The Challenge consists of:

swim 500 yards (side or breast stroke). Rest ten minutes.

push-ups; as many as possible in two minutes. Rest two minutes.

sit-ups; as many as possible in two minutes. Rest two minutes.

pull-ups; as many as possible, no time limit. Rest ten minutes.

run 1.5 miles.

Navy SEALs Odie and Otter shepherded our group of about 40 competitors through the exercises. The first event wasn’t bad as we all swim regularly at the Y. Maxing out push-ups is pretty tough though – elbows had to break 90 degrees going down and arms had to be extended when up. As soon as your knees (or face) hit the mat you were done. Any rest you got was done in a plank position. Believe it or not, two minutes is a long time when you are doing push-ups. Brian took the steady approach not stopping at all. I did thirty, then sets of five, resting in between.

By now you must be wondering why would anyone want to be doing this on a nice, chilly Saturday morning. T-shirts, of course. White for competitors who complete the exercises but fail to meet each of the SEAL standards to get into BUD/S, tan for ones that meet the standards, and the coveted blue ones for those who meet the “competitive” standards. These requirements and our scores are outlined in the table below.

After a couple minutes of refreshing rest we were on to sit-ups. To be a successful rep the elbows must touch knees and shoulders must touch ground on return. You can only rest only in the up position. After the sit-ups we went outside for the pull-up portion. Your chin had to go all the way over the bar and on return you had to have your arms all the way extended. Brian excelled with 16 pull-ups.

For me the run was the worst. Besides being dump truck slow I really just don’t like to run. Maybe there’s a correlation – still trying to think through that one. In any event, Brian was his usual fast self, Britt managed tan shirt time, the boys did great, and I was close to dead last in our group.

As I reflect on the event and the 50 or so minutes that it took for us to complete it I am reminded that we are just amateurs, feeling all good about ourselves that we can do x amount of whatever in a certain amount of time. Odie and Otter, and guys like them, are out living very dangerous lives so we can go to work, kiss the wife and kids and think less about reality than we really should. In the end, we said our thank-yous and said that we appreciated the work that they are doing, but those words cannot express the true understanding of the sacrifices that the Navy SEALs make on our behalf. A pretty cool bunch of folks who we can only pretend to stand next to.

More photos will be posted here.

Here’s what we swam and the results:

Mark Metz – 200 IM, 100 breast stroke, 100 IM
Brian Green – 500 freestyle, 100 freestyle, 100 butterfly
Sue Sinclair – 500 freestyle, 100 freestyle
Angus McRae – 100 breast stroke, 100 butterfly
Britt Dobbins – Oh yeah, nevermind, he showed up last week.

IM stands for Individual Medley which is butterfly, back stroke, breast stroke and freestyle. It also starts the phrase, “IM out of #%&@ air!”

Even though I’d shaved my head for St. Baldrick’s none of the other swimmers seemed intimidated. Somehow I was counting on that as my only way to take gold. In the end I swam a respectful third place in each event for my age category. I’ll credit Mark for some good coaching and Dr. Sellers for insisting I start to exercise.

Swimming is great exercise and I’d recommend it to anyone. It’s not hard on the knees and you don’t get the road rash/broken bones (Steve) like you do biking. There’s a lane for everyone from the fastest to the slowest. And, you’ll get to know some great people along the way…