APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test) This is not a conventional race. For those who are not familiar, the APFT is required for the Warrant Officer Packet that I am assembling for a Warrant Officership as a helicopter pilot in the US Army. Because of potential implication the results of this test and the fact that I flat out raced it, I chose to mark it as a race for blogging purposes. The goal for the test was to score at least a 300 score. That is to say 100 in each of the three events, pushups, sit-ups, and the 2 mile run. I thought I could score as high as a 370 on the no longer used “extended scale.” The Army is currently caping the PT scores to 300, though the selection board still gets to see you individual event performances. I was a bit concerned about how my right knee would hold out in the run. If it went well I should do just fine. If it gave out like it did in my past marathon....I would be extremely disappointed to say the least. We started with the pushups. I had 2 minutes to do as many as I could. Passing would be 36, but to get a 100 I needed 75. I was confident enough in this portion of the test. I ended up doing 124 which earned me 149 points in the event. Moving on to sit-ups. I was given all the time I wanted to rest for the following sections of the test, but it was cold and my family came to cheer me on, so I didn’t want to keep them waiting/freezing any longer then I had to. I was also given 2 minutes to do as many sit-ups as I could. The passing mark was 42, but I needed 76 to earn 100 points. I ended with 90 earning 114. Now on to the main event! I took a bit of time to relax after the sit-ups. The sit-ups can really burn your hip flexers and quads. My goal for the 2 mile was 10:45. I arrived at this goal with the help of the McMillan running calculator. It was a conversion of my marathon goal of 2:50:00. It has only been a week and a half since my marathon attempt, and I have been struggling with an injury so I had a B goal of sub 11:00. I had done a 1.8 mile warmup before starting any of the events. So I took a few strides to loosen up. I was running the event alone so I was a little concerned about my pacing. This was a concern that turned out to be valid. In my usual fashion I started out too fast. My first lap clocked in at 1:15.0, not the goal of 1:20.6 that I was looking for. 1-1:15.0 2-1:20.6 Nice pacing 3-1:20.8 Dialed in now 4-1:20.8 Now its time to go to work 5-1:21.0 Or start letting it slip... 6-1:22.1 7-1:22.8 8-1:23.3 Avg HR 178 Peak HR 185 I had a choice to make on the last 3 laps, go faster and puke, or hold it in and let it slide. I’m ashamed to say I chose the latter. I can’t blame that on my knee, it held out just fine in the run. However, I could feel my lack of LT work. I couldn’t puke on that nice new track at Jordan High! I ended up with a 10:46.3 earning 126 points for the run. My grand total was 389. This was better than I thought I would do. I think It will be enough to convince the Warrant Officer board that I am in good enough shape to be selected. I ended the workout with a 5.0 mile jog Time 40:45 Avg Pace 7:19 Avg HR 136 Peak 146 My knee started acting up in the last mile, but that’s ok, it held up when it counted. | 