1.5 mile run test

Today was homework day. The assignment was to head to the track and run 6 laps to give me my 1.5 mile time. Sounds easy enough. I am well aware that it is only a number and really means nothing, but for types like myself who tend to complicate things, and the fact that this number will be a number that I will have to live with for the rest of the semester, I needed to do my research.

As well as finding out about fitness standards (which include the 1.5 mile run test) for various Police and Fire agencies, I found a reliable (good to know) website where you enter your sex, age, time and distance, and it gives you your fitness rating along with VO2 Max, population average, blah blah blah. Of course I needed to know where I fit in, so I entered in all of my information with a very achievable time, it gave me a “good” rating. As I am all about the challenge, I changed the numbers and came up with a time that I thought I would have to push myself to achieve and hit the calculate button, it gave an “excellent” rating, I like excellent, so I now had a goal time in my head. I did some fancy calculations giving me my per lap time necessary to achieve my goal, threw in a 15 second buffer just in case, you never know.

I was a bit nervous heading to the track, there are a lot of “young things” in my class, how fast would they run I don’t want to be the slowest… too much thinking.

I arrived at the track, put my headphones on and started my 10 minute warm-up. To make my run stupid proof I decided to run my first lap in lane 6, second lap in lane 5, you get my point, finishing my last lap in lane 1 (I know the track distance is measured by the inside lane, but I didn’t want to take any chances and lose count). So here I go, lap 1 went well, 14 seconds quicker than my goal lap time, lap 2 – 11 seconds faster than the goal, lap 3 – 12 seconds faster, lap 4 – 14 seconds faster, lap 5 – 20 seconds faster and lap 6 – 17 seconds faster. When I finished I felt good, not over exerted but definitely working 85% and most importantly for me a time that I could live with for the rest of the semester (it would also qualify me to pass the 1.5 mile run test for the Vancouver Police Academy physical fitness abilities test, also good to know)

When I got home I plugged in my new time to the online calculator knowing full well the answer, what can I say it was a proud moment. At the risk of crushing myself for the rest of the day, I had to know so I changed my age to 20 and hit calculate….”excellent”!