Physical Readiness Test

This past weekend, I travelled to Hamilton, Texas, to participate in the physical readiness test portion of the Texas Game Warden selection process. I drove up Saturday night since the test began Sunday at 08:00. It's only two hours away, but I wanted to make sure I got a good night's sleep and wasn't rushing around the morning of the test.

I got to the high school stadium where the test took place at about 07:30 and there were a lot of people already waiting around. I am definitely older than the average applicant but not by a whole lot. By my count, though, there were only 13 women out of the approximately 70 people there. I found out that there had been a test the day before as well and all told, 155 people made it to this stage from the interview stage. Then we were told there are only 14 open positions...

The first part of the test we did was the push-ups, which I was really glad about since it was the portion I was most worried about failing and if I did, at least I could just go on home. They lined us up in five rows by number. (We were known by our number all day; I was 88.) The way they measured if we completed a push-up was with this ingenious little homemade device with a piece of foam and stick that would pop up every time we went low enough for a push-up to count. When we did, the stick would hit the bottom of the hand of the warden counting for us. I wish I had been able to take a picture but since I didn't, I made this drawing to illustrate.

Illustration of a push-up measuring stick

I think my adrenaline was really pumping because I was able to knock out my push-ups pretty easily, 13 in under a minute. I'm very glad I did all that weight training and the interval push-up training; it really paid off. Next, we stayed in our lines and did the same thing for sit-ups. I'm strong in this area so with another applicant holding my feet, I busted out my 21 sit-ups with no problem.

After this, we lined up in two lines sequentially by our numbers to perform the handgun stability test. We used what looked very similar to my dad's .38 revolver that I practiced with. All we had to do was hold the gun barrel with each hand inside a 5" ring and dry fire five times, then lower ourselves to a kneeling position and dry fire five times again, but holding the gun with both hands.

At this point, we lined up in groups of eight to do the 300m sprint. But, before the first group go could, a guy across the field went into cardiac arrest and we found out later that his heart actually stopped. A few people there were trained first responders who ran over to help. He was taken away by ambulance and we were later told he had a known heart condition but his doctor had signed off on his attempting the test.

I was in the third group to sprint and as I expected, I was dead last. But I made it in 1 minute 20 seconds which was faster than my practice sprints by about 20 seconds and within the required 1 minute and 49 seconds. Running on a flat track improved my speed by more than I could have imagined. Running on a street with varied elevations proved to be great training.

Runners at the finish line of the track with game wardens watching

After this, they broke us up into two groups to do the 1.5 mile run. Again, I came in very near last, but I was faster than my practice runs and I was comfortably within the 21 minutes and 36 seconds time limit at just over 18 minutes. One girl and one guy almost didn't make it but we all cheered them on to the finish line. It was cool to see everyone come together like that. They let us wear headphones which was really helpful for me mentally and I was also able to use my GPS time tracking app to know how I was doing.

Running track with six laps highlighted from MapMyFitness

At this point, it was only 10:45. I really just wanted to finish up the test but they told us we were getting a lunch break and wouldn't start the swimming test until 13:00. Ugh... I decided to try and find a geocache or two because I had already decided I wasn't eating. I had only had a granola bar right when I woke up and another granola bar during the break but a full meal seemed like a bad idea. I picked up a sandwich for after, found my geocache, then hung out in the park near the pool until 12:30 when they let us in to change.

I am so glad my last name is at the front of the alphabet because they were only able to have four people swim at a time and we had up to five minutes to complete the test—poor number 155. And if you failed, you had to wait until the end to retry. I got in the pool to warm up and see how it was to turn around the in the shallow part; not easy. I was in the fourth group to swim and did sidestroke the whole way (three laps), finishing easily.

So, I passed! That felt really good given that I trained pretty hard to make it happen. It was great to drive back to Austin with that accomplishment, no matter what happens after this. Next, we're supposed to be contacted about our background check so it's just a game of wait and see as I don't have any control over what happens from here on out.