PT Test

Friday morning was the dreaded Navy Fitness test (The Physical Readiness Test or PRT). I can imagine what you may be thinking: "Navy? Fitness? Give me a minute here, I need to stop laughing..." Seriously, it is far harder than you think to climb 4 ladders with a cup of coffee a donut and a lit cigarette without dropping / spilling / extinguishing any of them.


Okay, so maybe that's not it. The Navy test is (I'm ashamed to say) very similar to the Air Force test, and shorter than the Army or Marine Corps tests. It's just push-ups, curl-ups and a run. There is also the "sit and reach." Sit on your rear and touch your toes with your legs straight. The sit and reach is obviously the most important, because if you can't touch your toes you get some gentle encouragement to try harder next time.

Anyway we did the run, 1.5 miles on an out and back course. This was the first PRT I've run in
Stuttgart, and it's the first organized one I've run since leaving the U.S. in 2004 so I was a little unsure of how the run would go. After doing less than stellar on the push-ups and sit-ups I took a look at the numbers to figure out how fast I needed to run. Based on what I saw, I needed 11 minutes.

So after a short walk to the start line, and wait for "the turn around guy" to make it out to the turn around, we were off. There were about 20 of us.

We started off and it felt awful. Legs of cement, lungs of mush. I managed to stay near the front of the "pack" to about the 1/3 mile point or so and I started feeling a little better. I was using the "try to stay up with the guy in front of you" method.

We got to the turn around, and "turn-around-guy" says "5:08." "Drat" says I (or something similar). I've got to pick up 30 seconds or so on the return leg! So I shifted to the "try to pass the guy in front of you" method. Well, I managed to quickly pass the guy I had been keeping pace with leading up to the turn around, and started closing in on another guy. And as I do so I think. "Wait a minute here, I was 30 seconds AHEAD of my pace at the turn around!" (yeah, brilliant for the guy who does mental gym while running...).

To keep this overly long story from growing any longer, I finished in 10:15, which was my fastest time since I was a Midshipman. It also meant I ran a slightly negative split (by a second). It also means I was aided by the down hill return leg!