One more NSV from the weekend

Man it was a seriously great weekend (and week actually) for me. For those that aren't familiar I am a soccer referee and each year we are required to go through a re-certification which includes classroom instruction, a written exam and a phyiscal fitness test. I've already posted about a huge NSV (and goal) that I achieved on Saturday.

Well Sunday was the day we were to run the physical fitness test. We were supposd to do it in the morning but due to thunderstorms flooding the track we had to push it off to the afternoon. By the time the track was ready to go, it was 3:00PM and the weather was in the 90's with about 70% humidity and clear sunny skies; not the ideal running conditions. The fitness test consists of six 40m sprints which must be completed in 6.8 seconds or less each, following by interval runs of 150m in 35secs (a 6 minute mile pace I believe) and 50m recovery walk for 40secs. The intervals are repeated 20 times (a total of 4000m or 10 laps around the track). Out of 24 people who took the test, only about 12-14 actually passed. We were broken up into three groups of eight and out of my group only 3 finished. I'm proud to say I was one of the 3 in our group that passed!!!

It was a great feeling. Those who've read my profile or some of my other posts know that I've been concerned about being the "old fat guy" on the field which was part of my motivation for my lifestyle change. Well on this day, I watched other referees both older and younger than I bow out and quit the fitness test. I'll admit, it was pretty tough for me to complete but dang it I pushed through and got there. I'd have liked to have been in better shape for it, but I passed and that's all that matters. Being able to complete it when people I thought were in far better shape than I who couldn't do it definitely gave me a boost of confidence.