jog over, do your workout, jog home...just my $0.02...the run over and back will be a good warm-up and cool-down, assuming the distance is around 2.5-3 miles...

Went to a bar last weekend with an old friend of mine who is in the reserves. he brought a buddy along who is in the nasty guard as well. Got to talking to his buddy and when he asked what I do with the national guard he was impressed. I told him about comming over to my unit. He said " i dont know if i'm cut out for that, but I would love to work out with you, i really need to get in shape" Now he has been at the gym right by my side every day this week, hanging in there with me.

Every time I go to the gym, i usually talk to somebody. You'd be surprised at how many people out there would be willing to help you out.

Now go make friends :cool:

Ruck over.

Deruck.

Run.

Reruck.

Ruck home.

Repeat as needed.

Do not run with the ruck, and I would avoid rucking down steep, irregular surfaces.

TR

Is there perchance a road nearby? You could always ask a family member/friend to drive you on the road, and you could jump out at selected intervals (based off the vehicle odometer) with some marking tape to put on a nearby tree/phone pole, or with spray paint to hit a couple rocks so you know how far you've gone, and when to turn around. You could do the same thing by borrowing a buddy's bicycle with an odometer. Get your pacecount for 100m (go use a local football field), then use that to measure distance. That'll be good practice for land nav, and give your mind something to focus upon besides pain or boredom. Go to mapquest.com and enter your address and a couple local addresses, then use the 'get directions' feature to tell you how far away they are (by road). In essence, find another way to solve your current unknown distance problem; there are plenty out there if you think about it.

Sir the only problem I see with him using a football field, is that there is a slight difference in yards and meters (1 yard = 0.91 meters) which would make a 100 yard football field = 91.44 meters. Now if I remember correctly, and the lines are still marked, starting from the back of the endzone (not always the goal post either) and going to the end of the opposite endzone would make 110 yards, resulting in 100.5 meters. That has got to be the nerdiest thing I ever figured up, courtesy of www.onlineconversion.com

Also, basically what the professionals are saying is....think outside the box. You have an obstical, are you gonna let it stop you or will you see it as an opportunity for success? The ball is in your court, now get creative with it. I'll give you an example. At first I thought all I had to run around here was 1/4 mile tracks, or long flat marked trails. Well one day I was going to camp with some buddies in the local state park. Everything is pretty much flat here. Well, I get to the park and I'm driving through, and I notice that there are some serious hills. My 4-banger ford also let me know that these weren't small hills either. Next I noticed markings on the road, so I investigate. Sure enough, they where markings for 1 mile intervals painted on the road, to double check i set my odometer between marks. I also knew that local cross country teams at area high schools have meets out here, and that the trail extends all the way around the lake, covering hills, dirt, sand, gravel, pavement, and only half of the course is in shade. Where do you think I spend my time running/rucking now?

Sorry if i'm over stepping my small boundries gentlemen, standing by to push accordingly if needed.

well, you'd be hard pressed or hard corps to do three or four miles of fartlek...look at the variety of workouts on the website i posted...there are differing speeds that you can run at...when i was a platoon trainer in IOBC, we would start off with the first mile at about an 8 minute pace...second mile would be at a 6:30 pace, third mile back down to 8 minutes, fourth mile at 7 minutes, last mile at 8 minutes...within about a month, we were starting at a 7:30 pace, dropping down to sub-six minute miles, slowing to seven minutes, dropping down to six minutes, maybe six and a quarter, then slowing down to 6:45, with a cool-down mile at seven and a half minutes...i used to get called on the carpet because my platoons didn't call cadence...that's life at the Infantile Center...at the end of an IOBC class, my 32 year old ass was hard pressed to push a bunch of 23 year old lieutenants who had been trained by a sadistic SF type, but that was part of the reward... :D

that's one way to use the technique...another way is to run a mile at an 8 minute pace then run quarters alternating between a 1:30 quarter and 2:00 quarter...do that for two miles...run another mile at 8 minutes...after you toughen to that, up the pace, increase the distance...run a mile and a half at a 7:45 per mile pace, run a quarter at 1:25, another at 1:50...whatever works for you...the trick is you have to identify a training site to facilitate this...the distances don't have to be exact...you can run fartleks by time, especially if you have one of those beeping watches with interval timers...you can use fire hydrants, crosswalks, trees, any landmark to start and end your intervals...

if you do six miles of speed interval training, varying your speed, you will increase your speed over six miles provided you never run slower than your current speed...you can cheat yourself doing fartleks...i know some guys that run a really smoking interval, but will slow to 9 minutes between intervals...this isn't going to get you where you are going...fartleks are all about pushing your limits...if you normally run 7:45 miles, you can slow to, maybe 8:15 between intervals, but you'd better be pushing 6:45 or 7:00 to get anything out of the enterprise...

if you can find a track, or since you use a baseball field for speed work, you can do this...run four laps (on the track or six laps around the warning track on a baseball field) at a warm-up pace...spring the straight aways-foul lines, run the curves...do this for sixteen laps on a track (24 laps on a baseball field)...add this regimen to your workout once a week...

another option...time yourself around the track or the baseball field, while you are running at your PT test pace...on a track, you should be able to determine your mile speed...anyway, if you are running 7 minute miles, you need to jog a quarter at 2:00, run a quarter at 1:30 (your target speed should be no slower than 6:00 miles)...on a baseball field, you are going to have to adapt...maybe if you are running a 7 minute pace around the field, you'll finish a lap in 1:30...those are you base speeds and you need to proportion your speed work to hit a 6 minute mile...that would be a 1:15 lap around the baseball field...

fartleks are a sloooooooow way to build endurance, but an effective way to increase speed...to gain speed and endurance, you have to alternate your work outs...i don't know how far you are from reaching your speed goal, but i'd incorporate fartleks into my training a couple of days a week...one time do a mile at a quicker pace than normal, then next time you do them, increase the speed but shorten the distance for you speed intervals...

for goodness sake, if you are aiming at a career in SF, you are going to have to learn to improvise...take a can of spray paint...pace off 400 meters, make a mark...pace off another 400 meters, make a mark...do this along a route you normally run...

another $0.02 observation...quit looking at the obstacles and start looking for solutions...a Special Forces soldier spends most of his time overcoming inconvenience to get things done...no time like the present to start doing just that...

i hate to sound crass or coarse, but i got mine...you need to figure out how to get yours...but keep us posted, we can help...you are in a situation where you need to be creative...that should help in the long run...

Exactly.

screw the metric-SAE conversion...go run...do push-ups...make something happen... :munchin

What is this? Did RL take a new username? ;) LOL


BS2004-
You are not showing any aptitude for operating in an ambiguous environment. TO be frank, this topic isn't very ambiguous either. Are you really having this much trouble figuring out how to do your PT... Does it really take the advice of several experienced QP's just to make you sure of yourself? :confused:

I'm not gonna give advice about rucking... but I know you have been given enough to do in this thread to keep you busy for a while. When you hit your personal best times (in your opinion), then come back and ask another fifty questions on how to get over the plateau. Until then, you are just typing instead of running/rucking/strength training. If you have any more questions on this topic... I suggest you click this link first for your answer.
CLICK THIS

Good Luck

another good link for a lot of the new guys here looking for "the magic trick" is to check out THIS THREAD posted by Mr. NDD.

Did my first 1000M swim today.......bilateral breathing is the friggin' heat compared to what i was doing. thanks again to all the great advice on swimming.

I do have a question about the fartalik(sp?) running. Is it safe to say, you can increase the distance, or the time, or the speed, but never all three at once?

fartlek....is it safe? you will not explode if you increase the distance, speed and time on the same day...you may not feel like working out the next day, though...it depends...if you are in decent shape and pretty close to your fitness goal (6:00 miles or faster), then you could easily increase time, speed and distance from workout to workout...if you are struggling to gain speed, a more conservative approach should be taken...push yourself, firmly, but gently...then once you start to feel comfortable, push harder...hell, just go ahead and call him 'Sir'... :munchin

don't feel left out...same happened to me... :confused: