Friday, October 09, 2009

Old Man...

My lungs hurt.
It's a beautiful little town, a place I wouldn't mind living, so I decided to drop in an application. Today was the physical. It was based on the APFT- the Army Physical Fitness Test, with the single modification that the run had been shortened from two miles to one. Damn good thing. I hate running. Unless I'm chasing something. Or being chased. Those are kind of fun.

The proctor told us it was a pass/no pass test, no extra points for exceeding the minimums and he encouraged us strongly to stop when we hit the target number. So you had two minutes to do so many push-ups, two minutes to do a certain number of sit-ups and then the run.

The target number is weighted by age and gender.

I was really worried this morning. One of my shoulders has been getting worse, I haven't been on a work-out schedule, feeling fat and old and creaky blah, blah blah...

They handed me the slip with my target number. I was embarrassed. Suddenly I wasn't worried about the shoulder, I could do that many push-ups one-handed with the slightly less bad shoulder. Did I mention I was the oldest guy testing?

So I did the minimums, like I was instructed. Finished each exercise in less than thirty seconds.

Then the run. I haven't really run for time since I was in the military, but back then my two mile time was right around twelve minutes. So I started at that pace. Big mistake. Not too big. Still finished with over 90 seconds to spare, but it hurt. I'll be coughing for a couple of days. We gathered around at the end. 50% washout rate on a relatively easy test. Roughly half of the applicants will be there for the written test.
And I'll still be the oldest.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Go on then tell us what the test was.I'm older than you ....and I'd sure like to know............guess what.the word "verification" was "Cheat" LOL

Jorvik

Unknown said...

Congrats! You'll pass the written with flying colors too I expect.

Sleep well and drink lots of water!

Anonymous said...

Want to bring the family to Alaska? They are highering a cop here...

The town could use a dojo, and so could I!

Rob

AF1 said...

Have you ever blogged about what you feel is a good workout routine for someone who does the work you have done?

Adam F. Burroughs said...

Well done. With our age there is supposed to come a degree of wisdom. I'm not seeing that too much lately. The sheepdog puppies need more guidance and help from the older sheepdogs than any time in our history. Thanks for staying in the pack.
A

Steve Perry said...

Just the beginning, young fellow. You don't know from old ...

jks9199 said...

Good luck to you!

Don't over-read the written test; most of them are almost insultingly stupid. And remember the difference between the answer that's what you'd really do -- and the answer that's right on the test.