Run, Mutt, Run

With little over a month left, I still have to prepare for the CFA. Here's what I have to do for a top score :

Event ..................................Male .............................................. Female
BB. Throw .......................... 102 .................................................... 66
Pull-Ups .............................. 18 ....................................................... 7
Shuttle Run ........................ 7.8 sec. ............................................. 8.6 sec.
Sit-ups .............................. 95 .......................................................95
Push-ups.............................75 .................................................... 50
Mile Run ............................ 5:20................................................... 6:00

You get two minutes for each, unless the score is a time, and three tries on the throw.

Now, I don't play sports. My school has no teams, and I'm better at individual sports anyway. I do run, love to swim, and I'm willing to try playing just about anything (I want to play rugby sometime, looks violent) although I've never actually trained. I'm actually fairly athletic.

Push-ups, however will be a problem. The arms are willing, but the core is weak. Basically, a push-up is holding the plank while your arms do the macarena.

The plank: put your body in push-up position but rest on your forearms. Stay there. The following timeline shows the important incidents when I do the plank:

0:00 seconds: begin
0:50 seconds: start to tremble
0:55 feel back start to bow down, tighten stomache muscles and tremble even more.
Between 1:05 and 1:10 tightening muscles no longer has any effect on stability, I'm headed toward the ground whether I like it or not.
1:20 I'm making maximum effort even though my whole body is on the ground and my trembling muscles have reached Richter 8.
1:25 Collapse, luckily, there's nowhere to fall.

I'm getting measurably better, though. I can do 17 push-ups in a row. Hurray.

I can't do a single pull-up properly (I can do a couple if my hands are facing away from me). It's another case where my energy goes into shivering. There has to be a more efficient way to do this.

Sit-ups won't be a problem. I'm progressing with the basketball throw. I hurt my knee...

I run around my back yard for excercise. It's sloped and full of trees and broken branches to dodge. I trot doggedly up-slope and race across the level part leaping over fallen trunks and run back down. Speed isn't a problem here, judging the depth of the overgrown grass is. Suddenly, my leg is in the hole left from a rotten tree stump and temporarily delayed while the rest of me tries to leave it behind, forgetting that we're connected by some seriously loyal ligaments intent on keeping us together. My knee explodes in the ensuing battle, sending shards of bone like bloody shrapnel into the trees and an exposed artery throbs sickeningly, crimsonly in contrast with the green undergrowth...

No, of course not. I'm just kidding. It is sore, though.

On a related note, my father knows a guy well on his way to West Point who wrecked his knee (and chance of acceptance) kick starting his bike.