Physical Test

What a day, today was physical day. The requirements for the physical can be found at: http://www.stepforward.wa.gov.au/pdf...0specific_.pdf

Before I get into today, I want to talk about the week leading up to it.

Training, training, training, I had been practicing and training this regime for a year, once a week minimum.
This close into it, I stopped all my other workouts. I wanted to dedicate to this.

My schedule was this:
5AM - Go down to Park and do entire physical test.
7AM - Be at work.
5PM - Go down to Park and do entire physical test.
7PM - Start other job that I do from home.
10PM - Sleep.

Rinse, repeat.

I would not only do this, but I would do the beep test with a fully zipped up hoodie, and I would move the markers to 21 meters instead of 20. From what I've read this is a bad thing because it can stuff up your timing, but I wanted to make it that little bit harder and it worked well for me.

On Saturday/Sunday I may as well have wrapped myself in cotton wool, I tried to do as little as possible, everything hurt and I'd been training myself to complete exhaustion twice a day. Once again, this is a bad thing and considered overtraining, but I know my body and I know how to listen to my body, and I knew I could take it and I wanted this more then anything, and I wanted to be sure I gave this absolutely everything.

So I did virtually nothing, Till Sunday night just as the sun was setting, I was just so eager I went down to the park and I practiced the agility test, over and over, swearing at myself yelling at myself to go faster, I think I was there for over 3 hours, going over it, and over it, and over it. I went home, had a shower, ate 2 huge bowls of wholegrain spaghetti with kangaroo mince, put on my 2XU leggings and went to sleep.

I woke up at 6AM, had my oats and protein shake, hydrated and prepared myself.
I arrived at the recruitment centre and took a seat, others quickly started coming in, a few familiar faces from the testing phase and a few non-familiar.

Around 30 of us were walked across the facility to the gymnasium.

Now, I had been training in a hot Perth outside environment. I was now in an enclosed air conditioned gym. Another thing was the markings of 20 metres seemed so much shorter, this is due to the enclosed environment rather then then middle of the park.

2 Personal trainers introduce themselves, and around 5 police officers with clipboards sit against the wall.

This is where the differences to my training and the real thing start to kick in. My warmup in my testing had been a light jog for about 5 minutes, then high knees for 2 minutes, 2 minutes of butt kicks, then 2 minutes of starjumps, followed by 30 pushups.

The real test? A light jog around the basketball court, half a court of high knees, the other half buttkicks and then some pivot turns followed by some static stretches. I was in shock, where was my warmup?!! That was too easy! I wasn't puffing at all, in fact it was too cold in this room!

They had us put on some bibs and allocated into 2 groups, I was in group 1 and we had to start the beep test immediately, once again another change form how the website described it. We are given a 2 metre "safety" marker on both sides, if we don't reach the line, no big deal, just have to hit those safety markers, also, don't have to be fully over the line, just 1 foot, I did the entire thing with a smile on my face till I looked over and it was just me and 1 guy still going, already well past the required 10.1 level. Knowing I had to save some energy for the battery of tests still to come and knowing I had passed and this guy wasn't showing any signs of wanting to stop either, I let him have his glory and walked off the court. I was sweating a bit and had a quick sip of water. We had to wait for the 2nd group to do the beep test and we all had to come back in again.

It was then time for the Glock firearms test, we had to rack the firearm and shoot 10 times, then hold the glock in a racked position for 4 seconds 3 times over. It wasfairly straight forward and I did it with ease, I saw some of the girls struggling with the movement and not sure if they eventually got it or not. The push/pull machine was next, where I had to push a machine in with a 20kg suspended weight and Arc around the machine 6 times, then same with Pulling the machine. I did it on first attempt. 1 more obstactle to go, the dreaded agility test. Which is a Modified Illinois Agility test of 9.14 metres, to be completed in under 17.0 seconds. I was able to successfully get this about 75% of the time, you would have 2 attempts. So I turn around to look at the course. on the website in the diagram it is shown as a Square, but the cones were so much closer here in a rectangular fashion, almost cutting the course in half of what I had been practicing. They called out our names 1 by 1 and we got into position.
APPLICANT READY. START, The first guy forgets to weave through the markers twice, we all see it and grit our teeth. He is told he was unsuccessful.
The next person gets up, and starts to do it, as shes coming back I yell out "DONT FORGET TO WEAVE BACK" she does it, and on the final sprint home I yell out "COMON SPRINT IT HOME!" she sprints as hard as she can, looks over at the instructor and a "Ok" and a nod is given. every person after that, me and a group of guys direct them through the course at every manuvoure, encouraging them to really give it everything they have. Some make it and some don't.
My name is finally called. This is going to sound soooo silly, but I really psych myself up, I'm going to sprint this as hard and as fast as I can. As I get into position, I pretend I'm Vegeta from Dragonball Z, That sort of furosity and energy is what I want to posess, I will go as fast as I possibly can, I have trained for too long, too hard and want this too hard to fuck this up. I'm 17 seconds away from beling a Police officer, I am 8 markers away. I can do this.

START! I blast off, I grit my teeth as hard as I can and i mean GRIT them, I give every drop of energy into every leap, I pivot the turns and then I bring it home, and I mean I really give it every bit of juice I have, I look over to my right to the instructor, "OK" *NOD*, "Next Applicant!"
I pound my fist in the air, I can taste blood in my mouth and I'm panting like crazy, the blokes congrats me and we all shake hands, We shout encouragements at the other applicants,some don't make it and I really feel for 1 guy who must of been so close.

The people that remain all have smiles on our faces, we joke about eating some junk food and going to the pub and we leave. 1 bloke who didn't make it I saw outside. I let him know he did really well and must of been so close, I give him my phone number and let him know that if he wants a training partner I'm happy to meet up with him and train with him and get him over that line.

So that's it, I'm done. I find out in 6-8 weeks if I'm in or not. I can finally rest, even if I don't get in, I know I gave this my all now, there wasn't 1 thing I could of put more energy in, and I won't walk away from this saying "Oh gee, if only I tried harder" so I'm happy now, regardless of the outcome, in my mind, I've been successful.