We have been attempting to clean up and organize and purge in recent months. In the process I found a scrap of paper that shows my enduring lack of athleticism.
There is an award called the Presidential Fitness Award. Every year in PE we all had to do certain activities to attempt to win it. To receive the award you must reach the 85th percentile in every area. It was torture for me. I would have preferred to just skip it as I already knew the outcome. There was no hope in hell. And in my case hell = PE.
Here are my results.
50 yard dash - 26-29th%
600 yard run - 75% (my shining moment)
Long Jump - 30%
Shuttle run - 70%
Sit ups - 16-19%
Flexed arm hangs - 11-14% (My most dreaded second of the year)
My average percentile, 38%. Complete and utter failure. No wonder I hated doing it. It was in the midst of these years that any joy I got from exercise was squeezed out of me by middle school PE.
This may come as a shock to those that know how I feel about running. But I ran a race once. Voluntarily. It was in elementary school. I seem to recall that it was kind of fun. The photo of me shows me all smiles with my atrocious headgear glinting in the sun. I didn't win anything. I never did it again. I believe more because it wasn't something my mother was interested in rather than a lack of enjoyment. We lived in the sticks and if mom wasn't interested there wasn't much I could do about it.
Does this make me think I should take up running again? No. The only exercise that I have ever enjoyed was walking up a butte everyday. I don't know why it didn't get old. I did it by myself every day, late in the afternoon. It was a mile up and a mile down following the road around the butte. I often ran stairs at the top. I was in awesome shape. I think it was because I loved the views. I could see for miles in every direction, all the way to the mountains. There were always plenty of people around, so it wasn't scary or lonely. I haven't been able to find anything else since.
3 comments:
That is so great that you found that piece of paper. Although it brings back unpleasant memories, it is a part of your youth. Now I understand a little better your distaste for exercise.
That being said, I love your description of your walks, and I am determined to help you find some type of exercise you love. (And it doesn't have to be running for us to be friends!)
Instead of flexed arm hangs, we did pull ups back in my day. They were the bane of my existence. Even as a middle school and high school athlete of reasonable skill and ability, I was never able to do pull ups. Never. By then, though, as long as I could master my free throw and jump shot, I no longer cared. Too much.
Walking is wonderful and doesn't cost a penny. I miss it.
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