running squares

Sir has said I am finally starting to impress him so I better not fuck up. He has me do my warm up of 100 situps (4 second intervals) and 50 pushups (2 minute allowance) I got off to a bad start when I missed the mark by 5 pushups, sir then hands me two 1KG dumbbells and tells me to run the 2.5 km course, he will be waiting at the end. I try to pace myself and go as fast as I can, I thought I did well but at the end sir tells me I was a minute over my best time. And still 3 minutes outside the accepted army time. He tells me that I will be punished for this, he sets up a square out of markers, 3 markers to a side, and 5 meters between each marker. He tells me to run from one marker to the next then jog from that marker to the next one. Which will then bring me to a corner, he tells me that at each corner I am to drop and do 10 pushups and 20 situps, he tells me that I am going to do this course till I can no longer stand. I manage two corners before I collapse, sir comes over and fully boots me in the ribs which hurts like hell and tells me to finish the course. I manage to finish it and then he ties a tire around my waist with 3 meters of slack between me and the tire, he tells me that if the tire knocks over any markers he will be sitting on it and I will be dragging them both. The tire has to fully clear the corners as well. So I am back to sprint and then jogging. It is not long before I collapse in exhaustion and even sir booting me in the ribs again can not get me up. He tells me that I am not progressing at a pace he is pleased with, and he will be increasing the intensity of the workouts until I reach a level that satisfies him.

Ascend

While I am waiting for sir in the park he messages me and tells me to head to the carpark. I see his truck parked there and go over, he tells me to hop in and I do so. He tells me that we’re going to play a little game called fox and the hare, and that I am the hare. I am a little nervous at this point. Particularly when I realize where he is headed. There is a hill near the city (called a hill but its 5m shy of being a mountain) that is very popular for people to use to walk, run, jog, cycle and generally workout on. It also has a number of unsealed tracks that you can take to the summit. Sir pulls up near the start of one of these tracks and tells me I have a 5 min head start, if he catches me it will be 30 pushups for me, and if he gets back to the car more then 3mins ahead of me, I will be walking the 10k’s back to the park to get my car.

He says go and I jump out and start up the track, I am really nervous now, because not only do I not know the track so not sure how I should pace myself, but like I said this is a very popular track and there are heaps of people on it. So getting around them is very hard. I manage to push past a lot of people and earn a few nasty comments for my trouble but I am more concerned with the fact that there is a guy hot on my tail rather then pissing off strangers. The last part of the track is 5 full minutes of steep stairs. By the time I get to the top I am stuffed for not pacing myself properly since I had no idea of the upcoming terrain. I start down the hill on the road. I am walking at first cause I am still exhausted but since I know sir knows the track and is fitter then me he will probably be not far behind me so I force myself to start jogging. I manage to jog the whole way down. Can just see the car when I hear someone coming up behind me, I look over my shoulder and see sir coming up fast, I manage to put in one last sprint and make it to the car before he catches me. he tells me he is impressed and was sure that he would have been driving off without me, he tells me that we will be doing this again one time, but next time I will only have a 4 minute head start and I will be carrying weights.

PACK RUN

Next training session I arrive at the designated area and am waiting doing my stretches like sir has shown me. Sir pulls up and gets out, goes to the back of his truck and pulls out a whole armful of army gear which he comes over and dumps at my feet, he hands me a pair of army pants and tells me to go change into them in a nearby toilet block. When I come back he tells me since my times where so bad last time I will be building up resistance over the next few weeks so that I will be able to go faster. He then tells me to strap on the army webbing and do my pushups with it on. This was damn hard and sir was standing close to me so that he could boot me in the side without anyone noticing, if I staying on the ground to long.

Once these where done sir had me stand up and go to the signpost we use as the starting marker for our runs, he then handed me a large square piece of metal pipe with a handle on it and told me that this was the same weight as a rifle, and used to simulate them in practise runs. He then told me I was to run 5k with all this gear and he would be running beside me to ‘encourage’ me. the 5k with the ‘gun’ and the webbing with waterbottles and stuff hanging from it was so damn hard. And he was beside me telling me if I didn’t run faster he would make me do more pushups. When we got back to the park he finally let me take the webbing off and set up the markers for more sprints, I only managed to do the first 3 out of 12 before I collapsed and after a LOT of boot prodding and yelling sir finally gave up. He told me to head to his place and be lying under his computer desk ready to be his footstool when he got there, so I had to lie with my knees scrunched up and cramping while he rested his feet on my chest making it hard to breathe for the next 2 hours. He finally let me go with a warning to do better next time.