Pack Test

Bright and early Saturday morning at 8:30 am and 35 degrees the boys were going to take their pack test. They finished their Wildland 2 cert and needed their pack test done to finish their certs and needed sent off soon. So they arranged to get it done now. Chris and his long legs usually flys through it. My job was to walk with Todd and help him keep pace. I wasnt going to wear a vest since mine technically isnt due til March/April, that way I could go to the gym more and prep for it. I was solely the motivator. Well thats not what happened. We showed up and Dad said I brought a vest for you too! Son of a! So now I get to do it too. 

The way a pack test goes is you have to wear a 45lb vest and walk 3 miles in 45 minutes. That sounds not that bad but its hell! We vested up, Dad started the time and we were off. Our course was a mile and a half so we had to do the 2 laps. We figured if we had a 20 minute lap that gave us an extra 5 minutes on the 2nd lap just in case we needed it. So we set off for a 20 minute mile and a half. My calves were screaming. We had to do some bounce downhill walking to stretch them out. We made the first loop in 18 min. We were pushing it hard. I was happy that we had an extra 4 minutes to not worry about. Chris was out of our sight by this point.

I was doing really good the first lap. I tried to stay one step ahead of Todd so it would push him and make him go fast. The thing with that is hes a fast walker! He normally is faster than me so I really had to push it to push him lol. The second lap we were even until the last half of the last lap. I ran out of gas. My legs were screaming. My nose was running down my throat so I was trying not to puke. My arms were FROZEN since I was just in a Tshirt ( I had a hoodie on but took it off since I had to put a vest on) 

We had just gone over pathophysiology so thats all I could think about. I was having a hard time breathing and kept thinking I have to breathe deep into the bottom of my lungs because the airs just going into the dead space and Im not getting adequate profusion. I need to have aerobic metabolism not anerobic so it will create ATP and will make more energy to give me more energy to finish the walk. Im too nerdy for my own good sometimes.

We were in our finally stretch. Chris had finished, threw off his vest and took off jogging to find us and motivate us along. He thought we were going to be WAY behind him. He finally found us a lot closer than we expected. We only had just over a tenth of a mile to go. We crossed the finish line!

Chris finished in 30.17 and Todd and I finished at 37.11

I was super happy with that time! I didnt care if I got 45.00 as long as I made it. 

We took off our vests, put on our jackets and took a we survived picture

 Fire Marshall One officated it for us

Woo hoo we dont have to do that again for another year!!