He toed the dirt line with his boot next to O’Connell and let the crowd noise fall away. He could hear his breath, his heartbeat steady in his head. Instead of a pistol start, they went for drama, and two NCOs chucked lit flares into the dirt. Aldo shot off of the line like a bullet. He was a big guy. Speed didn’t come naturally. It came through constant hard-fought battle.

O’Connell was snapping at his heels as they rounded the first turn. Aldo’s body warmed and sang with the pace. His hands carved a knife-edge swale through the sweltering desert air, his arms pumping like a metronome. The Jeep tires were first. Two sets of tires, two-by-two. Aldo lifted his knees and jogged through them, fueled by his competitor in his peripheral vision.

They cleared the tires at the same time, taking off into dead sprints toward the Over Under Over, a pair of five-foot walls sandwiching a low crawl. He easily cleared the first wall, but the rocky desert floor was murder on his knees in the crawl. The pain motivated him.

Taking a sharp stone to the palm, Aldo pulled himself out from under the netting a second after O’Connell.

He made up time scrambling over the second wall and let his legs eat up the distance between them.

They hung together, neck and neck, swapping for the lead, never more than arm’s length from each other. O’Connell’s high school athleticism was showing, but so was his youth. His breath was coming in sharp heaves as he pushed himself into the red zone. Aldo would wait him out, make his move at the end when the twenty-something was gassed.

“You gonna puke?” O’Connell groaned as he heaved himself over the first sawhorse.

Aldo jumped it and the second one with gazelle-like grace. “Nope. You?” He took great pride in the fact that he didn’t sound winded.

“You’re playing with me, aren’t you, LT?” O’Connell gasped. He landed hard and came up running.

“I want you to feel that you’re doing well,” Aldo said conversationally.

“I really hate you, LT.”

Aldo laughed and launched himself at the last obstacle between them and the finish line. A ten-foot wall with ropes. He ignored his rope, running straight up the wall, and just when gravity kicked in, his fingers closed over the top. He pulled himself up and over and dropped into a crouch waiting until he heard O’Connell hit the ground next to him before taking off.

One hundred yards to the finish. His legs churned, arms pumped, every cell in his body fired to do its job and carry him across the finish line.

He was fucking alive and strong. And a winner.

* * *