We always want to compare ourselves to them. Sometimes that can be good, but sometimes it can be bad.”
| Date Taken: | 05.06.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 05.22.2011 05:41 |
| Story ID: | 70847 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE BALAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 44 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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