Fitness Check #1

Here it is, for all the world to see, my current state of semi-fitness.

5k Run = 21:37
This time is both extremely depressing and also a sign of hope. It depends on how honest I'm being with myself at the time I think about it. When cognizant of the fact that I haven't run more than a dozen times in nearly 4 years, I can be proud of this time. It works out to a 6:58/mile pace for the 3.1 miles and I can live with that. In fact, my goal was to finish in under 22:00. It's the part of me that knows I used to average close to this pace for an entire marathon that has me depressed. But that was then and this is now and this time of 21:37 (including a nasty ankle twist with a mile to go) is a sign that I haven't lost everything and that if I can run this with just 8 recent runs logged, I'll be able to get back a lot with some hard work. Nevertheless, I ran hard from start to finish and left nothing out there. As you'll soon see...

Pushups = 20
This is pathetic, I know. But dropping and doing as many pushups as I could just 3 minutes after racing a 5k is a lot harder than it sounds. Well, at least it's a lot harder than I thought it'd be. Anyway, my main goal today was to run as fast a 5k as I could to see where I'm at running-wise and then just struggle through the rest of the test. Struggle was the correct word when it came to these pushups. The first 15 felt great and I thought I'd be able to rattle off at least 30 or so, but then my arms turned to jello.

Jumprope = 143
This went as I expected it to. I finished the pushups, grabbed a handtowel, and ran down the stairs and outside to the garage. Turned on some NIN, rested for a minute, and began. I knocked off about 90 in the first minute and then my legs tired and I struggled to link more than 7 or so in a row from there on out. So doing 143 in two minutes wasn't necessarily anything to be excited about, as I'm sure that it's possible to do at least 260, but for having never touched a jumprope before last week, I can live with this. It's only going to get better.

So based on my self-devised scoring system, I scored a 1249 for the first monthly (or so) fitness test. The lower the score the better.

Here's the breakdown:

Run = 1 point per second = 1297 pts
Pushups = deduct 1 second per jumprope = 1297 - 20 = 1277
Jumprope = deduct 1 second per 5 jumps = 1277 - 28 = 1249

March 2nd, 2006: 1249 points at a weight of 191.6 pounds. It's all downhill from here.