last day of ict

woke up real early to consume breakfast. supposed to be ready for the stand-down parade at 6:30 am.

everyone’s just glad that it’s the last day of the ict today. for some of us, it might even be the last ict ever. for myself, i might get a waiver since i’ve already completed 6 high-key ones including this. keeping my fingers crossed. :)

grabbed some food and drinks after the parade. waited around to take photographs with david and the rest of the workshop guys. it’s important ’cos this will be the evidence that i was present for this ict in the event of any dispute. :P haha…

cleared out my locker. had lunch. waited to take my ippt.

we were the first batch of nsmen to use the newly installed electronic ippt stations at the stadium. all the stations worked perfectly except for the shuttle run which doesn’t start sometimes so it's back to good old manual timing.

i was ok with all the static stations except for the chin-ups. somehow, i just felt weak and couldn’t pull anymore after 3. duh! a most unpleasant surprise for myself since i had planned to clear the test during this ict. during my last practice a few weeks ago, i had done 5 or 6 chin-ups.

anyhow, i went ahead with the 2.4 km run despite knowing that i can’t clear the test because of the chin-up score. it was a rather demoralising and tough run, made worse by the hot weather.

my throat was already parched and dry before i started the run. did the 1st 2 laps with pretty decent timing in slightly over 3 minutes. i had to “force” myself to carry on, the 3rd and 4th laps were quite the killer.

a part of me just wanted to give up and quit the run since no matter how well my timing will be, i can’t pass the test while another part rallied on, wanting to press on breathlessly so as to clock a timing for the 2.4 km even under such adverse conditions.

conditions can't get more difficult than this, right?

i stopped running. had to catch my breath…

couldn’t remember if that was the 4th or 5th lap when i stopped to walk for about 10 or 20 seconds. then it took some superhuman effort to pick up the pace again and resume running.

just ran as if my life depended on it, i reached the finish line at 11:55. yes, i did it under 12 minutes!

yeah!