The PFT Story

It's February, and that means my birthday is coming up.  AGAIN.  Getting older really, really sucks.  I suppose it beats the alternative, but it still blows.  I guess I never really believed it would happen to me, so any time I run into an indicator, such as an ear hair (I didn't even know that was a thing), it chips away a little at my soul.

The weird thing is, I don't feel any different.  I still look pretty good, too.  I have all my hair, it's still brown, and I haven't gotten fat or anything.  I think of myself as the constant--it's the world around me that is changing, including that asshole in the mirror every morning when I shave.  I know that's not really the case, at least intellectually.  For the little guy in my head watching the movie of my life, it just looks like everyone else is starting to look really young.  I saw a state trooper the other day that looked about 11 years old, for instance.




Some disconcerting facts:

Let's talk about this.

1. My son is now older than I was when he was born.  When I was his age, I was actually bringing my second child home from the hospital.
2. I say things like "When I was his age..." all of the time now.
3. I have been in the Marine Corps for longer than many Marines have been alive.
4. My knees make a sound like I have a bag of gravel in each pocket when I climb stairs.
5. The doctor now sticks his finger in my asshole when I have a checkup.  This is a highly effective deterrent to checkups, by the way.
6. I heard an instrumental version of a rock song that was popular when I was in high school while in the waiting room at the doctor's office (That's before the finger.  After the finger, I just went straight home.)
7. Nose hair is relentless.
8. I find that I hold my breath and make weird grunting noises when I pick something up off the floor.
9. The two hairs that I used to pluck from the back of my shoulders have begun to recruit reinforcements.  
10. The guys on the Viagra commercials are my age.

All of these facts, when added together, can begin to soak through even the thickest layers of denial, and crack even the most bloated of egos.

The PFT Story

Here's a little story about when I first began to realize what was happening.

Every year, I am required to take a physical fitness test, or PFT, for the Marine Corps.  This test includes doing pull-ups, sit-ups, and a 3 mile run.  I am excellent at the first two, but I hate running.  While I was never exactly a speed demon, lately it has been getting much worse.  My performance isn't horrible yet, just not very good, but it now takes a monumental effort for me to be mediocre.  Keep that in mind as I set the stage for the rest of the story.

This was about a year and a half ago, while I was a student at the command and staff college.  It was a bright and sunny May day in Virginia, maybe about 65 degrees, light winds.  A wonderful day to be outside.  We started with the pull-ups.  Like I have said before, my two main talents are doing pull-ups and pointing out the shortcomings of others, so I quickly and easily knocked out the 20 dead-hang pull-ups required to get a maximum score, even though my shoulder had been bothering me, and was making some weird popping noises.  I also had little trouble with the abdominal crunches that pass for sit-ups in the Marine Corps these days.  Then came the run.

I wasn't particularly worried about the run, though I knew it would suck.  I figured it would all be over in twenty-something minutes or so, right?  I stretched a little and waited for everyone to get ready to start.  I had worn a warm-up jacket in that morning, and I stashed it next to a tree by the starting/finish line, putting my car keys and cell phone inside the pocket for safekeeping.  A few nervous seconds standing at the start waiting to go, and then the time keeper says "Go!" and we're off.

I felt fine.  I started my own stopwatch to keep track of how slow I was running, and fell in right behind one of the front runners.  I always do this.  I am an Alpha male.  My ego kicks in, and I decide suddenly that I just won't let any of these scrawny little runner-punks pass me.  So I don't, and I'm hauling ass.  This lasts about a half-mile or so before the realities of weighing over 200 pounds and being over 40 years old kick in.  I start getting out of breath and my heart rate climbs, and I basically feel like shit for however long it takes me to run the next two and a half miles.

That is the usual way I run these things.  I was actually doing pretty well, and made it nearly three-quarters of a mile at a blazing fast pace before reality kicked in.  This time however, it wasn't just the normal amount of suck.  Something strange began to happen.  I began to realize that my arm was starting to ache, and that my hand was numb.  I thought, "Oh, shit."

Heart problems definitely run in my family.  My father had his first heart attack when he wasn't much older than me, and he wasn't running 3 miles when it happened, either.  You read about this kind of crap all the time in the Marine Corps.  Some  42-year-old dude who is the picture of health all of a sudden drops dead, usually while running.  I really didn't want to be one of those guys.  But I still had another mile left to run for the PFT.  If I stopped right then, I would have to redo the whole test from the beginning, and I really hate taking these things.  So I decided to ignore it.  That's how stupid I am.  I think I might be having a heart attack, and my decision was to ignore it.

Well, it wouldn't be ignored.  The pain began to get worse and worse, and seemed to spread across my chest and even up to my neck.  I was gasping for breath.  Now I was becoming very alarmed, but the finish line was now less than a half of a mile away.  So once again, I decided to ignore what I was now absolutely convinced was some sort of cardiac event and just keep running.  Well, jogging at least.  I did slow way down.  Like I said before, I'm an idiot.

So, I crossed the finish line and walked straight over to the Navy Corpsman that was in attendance for the event and told him my symptoms.  I told him I thought we should get into the "safety vehicle" that was staged there and go to see a doctor.  He offered me a small paper cup of water.  I became somewhat more spirited in my request to go see someone who had actually attended medical school.  He suggested that we should wait for the PFT to be over, since he was supposed to be there in case anything happened.  I suggested that he should drive me to the medical clinic before I decided to pull his scrotum over his head.  He found this line of reasoning to be most convincing.  And so we left.

Now upon arriving at the Navy Medical Clinic aboard MCB Quantico, I walked up to the young petty officer at the desk and explained my symptoms.  She was very polite, and entered me into the computer she was sitting at.  Whatever she typed into that thing must have been some sort of code word for "middle-aged man having a heart attack" because they kind of freaked out after that.  They put me into a wheel chair and swooshed me into the back.  There they transferred me to a gurney and started attaching wires all over me.  Suddenly there were about ten people in the room.  Someone was pulling at my shirt, and then the next thing you know, they had cut it off.  Then somebody cut my shoelaces and yanked off my running shoes.  They wheeled in an EKG machine with even more wires and started trying to get an IV started in my arm.  A nurse put two aspirin in my mouth and told me to let them dissolve.  Try that sometime.  It's nasty.  I went from being somewhat concerned to being scared shitless.

The Navy Medical Clinic in Quantico doesn't have any emergency services.  They have to call for an ambulance to take any emergency cases to the hospital in Stafford, a few miles away.  I guess that explains somewhat why everyone was so excited, and maybe why they had such a time with the IV.  The people working on me were all of pretty high rank, so I guess they were the senior doctors in the clinic and didn't do IVs a lot.  They finally gave up after the ambulance crew showed up, but not before stabbing me about 12 times or so in both arms.  Once they released me to them, the fat ambulance guy got one going in about 45 seconds.  The next day both of my arms were covered in bruises.  I'm still a little pissed about that.

This was the first time I had ever been in an ambulance that I can remember (I was in one many years ago, but was passed out.  A story for another time.), and I was now quite thoroughly upset.  The fat ambulance guy asked me about my pain in my arm and chest, asking me if it was the same.  I realized that no, it was getting a little better.  My fingers were still kind of numb, but the aching pain in my shoulder and chest was not as bad.  He told me I was fine and stable, and that it looked like I was fine.  I realized that he was probably right, and started to not feel as scared.  Then I just felt foolish.

We made it to the hospital in just a few minutes, and they wheeled me straight into the emergency room.  I told the doctor that I was feeling better, though my arm still ached quite a bit, and they did a blood test to see if I had had a heart attack.  I had not.  To make this long story a little shorter, I got an MRI on my shoulder, and the diagnosis was that I had torn the labrum in my shoulder during the pull-ups, and it had swelled, putting pressure directly on my brachial nerves, causing the pain and numbness.  Talk about feeling foolish.  I didn't even know I had a labrum.  I thought that was just the ladies...

So anyway, they discharged me from the hospital in Stafford.  They brought me a phone to call someone to pick me up.  Here's the problem.  I couldn't call anybody.  You don't really know anyone's phone number these days.  Your cell phone knows all the numbers.  And my cell phone was rolled up in my spiffy USMC running jacket next to a tree at the PFT starting line.  I went from feeling foolish to realizing that I was a freaking idiot.  I had to look up the base operator and get the number to the Command and Staff College, which meant I had to talk directly to the second-in-command at the college, a full colonel, to arrange my ride back from my little freak out.  Got into a little trouble from my girlfriend too, when she realized I couldn't remember her phone number.

So that's how I came to be sitting outside the hospital in Stafford, Virginia, waiting for a ride from one of my classmates, in only my green PT shorts with no laces in my shoes.  Not my finest hour.

What's the moral to the story?  I'm not sure...  Maybe it's to memorize your emergency phone numbers.  Maybe it's a precautionary tale about getting older and not being too tough to get checked out.  Maybe it's that you should ignore all of that heart attack nonsense, because it's probably just your labia, you big pussy.

Bullshit Rules

Dear Readers,

If you have been following this little blog for very long, you are probably well aware by now that I dislike unnecessary government restrictions.  Recently I bumped into just such a restriction.  There is a wildlife refuge nearby, and I sometimes go for runs along the trails of this refuge.  Then one day I noticed a homemade sign taped to the window of the always unoccupied guard shack at the entrance that said “No Jogging.”   This sign pissed me off.

I am often overwhelmed with the desire to do the opposite of whatever a sign says.

Now first off, I’m no great runner.  I actually really dislike running.  The Corps requires a certain level of proficiency at this, however, so I must engage in it fairly regularly.  When I do, I try to do it at locations that will allow me to do it without being hit by an automobile.  

I hate being hit by cars even more than I hate running.

There aren’t really that many such safe locations around here.  See my previous post about the traffic, for example.  So when I find a good one, I get a little upset when some bureaucrat tells me I can’t use it for no apparent reason.  I especially hate rules being made when there isn't even anyone around to enforce them.  


This time, I got so upset that I wrote them the following email on the comments link of the Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge website:

I decided to go all "Leslie Knope" on their asses.

SUBJECT: No Jogging Policy

COMMENTS: Recently, I visited the Occoquan wildlife refuge and noticed a sign on the window of the gate station that jogging was not allowed on the refuge.  I also have a friend who tells me that a ranger stopped her and told her she isn't allowed to run there.  Can someone explain why this is the case?  This restriction is not listed on the website, and it really makes no sense to me.  Pedestrian traffic is allowed, in the form of hiking, so why on earth would I not be allowed to observe nature at a faster pace?  Trail running is a valid means of observing and experiencing the wildlife on the refuge.

Please explain this unreasonable restriction of my enjoyment of MY National Wildlife Refuge.  In what way is traveling through the park on foot incompatible with the goals and objectives of the refuge?  And if traveling on foot is acceptable, then my speed of travel should not be an issue.

Thank you,
Walt Carr, Concerned Citizen

Maybe not my very best work, but I don’t think any of it seems all that unreasonable.  Of course I never seem to think I’m being unreasonable, even as I tell someone they are an idiot, so maybe I’m not always the best judge of such things.  In any case, I received the following reply a couple of days later:

Dear Mr. Carr,

I am writing in response to your email inquiry in regards to jogging on Occoquan Bay NWR:

Unfortunately, jogging does not support a refuge purpose, objective, or goal and would not benefit the natural or cultural resources present within the Refuge Complex. It is not identified as a priority public use of the National Wildlife Refuge System under the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act of 1966 (16 U.S.C. § 668dd-668ee), as amended by the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997 (Public Law 105-57).

Foot travel is allowed on all established refuge trails so that visitors may experience the priority public uses of wildlife observation, photography, interpretation, and environmental education. Jogging is not required to experience these uses. Jogging may inconvenience visitors engaged in priority public uses by potentially disturbing wildlife that others are observing or photographing. Another potential conflict is that the typical trail width on the Refuge Complex may require joggers or the wildlife observers to step off trail in order to allow room to safely pass. This activity not only causes inconvenience to visitors engaged in priority public uses, but may also disturb vegetation and wildlife adjacent to the trails. Opportunities for jogging are available at other public lands and parks within a mile of each refuge within the Refuge Complex.

These documents were all released in draft for public review and comment. The 49-day comment period was from January 5 to February 22, 2011. An announcement that these documents were available for review was also published in the Federal Register (76 FR 582) on January 5, 2011, in a newsletter we distributed to individuals on our project mailing list and posted on our Web site, and announced at three public meetings we held on February 2 and 3, 2011. 

No, the jogging restriction in not listed on our website. Instead the website focuses on allowable refuge uses. However, I will consider your feedback when redesigning the refuge website later this year.

**********************************************************
Amanda A. Daisey
Deputy Refuge Manager
Potomac River National Wildlife Refuge Complex
12638 Darby Brooke Ct.
Woodbridge, VA 22192

Apparently, this guy finds the idea of people exercising on  public lands inconvenient.

Now, I am intelligent enough to know when I am being told off by a government flunky.  This little note, when translated from legaleze to English, basically says “Screw you.  We make the rules around here, and we saw you laughing at our funny ranger hats.  Go find somewhere else to run.” 

I get tons of chicks with this hat.

I reacted poorly to this, of course.  At first I was pretty angry, but after a short cooling-off period and a little Duplin wine, I wrote the following reply:

Dear Ms. Daisey,

I appreciate your prompt reply to my question. 

Your explanations do not make very much sense, however.  You simply restated the unsubstantiated claim that running on a path is somehow harmful to the wildlife and other visitors.  You have failed to describe any logical reason why running down a trail is any different than hiking down the trail.  Neither activity is identified as a priority public use of the National Wildlife Refuge System under the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act of 1966 (16 U.S.C. § 668dd-668ee), as amended by the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997 (Public Law 105-57).  What is identified is that activities that allow the public to experience the wildlife should be facilitated, subject to such restrictions or regulations as may be necessary, reasonable, and appropriate.

My position is that your restriction on my rate of travel when on foot is neither reasonable, necessary, nor appropriate.  Frankly, the potential conflicts you describe are ridiculous.  People are allowed to drive their cars down many of these trails, and all are wide enough to allow vehicles to easily traverse them.  Two pedestrians meeting on these trails would hardly be forced to trample any wildlife.  For that matter, in all the times I have traveled those trails, I have never encountered more than a handful of visitors on the entire refuge.  I also do not understand how you assume that a person doing a trail run is not engaging in wildlife observation, photography, interpretation, and environmental education.  Running is not required to do this, but it hardly precludes it either.

I do not in any way consider this matter closed, 49-day comment period notwithstanding.  I believe your policy to be an unreasonable and arbitrary restriction.

Thank you,

Walt Carr

This argument is only just beginning.  I will keep you posted on how it goes.  I fully intend to pester the crap out of these people, while simultaneously breaking this rule as often as possible.  It actually almost makes running fun.