Referee's fitness test 2008

At 8:50am wearing No.2 and in the first heat of twelve referees, I began my 12 minute Cooper's fitness test at the Wigan track, where the minimum pass distance was 2,500 metres (1.55 miles).

Considering the time it was extremely warm indeed.

At exactly 12 minutes, the whistle was blown to end the test and my distance of 2,980 metres was recorded.


Metric Stats

2,980 metres in 12 minutes
14.90 km/h
4:02 per km


Imperial Stats

1.85 miles in 12 minutes
9.26 mph
6:29 per mile


Workrate

214 kcals, 178 HRmax, 173 HRavg.

Exercise Light: 00:00:07, Moderate: 00:00:24, Hard: 00:11:29.

Treadmill Coopers Test

Park Royal's TechnoGym Treadmill

Unfortunately due to a lunchtime dental checkup, I did not have time to run my usual outdoor distance of 4.45km, but I just had time to at least perform an indoor 12 minutes Cooper Test on one of the Park Royal's treadmills.

I managed 2,860 metres within the 12 minutes.

When I run on a treadmill, I always remember the reasons why I run outside. It's pretty boring and you easily begin to overheat. The last time I ran indoors was almost a year ago on the 9th February 2007.

Fitness Stats

Start Time: 1:29 pm

Distance: 2.86 km

Duration: 12:00

Speed: 14.30 km/h

Pace: 4:12 per km

192 kcals, 164 HRavg, 173 HRmax

MP3: Mika

Referees' Fitness Test Undertaken

After the bad back scare throughout this week, I finally ended up fit enough to undertake the Referees' Fitness Test at Robin Park Arena, Wigan (pictured above).




Having climbed out of bed at 6:15am on a Sunday, I showered to feel clean and fresh. I then had a light breakfast before heading off at 7:39am for my referees' fitness test.

I arrived at the Robin Park Arena, Wigan at 8:10am, a good 50 minutes beforehand and was the forth person to arrive apart from an event organiser. The Arena Doors opened at 8:30am.

So, after a 300 metre warm up the first twelve, including me lined up at the start line. I was runner number 11. At 8:54am we set off.

I led for the first 300 metres then dropped off my early fast pace to a more comfortable one where two others overtook me, one went quiet a distance ahead running at a good solid pace whilst the other led by just a few metres. I used this person as my pace man.

My first lap was 1:30 [1:22 last year], and after two laps my time was 3:01 [2:54 last year]. I then ran the mile in a time of 6:30 [6:16 last year].

My total recorded distance after the 12 minutes Cooper Test (albeit 11:55 - The Timer stopped the test 5 seconds too early!) was 2,890 metres [3,000 metres exactly last year].

Considering my back injury during the week, I felt that I had run within myself and was very comfortable all the way round. I chose not to run at my maximum pace today - just in case.

Once the Cooper Test was over, the Marker walked up to me, "What's your distance then?"
"Well, there's the 2,900 metre line", I replied, pointing at the line that was probably less than 10 metres ahead of me.
"Shall we call it 2,800 then?", he enquired.
"No, I've run 2,890 metres!", I said with some despair.
He wrote down "2890", confirmed my name and moved down to the next person beyond the 2,800 metre line.

After a short break, we then did the two 50 metre sprints within 7.5 seconds to complete the test. It was all over for the first 12 referees by 9:40am.


Start: 8:54am
Time: 12:00 Cooper Test Standard
Distance: 2,890 metres (1.80 miles)

Average speed: 14.45kmh (8.98mph)
Average pace: 4:09 per km (6:41 per mile)
Heart rate: HRavg 170, HRmax 179, and 170kcals

Last Years' Referees' Fitness Test

Ariel View of Robin Park Arena: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=robin+park,+wigan&sll=54.162434,-3.647461&sspn=11.876772,32.695313&ie=UTF8&ll=53.546874,-2.652211&spn=0.002939,0.007982&t=k&z=17&om=1

Hold the Front Page!

My back although not 100% was much much better and I began to think about the possibility of undertaking my Referees' Fitness Test.

So, just before 7:30pm, I thought it was probably a good idea to perform a mock Cooper Fitness Test, in order to determine whether I'd last the time and distance. So that's exactly what I did!

I ran two and a bit loops around the Sandymoor Community Centre Loop, continuing to run for the allocated 12 minutes. For the first 300 metres in particular, I could really feel some back pain, after that it was simply just noticable.

I completed 2,750 metres in 12 minutes, 50 metres more than the Cooper Test minimum, but more importantly, a comfortable additional 250 metres beyond the 2,500 metres minimum for the Referees' Fitness Test (which used to be 2,700 metres minimum just two years' ago).

So, unless I awake tomorrow morning with real back problems, I shall declare myself fit and travel to Wigan to undertake the all important test.


Start: 7:29pm
Time: 12:00 Cooper Test Time
Distance: 2,750 metres (1.71 miles) - Gmap

Average speed: 13.75 kmh (8.54 mph)
Average pace: 4:22 per km (7:01 per mile)
Heart rate: HRavg 163, HRmax 172, and 187kcal