3 weeks until fitness test.....

jeff lebowski

Hi,

I have a fitness test for the (Irish) Army in 3 weeks time. I have been training since January and I can complete what's required for the basic entry fitness test (1.5 miles in 11.30 minutes plus sit-ups, press-ups etc.)

I went to the local track yesterday and did the 1.5 miles in dead on 10 mins. Nothing too spectacular but it's decent for me considering when I started in January I couldn't run the length of myself and hadn't been exercising for years (student lifestyle!)

What I want to know is, what kind of training should I adopt for the next 3 weeks to get that time down as much as possible?

Recently I have been doing some runs of about 5+ miles near my house and also, doing time in the gym on the treadmill doing interval training.

Also, how many days should I train? I was thinking 6 days (with varying intensity) and then a rest day?

Any advice is appreciated.

Cheers

Maars

There isn't really too much you'll be able to do in three weeks to improve your time by much. In fact the best thing you could probably do is just make sure you get plenty of rest and eat well(healthily as opposed to heartily)and maybe cut out alcohol(if you drink at all), and then don't train too hard for a few days before the test.
If you were a well trained athlete you may be able to crank out a few sessions to give you a mini-peak in 3 weeks time but given that you are only quite new to it all I'd imagine that such sessions may more likely lead to injury than big gains.
You could try a few runs of over 5 miles but again the main worry now would be that increasing the load this close to your test may lead to injury. What kind of interval work are you doing at the moment, distance/reps/times etc?

jeff lebowski

I was doing the following routine on a treadmill (for accuracy of distance, pace etc.) to build myself up:

warm up/700m/jog/900m/jog/11m/jog/1100m/jog/900m/jog/700m/cool down

The distance parts of that were run at 14.5km an hour and the jogs were for about 2 or 3 minutes between each as a recovery and it was all at a 1% incline.

I think a good target for myself on the day might be 9.30 given that I'd be pushing myself that bit harder as it's the real thing plus, I'm cutting out booze from now until then.

I don't want to overdo it, I just want to make the best use of the next 3 weeks whether that be maintain what I have or get msyelf that little bit sharper.

Also, I was wondering what sort of food or drink I should take the night before/morning of the test. Would that make much of a differance over that short a distance?

Maars

Hey thats a decent. As a thought it may be worth your while dropping the distances down for one or two of your sessions and get the tread mill up to 16k, just to get a faster pace in your legs. What you are doing right now - speed wise) isn't much different from what you are producing in your 1.5m time trial, so no harm introducing your body to something a little faster. Try a 400/500/600/500/400 and see how that feels, but don't wait until the week of your test to try it for the first time....it could be a bit of a shock to the body.

As for food - carbo loading(in the pre-marathon sense) probably isn't going to be of any benefit over 1.5miles but it would be no harm eating a light pasta dish(no creamy sauces) the day before.....important thing is to not eat something you're not used to.

No harm sipping(not gulping) on a carbo drink throughout the morning of the test either..... oh and water........ actually, alternate sipping carb drink(lucozade sport or some such) and water.
In fact every day, drink loads of water(6 pints or so), you can't burn carbs without water....
Also might be worth while avoiding red meat for a few days before the test(the body doesn't digest that too well).

jeff lebowski

thanks for the advice

I was going to lay off the treadmill up until the test and do all my running outside, I thought that would be better as I think the treadmill is easier than outdoor running as it dictates your pace etc. I was just using it as an accurate measurement for building up a bit.

Maars

Well you don't have to do the session on a treadmill, in fact it would be no harm trying it out on a track and practice pacing yourself. 16kph is 10mph => 6min mile ~ 90secs for 400m.

If you don't want to do the full session I'd certainly advise doing some sort of 200m stride-outs i.e. some sort of session which requires running at faster than race pace.

Best of luck with it, you should post up your time when you have it done. Oh and you'll definitely run faster on the test day, its hard to recreate that adrenalin in training,