Army Junk
What was I worried about?
Before you ship, you do a 17 situp, 13 pushup, and a one mile run to show that you don't suck totally. Or something.
Well, as it turns out, I
do have something to worry about, and that is that my pushup form is not compatible with Army standards. See, I go up until my body naturally stops--I don't lock my elbows. It's not good to lock your elbows because it puts stress on your joints, the same way you don't want to lock your knees doing squats or your elbows with pullups or dips. Going 'all the way up' feels
very exaggerated.
Yep. So I did my 13 pushups and 17 situps. No problem. I stretched a bit, then we went out to do the mile. I'm pretty surprised at how fast I ran it; 5 minutes, 39 seconds. I was figuring on running 6:30 or maybe 6:00 at the quick side. I could have shaved 10 seconds or more off the run if I was really pushing, but I didn't sprint the last 200 meters like I normally would. 5:39 isn't particularly fast for a 19 year old male runner, but considering how little I've been running in the last several months and the major hiatus I took from the running scene, it's pretty damn impressive to me. My half mile split was 2:40, so I paced pretty badly, but I think if I'd run my normal race-style mile with the sprint at the end, my pace would have been much closer. I just can't wait to see how fast I am when I'm really in shape. I have a feeling I'll blow my personal records out of the water without even trying at all distances; the male runner's peak age is from early twenties to thirtyish (for longer distances). Too bad there's a good chunk of runners at all distances that can kick my ass handily.
Concrete is hell on my shins and left knee. For some reason the concrete I ran on today felt harder than my roads, maybe because I was barely rested. I only hope new shoes help, and it would be even better if we ran on grass or dirt down there.
Now I get to run around all day, sweet sweet fun. Shower, haircut, bank to set up accounts, high school for my diploma or something that says I'm a graduate, then my college for a transcript... then cleaning my room! Figure I'll be out for four hours easy, then a few more hours to clean, then my aunt arrives and I entertain for a while, then sleep. Somewhere in there I need to cram a few hours of PT and maybe buy some of the crap I need to bring with me when I ship. Did I mention I only slept 3 hours last night?
I understand that some people love living every day just like this, but they're bloody crazy. Ah, it's ok, I don't mind. It'll be a relief to get all this shit out of the way and relax. I'm off!
