New Air Force lieutenant gets a surprise mountain workout

Dick Benoit

Thursday, Nov. 30, 2000 | 10 a.m.

Christina Hruska, a newly commissioned Air Force second lieutenant, has been keeping active while awaiting her slot in undergraduate pilot training.

The 1996 Meadows School graduate and daughter of Dr. Jerome and Donna Hruska of Las Vegas has been pitching in at Nellis Air Force Base's Red Flag exercise headquarters since graduating from Princeton University last spring.

She also spent time at Air Force headquarters in Washington, D.C. While there she was invited to join a team of fitness buffs participating in the first-ever military Wilderness Challenge.

Hruska and four teammates represented the headquarters in the meet held in the mountains of southeastern West Virginia. The competition, sponsored by the Navy Morale and Welfare Department in Norfolk, Va., was designed to give service members a physical challenge, promote outdoor recreation and offer competition between the services in the area.

It included a six-mile forced march, a 40-mile mountain bike relay, a 14-mile whitewater raft race and a 5 1/2-mile uphill run. Each team consisted of five members with at least one woman on each team.

The Air Force team did not win, but the new lieutenant found the competition exciting.

"This competition was a complete surprise," she said. "My team had very little 'intel' about the events, so each one was exciting. I'm training hard for pilot training, so I was in good shape. I weight lift three times a week, run six days a week and bike once in awhile."

Hruska is currently attending a course at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. According to her father, she is expecting a pilot training class reporting date in the near future.

IN BRIEF