To be clear: a new personal PRT record—I’m just a dude who sits in ejection seats for a living, after all. But now that you’re here…
If you’ve followed my writing for long or have specifically found this site due to some of the stuff I’ve written on physical fitness and the Navy, then you’d have a fairly good idea that I’ve been trying to hack my PRT score before even going to OCS.
Unfortunately, two things have made it actually quite difficult to successfully “Dave Asprey” my way into an Outstanding High:
Beer
Despising running
For the last five years, I’ve consistently run more than at any other time in my life. And what do I have to show for it? Complete stagnation.
Measured by my Garmin watch, my VO2 Max has basically stayed the same at 51 ml/kg/min. Additionally, other than OCS (where running was just about the most fun you could have), the fastest I’ve been able to run my 1.5-mile PRT in was a grueling 9 minutes and 50 seconds. AKA just barely under a 7-minute mile.
And that’s averaging 15-20 miles a week of running. Sorry, but for a guy who hates running, that much running for that little payoff was simply defeating. This is Liam-Lawson-getting-demoted-after-2-races level of defeat.
Maybe it was time to give up on my dream of decorating my fridge with a photo of me and my skipper congratulating me for running slightly faster than an average male my age.
No. Not today. I finally broke the Outstanding Medium barrier, and, dare I say… with ease?
I’ll admit it: the greatest motivation was that I was late for a flight and Ops didn’t care if I could shower before the brief, so that may have upped my pace slightly. But I was genuinely shocked when I passed the halfway marker and saw that a mere 4 minutes and 40 seconds had gone by. This was by far the easiest PRT I had run in my career and I finished with my best time since prison—uh, I mean OCS. But how?
As the great, often quoted, very respected Julius Comroe Jr. (whom I’d never heard of before searching for this quote) once said:
Serendipity is looking in a haystack for a needle and discovering a farmer’s daughter.
My farmer’s daughter? Zwift.
I suppose more like a farmer’s call girl since I do pay her every month and there’s no love there; however, I am left covered in sweat after every session.
Which I have written about before and you may be sick of hearing about, but to me, it’s been an incredibly useful discovery.
Not just Zwift, but cycling in general.
Zwift is a fantastic way to get an amazing cardiovascular workout, particularly when trying to work VO2 Max sprint intervals, but nothing will put a smile on your face like going out on a two-hour Zone 2 ride in the sunshine and fresh air.
The reason I think Zwifting and cycling have made such an incredible impact on my cardiovascular condition? Because I enjoy doing it. Yeah, weird.
But as Naval says:
Do what feels like play to you, but looks like work to others.
Which makes total sense. Every single time I ride my bike I enjoy it and I get a great workout in without knowing it. Same with Zwift: even though it’s indoors and on a trainer, its gamification and social aspect make it so compelling to push through and get the extra burn.
Which is why I think my next PRT is going to be even faster and, most importantly, easier. It trains your legs, it trains your lungs, and it’s fun.
EDIT: I wanted to write this article because I was just so shocked at how much fitter I’ve gotten with cycling. However, after writing it, I did discover Zwift has a referral program. I’m not sponsored (I make myself laugh every time I write these words, because… DUH it’s still just your mother and your English teacher from high school who reads this site) but if you are interested in trying Zwift, you can do so for a month for free with this referral link.
To close, here’s a photo of MVDP because he’s got to be the coolest guy in cycling right now.
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