US navy seals fitness test

During the weekend the girls informed us that we were going to do the US navy seals fitness test.

We'd done the US marines physical fitness test because Magnus Midtbø did it.

And followers that we are, when Magnus did the navy seals test, we thought "why not?"

The first event, unsurprisingly, is swimming.  According to Magnus it's 500 yards (457m) breaststroke with head up out of the water (or side stroke).

The thing is, I'm not a swimmer; I can barely swim.  This means head up breaststroke is kinda my style, because I can't do much else.  But 450 metres?  I'd never done that before, so my aim was simply slow and steady to try to complete the distance.

But Mulan and Miya are great swimmers.  The hardest thing for them is having to keep their heads up -- it's painful on the neck and harder to glide.  And Mama's not too bad, either.

Anyway, on Sunday the four of us biked to the Takapuna swimming pool.

The pool is 33.3 metres long, and so we decided to do 14 lengths (466.2m, or 509.8 yards) -- close enough is good enough.

According to Magnus, a competitive swim is 8 minutes, while the minimum is 12:30 min.  Magnus did it in 10:30 min and his girlfriend did it in 15:43 min.

Mulan and Miya went first, with Mama and me next.  Our results were:

Mulan: 11:53 min
Mama: 15:11 min
Me: 17:48 min
Miya: 18:00 min

So, Mulan passed, but the rest of us failed.  (But at least my wife beat Magnus' girlfriend!!!)

After the swim we're supposed to also do:

• sit ups in 2 min (min 50; competitive 80-100)
• push ups in 2 min (min 50; competitive 80-100)
• pull ups, with no time limit
• 1.5 mile (2.4 km) run (min 10:30 min; competitive 9-10 min)

But we decided to get our money's worth at the pool, and tire ourselves out with more swimming.  We'll do the other events another day.