A Sciatic IPPT

I just took my IPPT test a few hours ago. Considering that I'm recovering from sciatic pain, it was quite a feat, actually. Of course, my pain is almost gone now, surfacing only when I stretch my left leg.

But stretching is somewhat involved when taking IPPT. While chin ups, sit ups and 2.4 km run did not demand much elongation of the muscles in question, the shuttle run and the standing board jump surely did. On hindsight, I ought to have booked my IPPT next week, since the pain would probably be gone by then, but the thing is, that was precisely what I thought last week!

So for the jump, it was the thrust of the jump that sent sizzles down the leg, and, as a consequence, the retraction of the legs immediately thereafter was not as easy as it seems. But this was still not as bad as the shuttle run. The crisis strikes when making the turn. When bending down to touch the metal bar, I could feel the pain echoing up my leg. It was not crippling in the sense that I did not have to roll over the ground and howl like a cockatoo. But in the presence of pain, the flesh is weaker, and that leg which was suffering was the one that is responsible for setting off my acceleration.

Result: my shuttle run timing was significantly slower than past attempts, but luck was on my side in that the shuttle run is probably the easiest to clear with a wide margin even for the top score. So even though my sciatica chalked up an extra second for my timing, I was still safely in the regime of a silver award.

But no way am I going to attempt an IPPT in the future when sciatica is under progress.