Failed PRMC
Posted: Fri 17 Nov, 2006 11:24 am
Well guys I blew it.
Coming over the 12ft rope crossing (the chasm I think they call it), I lost balance, fell and landed akwardly on my heel. I immediately felt the familiar pain (old injury) shoot up my leg and burn in the front of my shin. The RSM (who happened to be watching me at that point) came over and asked if I could carry on, I told him I could and got up to do it again but he told me to stop as I clearly couldn't. I never felt so dejected as I did at that point.
Anyway, the PRMC was great and I mean really great, I loved every second of it. It is exactly what I expected and more and I can't wait to get down there again.
JamesCarr was also on this one and although he was in a different room and I didn't see too much of him I'm sure he's done well, but he'll be in here later to tell you that.
How I found it:
3 miler - surprisingly easy, it wasn't run anywhere near the pace that I trained at (I was running around 20mins before going down there). A lot of the guys also said how easy they thought this was. We lost 2 guys on this.
Gym test 1 - ok. I got 11.10 on the bleep test. 52 press ups, 55 it ups (I got about 15-20 deducted on this for form) and 6 pull ups. The RSm told me that these scores were all above average (although I would have liked more sit ups) and that I was on target to pass.
Assault course - good fun although I found it really take it out of you. If you can try and practice simulating some of the things you'll be doing on this. For example; try doing doing your circuit training near a walland included climbing over it a few times in the circuit, you have to haul yourself over 2 of these on the assault course and you'd be surprised at how much energy it takes to do this. It is very difficult to practice rope crossing unless you have the luxury of having an assault course in your back garden, however, you can work the same muscles by either rope climbing or pulling something heavy attached to a rope.
All in all I think our course went as follows. We lost 2 on the run, 1 pulled out on bottom field, 2 didn't get high enough on the bleep test (they had to get 11 as their mechanical comprehension score was low) and 3 were told lat night that they hadn't made the grade. 3 pulled out from injury (including me), the other 2 were a dislocated shoulder (I think he said this was a problem before he went down) and one has damage ligaments in his knee (he did the exact same thing on his last PRMC apparently, poor guy). I overheard the RSM telling one of the Cpls that we were a really strong troop but he thought that the weather (wet) was playing a part in some of the times for the assault course (apparently a lot of the times were quite high).
A few general tips from my experience down there:
Switch on and listen carefully to everything the instructor tells you. If they tell you to do something a certain way then do it exactly as they say/have shown you. As the RSM said to us, this is one of the most important things in his book as he is looking to see if you are trainable. On my interview the RSM told me that he'd noticed I responded well to orders/instructions and that things like that were noted on your points tally. It's little, easy things like this that can swing it in your favour.
Don't fall in the water on the assault course. I cannot stress this enough, there are only 2 places where you can do it - on the tank trap (approx. 4-5ft trench that you jump across at the start) and on the monkey bars. I lost my hand placement on the monkey bars and fell into the water as did one or two others. You want to avoid this like the plague!!! You are heavy enough as it is with the combat jacket and trousers on, you do not want them soaking wet through, this will just make you much heavier and slower. Also, the boots are pretty much water proof, which means that they will fill with water and it will not escape until you take them off and tip them upside down (which you won't be able to do until you've finished bottom field).
I now have 4 months until I can have another crack at it. Although I'm gutted about getting injured, I'm already over cursing myself for it. I just want to crack on with training and get myself back down there.
If you have any questions I will try to anwer as best I can. I got to watch gym test 2 although I couldn't take part. It looks like hell, I would estimate just as bad as bottom field. I was genuinely wincing when they were doing the sprints at the end, they seemed to go on forever!
Coming over the 12ft rope crossing (the chasm I think they call it), I lost balance, fell and landed akwardly on my heel. I immediately felt the familiar pain (old injury) shoot up my leg and burn in the front of my shin. The RSM (who happened to be watching me at that point) came over and asked if I could carry on, I told him I could and got up to do it again but he told me to stop as I clearly couldn't. I never felt so dejected as I did at that point.
Anyway, the PRMC was great and I mean really great, I loved every second of it. It is exactly what I expected and more and I can't wait to get down there again.
JamesCarr was also on this one and although he was in a different room and I didn't see too much of him I'm sure he's done well, but he'll be in here later to tell you that.
How I found it:
3 miler - surprisingly easy, it wasn't run anywhere near the pace that I trained at (I was running around 20mins before going down there). A lot of the guys also said how easy they thought this was. We lost 2 guys on this.
Gym test 1 - ok. I got 11.10 on the bleep test. 52 press ups, 55 it ups (I got about 15-20 deducted on this for form) and 6 pull ups. The RSm told me that these scores were all above average (although I would have liked more sit ups) and that I was on target to pass.
Assault course - good fun although I found it really take it out of you. If you can try and practice simulating some of the things you'll be doing on this. For example; try doing doing your circuit training near a walland included climbing over it a few times in the circuit, you have to haul yourself over 2 of these on the assault course and you'd be surprised at how much energy it takes to do this. It is very difficult to practice rope crossing unless you have the luxury of having an assault course in your back garden, however, you can work the same muscles by either rope climbing or pulling something heavy attached to a rope.
All in all I think our course went as follows. We lost 2 on the run, 1 pulled out on bottom field, 2 didn't get high enough on the bleep test (they had to get 11 as their mechanical comprehension score was low) and 3 were told lat night that they hadn't made the grade. 3 pulled out from injury (including me), the other 2 were a dislocated shoulder (I think he said this was a problem before he went down) and one has damage ligaments in his knee (he did the exact same thing on his last PRMC apparently, poor guy). I overheard the RSM telling one of the Cpls that we were a really strong troop but he thought that the weather (wet) was playing a part in some of the times for the assault course (apparently a lot of the times were quite high).
A few general tips from my experience down there:
Switch on and listen carefully to everything the instructor tells you. If they tell you to do something a certain way then do it exactly as they say/have shown you. As the RSM said to us, this is one of the most important things in his book as he is looking to see if you are trainable. On my interview the RSM told me that he'd noticed I responded well to orders/instructions and that things like that were noted on your points tally. It's little, easy things like this that can swing it in your favour.
Don't fall in the water on the assault course. I cannot stress this enough, there are only 2 places where you can do it - on the tank trap (approx. 4-5ft trench that you jump across at the start) and on the monkey bars. I lost my hand placement on the monkey bars and fell into the water as did one or two others. You want to avoid this like the plague!!! You are heavy enough as it is with the combat jacket and trousers on, you do not want them soaking wet through, this will just make you much heavier and slower. Also, the boots are pretty much water proof, which means that they will fill with water and it will not escape until you take them off and tip them upside down (which you won't be able to do until you've finished bottom field).
I now have 4 months until I can have another crack at it. Although I'm gutted about getting injured, I'm already over cursing myself for it. I just want to crack on with training and get myself back down there.
If you have any questions I will try to anwer as best I can. I got to watch gym test 2 although I couldn't take part. It looks like hell, I would estimate just as bad as bottom field. I was genuinely wincing when they were doing the sprints at the end, they seemed to go on forever!
my those first exercises will be fun!
Its like the guy said above, it was only down to an unfortunate injury, so hopefully we'll be seeing you soon in RT. So good luck mate!
