A Healthy Dose of Reality

Once I figured out the best way to go about training I had to turn my thoughts in to actions. First order of business was getting in to the Parisi Speed School at USTC. I called them up, set up my first meeting with them, and headed out there the next day. The two guys who run my training are Gary and Eric and they really are superb. They truly know what they're talking about and they are very easy to get along with. I was very happy with how well that turned out. The first couple of times I met with them was a combination of them showing me how they would train me as well as them testing me to see where I was athletically.

For the Four Item Test the letter I received luckily gave me the times/scores that they expected me to get for them. They said that for the 30m sprint I needed a time in the 4.00s or better; for the 30m fly-in a time in the 3.20s or better; for the vertical jump a height of 30" or better and for 5 hop test a distance of 14 meters or better. I felt that going in to the testing, with no formal training, that I would be right around most of those marks. With my track training in high school (I did the long/triple/high jump) I was confident that my vertical jump and 5 hop test would go well and that the sprinting would be fine.

We started with the 5 hop test which I did the first run at a distance of 43'10''. Not too bad in that it equates to about 13.37 meters. I then did the vertical jump test...yikes. I only got 25.5" and was very unhappy with myself on that. I know for a fact that my vertical jumping ability used to be higher so I was quite upset. I redeemed myself a little bit on my second go-round with the 5 hop test when I got 45' even (13.716 meters). I gave the vertical jump another couple tries but nothing exceeded my previous mark.

The next Monday (yesterday) started my formal training at Parisi. They took it easy on me the first week and told me flat out that Monday's workout would be brutal. They didn't disappoint. My training consisted of side-squats with a very thick bungee cord tied around my ankles, tire flips with a 175lb tractor tire and sled pulling both forward and backward. I also had some sprinting and jumping thrown in there with abs at the end.

However, the big news of the day involved my sprint testing. Eric wanted to test me on my 30 meter sprint from a standing start so that we knew how far we had to go. I knew that I wanted to walk in to the tryout at Lake Placid and blow them away with my scores. In a sprint that is that short, every hundreth of a second counts. I figured if I ran around a 4.1 that I would be in good shape to improve my time to about a 3.8 or 3.7 if I was lucky. I wanted to get well below a 4.00 in April. Eric had me sprint three times with him hand-timing me. He refused to tell me my times until I was completely finished. Begrudgingly, I finished the sprints with only my mind telling me if I was improving or not each run. At the end of the third run I asked him my times and he told me: .................. 3.65, 3.62 and 3.56! I was absolutely floored! (For a reference point that would give me a 40 time of around 4.5/4.6. Marques Colston-the rookie Wide Receiver for the New Orleans Saints ran a 4.55 last year at the NFL Combine) After asking him if he got the times right and if I actually ran 30 meters I started celebrating. He was really excited too and said that with a crouched start and two months of training I could get my time down to a 3.2. That's the time that they expect you to run for the fly-in!

That was the first time in this whole experience that I really felt like I have a shot at this. My next step is to contact the Pilates trainer and continue to work on my sprinting as well as my overall body strength. I'm feeling more and more confident as the training gets harder and more and more motivated by each passing day.

62 more days!!