Lame but true

There are many people who do this. And whenever I read these types of posts, I often scoff at them, wondering what on earth would possess them to write something as lame as this.

Well now I know.

I passed my IPPT.

There. What a lame-ass declaration.

But a caveat.

I passed my test despite running a temperature earlier that day.

Now, that makes the lameness less lame.

Prior to having my fever, though, I was actually not quite worried about two stations. SBJ which is a real biatch and chin-ups.

See ever since uni days, I've been piling on the fats. I've stopped going to gym 3 times a week, running twice a week and swimming like I-dunno-how-many-times a week. Plus the football on Saturday mornings.

Result: Pek pek and rather flabby around the wrong parts.

Nontheless I've been training some in the past month or so. I was fairly confident of my pull-ups save the sweaty palms which equals a weak grip. And SBJ is seriously just heng suay. Sometimes I'd hit the passing mark, sometimes I'd get silver, sometimes I'd fail.

Well I started off with my weakest link - chin-ups. Queued up, stepped up and pulled up. 7 times. Not bad I thought, as I dismounted.

Next SBJ. Again I queued up. Nervous as hell. Failing this meant I would have to endure another 4 weeks of RT, three times a week.

Took a deep breath, stood on my toes, jumped. Landed, line fault. KNNNNNNNNNN
Repeated, jumped, 207. Failed. OMG 5 cms off the mark!
Repeatd, jumped, remembered to tuck my legs in. 212.....Passed!

The other 2 stations were a breeze.
But my less than 100% physical state was starting to wear on me. After my shuttle run, I was sweating and breathing really hard. I felt bit light-headed, which was not natural.

As I walked over to the 2.4km starting point, doubts started to pour in. What if my body gave way, what if I had a heart attack. I was still considered to be sick and I've read countless stories of people dying after they ran. I know of course that this is all wrong. The right thing to do would have been to stay home and wait for the next test, after I'm fully recovered.

But there was too much at stake. I simply could not afford to take more leave to go for RT, my weekends are extremely precious with EL around so I rolled the dice.

First lap: 1min 37s . Holy crap! That's like a 8:30 minute 2.4km timing, I thought to myself. My goal was to hit the halfway mark below 6mins. That would give me ample time to finish the rest of the run comfortably within passing time. (I was hoping to get a silver timing but...)

By the start of the third round, I was clearly running out of steam. Up till then, I was leading the pack, being the first group of runners to set off. But man was I breathing hard. Two other fitter runners had caught up and were pulling away. My legs started to feel like lead and my breathing laboured.

End of third round: 5m 38s. I made it. But barely and my fuel tank was running very low. I slowed down even more.

Fourth round: 7m 45s. That was more than the 2m 7s I allowed myself. But my mind was clearly not focusing. I was dead tired and struggling.

Fifth round 10sm15s: Crap crap crap. I needed to make 12m40s or everything would be in vain. By then, I was shaking and my mind was in a blurr. Exhaustion and temptation to stop became easier and easier to contemplate. Just walk for 10s, my other weaker half pleaded. Run the rest of the way.

I ignored that and ran. Ran and ran. I finished in 12m 15s, with breathing so laboured and legs so shaking, I nearly died. But I didn't.

In the end, driving back with my body numb and my mind blank, I realised why people would want to blog about somethng as insignificant as passing a lowly IPPT.