The Three-Mile Club

A little wetness didn’t stop the Navy yesterday.

A friend in the Navy Reserves, a coach in the club programs I administer, called me last week to ask me to help him certify a small group of regular Navy personnel at their bi-annual physical fitness review. He was administering the test and needed a second CPR-certified person there due to Navy regs.

I owe him lots of favors from coaching, so I said yes. Besides, I’m a little afraid of him, because he does secret stuff for the Navy, stuff that if you find out about it, you’ll disappear.

So on Sunday morning I found myself standing in the rain on the track at Bolling AFB in the District. The Air Force has a nice facility out there along the Anacostia, and sometimes they let the Navy use a little bit of it.

The group had already completed the two-minute sit-up and push-up performance tests. The number of reps required depended upon each person's age and gender. A couple of fit young men did 100 reps of each.

All of these people were fit (no swelled bellies there!), but I enjoyed watching the nuances of how each person passed his or her test. It broke down to form, basically. For sit-ups, each person had to touch their thighs with their elbows each time they rose up, but very few persons fell back to the floor after each touch. The techniques ranged from a two-inch backwards rock before returning to touch the thighs again to a full-fledged return to the floor each time.

Everyone did at least 60. My stomach muscles still hurt from just watching them.

Push-ups were also a study in form. Starting in what would be termed the plank position in yoga, each person's push-up ranged from executing a two-inch crick in the elbow before returning to a straight arm position to much more ambitious descents halfway to the floor before a straggling, struggling return.

The Navy personnel joked that at least no Marines were around to show off their obsession with physical fitness.

As they all lined up for the 1.5 mile run, I thought back to my own Navy qualification run. Awhile ago I discovered that 10:30 (7:00) is the standard for middies at Annapolis in the 1.5 mile run. As a challenge, I scoured the Internet for a 1.5 mile race so that I too could "pass" the Navy standard.

I found that each spring my club runs a series of races that equal the length of each horse race in the Triple Crown (the Derby, Preakness and Belmont). The Belmont is 1.5 miles.

One year the winners received carrots or radishes for prizes, in keeping with the equestrian theme. My club banned this quaint practice after the racing director threw the unused produce into the club van after the races and left the locked van, with a copious amount of fermenting produce inside, parked in the Southern heat for a month.

I hit the tape two years ago at the Belmont 1.5 mile race in 10:30 flat. Mission accomplished.

Yesterday, the Navy personnel insisted that the track at the Air Force base in DC is long. (Why this would be so, I have no idea.) So instead of running six full laps to equal 1.5 miles, they ran five and three quarters laps.

I held the stop watch and called out the times. I noticed that there were a few seconds lag time between the G word and the starting of the watch.

Watching the Navy personnel circle the track made me antsy to run, to be moving among the group of men vying for the lead. The fastest man finished in 10:32 (7:01), and the slowest woman finished in 16:45 (11:10). She was obviously not a runner, but the entire Navy contingent fell in beside her on her last lap to bring her home. They called out Right-Left, Right-Left in encouragement at the end. I swear the theme song from Chariots of Fire was playing as she crossed the finish line.

She has to do a do-over though. Hers was not a passing time, so on account of the rain, her attempt wasn’t deemed official. She gets to try again in June, when it might be 88 degrees and humid instead of 52 degrees with light rain. Ugh.

At work today, a friend who is married to a Navy man laughingly told me about the Navy’s "Three Mile Club." Its members are those Navy persons who run exactly three miles each year, doing their two 1.5 mile qualification runs as best they can without bothering with any training runs. No wonder they wanted a second CPR-certified person standing by, just in case.

The Preakness

It’s been a full weekend of racing. I’m trying to manage my injury and still accomplish some long-standing racing objectives. Balancing my injury with reaching for my goals went all right. I’ll pay the piper later tonight with soreness in my left leg undoubtedly, when the warmth generated in the leg by my physical activity goes away.

Yesterday my running club held a trio of foot races in Alexandria called the Triple Crown races. The distances emulate the three horse races in the Triple Crown, the 1.25 mile Derby, the 1.1875 mile Preakness and the 1.5 mile Belmont.

Last year I finished fifth in these three races. It’s funny how nobody suddenly gets faster over the course of an hour. I never could catch the guy ahead of me. The person behind me never could catch me. All three race cards looked pretty much the same.

My times were 8:41 (6:57), 8:26 (7:06) and 10:40 (7:07). My time for the last race, 10:40 for a mile and a half, necessitated a do-over this year.

Among the Naval Academy fitness standards is one for running. Last year a senior washed out because he couldn’t do the 1.5 mile run in 10:30. He had to reimburse Uncle Sam for four years of tuition.

My time at the Belmont (1.5 miles) was 10:40. Ten seconds too slow by Navy standards. I waited a year for the Belmont race to come around again so I could try to get my time under 10:30.

Yesterday I arrived at the races late and purposefully missed the Derby. I lined up for the Preakness and used its 1.1875 distance as a warmup. I ran slowly, studying the course. Near the end I practiced my passing and knocked off a couple of runners ahead of me. The clock was almost at nine minutes as I approached so I hurried and finished at 8:58 (7:33). For contrast, Curlin, the horse who won the race in Baltimore yesterday, covered the same distance in 1:53.

The last race for the runners was the 1.5 mile Belmont. I didn’t want to have to extend my "Navy Quest" for another full year so I concentrated on my appointed task of breaking 10:30. It’s hard to find 1.5 mile races.

The starter dropped his flag and called out, "And they’re off!" That’s horse parlance for ready-set-go.

I felt awful for the first quarter mile, very leaden and weak. Soon my breathing became regular, however, and my body felt stronger. I was glad I’d warmed up by running the Preakness. My tendinitis wasn’t "cold" anymore so it wasn’t bothering me much.

The last quarter mile I focused on making the finish line before 10:30 struck on the clock. It was already reading past 10 minutes as I approached. I carefully watched the numbers change and adjusted my speed accordingly. I passed the finish line in 10:28 (6:59). Yay! I could have been a sailor!

Today was the Capitol Hill Classic 10K/3K race. For the last two years I have formed a racing team at my agency to run in the 3K. Bex is a guest runner on the team. Last year she was third in the 3K race.

Bex beat A, who had just finished running the 10K twenty minutes earlier, by four seconds a year ago. We won the team 3K competition last year, with myself, Bex and A providing all the scoring for the team in that order. (Last year at the Capitol Hill Classic 3K, I spent the 2d half of the race chasing down this young runner who would stumble forward until I came up on him, then spurt forward again. It was maddening. My teammates Bex and the exhausted A were both driving hard at my heels the entire way, less that 30 seconds behind me. I finished 19th in the race.)

I admired A for doing a double last year and doing so well in both races. She was fourth in the 3K after finishing in the top 5% in the 10K. The 10K has a killer hill in the last mile which is a quarter-mile long. I wanted to be like A.

So this year I planned to do the double. I also recruited my agency’s rock star, G, to be on the 3K team. He was doing the 10K anyway so this meant he would do a double too. Bex was repeating and A was going to concentrate of the 3K this year. Along with newcomer P, the team was ready.

How did it all go? Pretty well. Maybe Bex already has a posting saying how we did. If not, you’re just gonna have to wait til a later post to find out.