21/02/2009
Had thursday and friday off to relax before the selection on the 21st (well, I say that, I spent thursday and friday doing random sets of burpees, thursday I dd 30 (without the jump) at work before I left and friday I did about 4 sets of 10-15 at work and then a set of 10 when I got home.
On the saturday the selection was fecking easy.
The static lifting was pants (although my dl was only 160.8, on the first attempt I farted in the direction of the person on the meter taking the reading. She didn't say anything). I wasn't the strongest on that either. The best was 174 by a tree surgeon guy. He also beat my chin ups by 3 (my 11 to his 14). I could have got one more, but my grip was fucked (it was a horizontal legde not a bar). Still, can't be bothered because I don't do chins.
The run was interesting. This 17 year old was boasting to everyone that his 1.5 was down to 7 min 30. I thought maybe, he was a streak of piss so not much to carry. I started out at the very back and went off gently because of my groin strain. Within about a minute my slow pace put me within the first 5 people, with the 17 year old quite far ahead (he sprinted off with a stlye that didn't look like he'd done much running), but not that far. I kept steady and over took 3 more people, having a chat on the way past (I say chat, it was one way, they weren't in the chatting mood). I saw the youngster about 400m away flagging. Over took the 2nd person, had a one way again, got a look of tired scorn. Got to the youngster, said quite a bit while he struggled to keep going, overtook him and finished about a minute infront of the 2nd nearest person. I finished and just stood around looking bored while everyone came in and collapsed. The youngster was in at about 11 minutes and as soon as he was in sight of the finish he developed a limp that transfered from one leg to another while he was walking. All were amused.
I was non plussed about the run. I thought the lack of running and the groin strain (I started off pretty slow) would be a problem. After I finished, baring some slight burning in the legs (I sprinted at one point when they said I was nearly there, then went around the corner to learn I had another 500 ish metres left), so I sprinted the final 200m.
My time was 9 minutes 3 seconds. Not bad considering I haven't done any running and only done long boring cardio work. My best was last year after 3-4 weeks of heavy running. I managed 8 minutes 49 then. Surprising really that without any running, I was only 14 seconds slower.