It all started out alright, settled in on the first night with a good bunch of lads, a couple of whom had been on a PRMC before and were able to fill us in on some of the basics. First night there we just got our kit sorted, polished our boots some, and then headed off to bed.
Next morning the room got up early at 5 to hit the showers before the rest of the course were up and about. After that, just a simple clean up then off to scran. Drill for an hour afterwards, which was pretty basic, and really easy, then back to the rooms to get changed into combats and trainers. Then off to the 3 miler. The warmup wasn't as hard as i expected, just running around some goalposts and doing tuck jumps, etc. Even so we had at least 1 lad fall out before the run started.
After the warmup it was straight into the run with no chance to catch your breath, which i think threw some of the lads. We ran the whole thing as a group, and despite a few nasty sprints thrown in the middle, we finished off at a fairly gentle pace. About a quarter of the people there failed on that, but i managed to pass it without too much hassle.
Scran, a shower, and a few hours rest later, we were back in the gym for gym test 1. Not much in the way of warmups before we were straight into the bleep test. It was ok for the first 6 or 7 levels before my knee started to hurt. Even so i managed to keep going until about 10.4. Which wasn't great, but so soon after the 3 miler, relitively few got above 11, and only 1 got above 12. After that the upper body tests; i managed 52 press ups, 65 sit ups, and 6 pull ups. The sit ups were by far the hardest; after all the running my hips were already knackered so banging out reps just wasn't as easy as it usually is.
Then the swim test. Jump off a board and swim to the other end. Piece of p*** really.
After that, some lectures about weapons and career structure which were pretty interesting. Then scran, and the diamond interview. We only had a few questions, so it just became a bit of a laugh as the guys talking to us were hilarious.
Next day, I woke up and my knee was throbbing from the day before, but i thought i'd walk around and give it a chance before saying anything. So got up, showered, shaved and cleaned the area. Then off to scran again. On the way there my knee was twitching a bit, but not too bad. On the way back it finally went though, and i had to hop up the stairs back to the block on 1 leg.
At this point i made my biggest mistake. Having been up over an hour and a half by this time, i just assumed the corporal would be too, and went looking for him. I eventually found him by knocking on one of the doors and waking him up ( bad mistake...).
I told him about my knee, and from there it was all pretty fast. I got sent off, then shortly afterwards told to strip my bed and pack my clothes. I was a bit suprised i wasn't offered the chance to stay, as 1 of the lads in my room had failed the 3 miler and been given the choice to stay anyway. So obviously the corporal was in a bad mood at me for waking him, and i don't really think he believed me about my knee.
Just before i left i asked the corporal when i could reapply, and was told 6 months, which was a big suprise since i'd done fairly well on the physical side of things, and thought i'd made a good impression the previous day. I asked if there was any reason why i couldn't reapply sooner and got told to "stop asking questions and f@#k off". Again, which p****d me off as it wasn't like i was failing badly or being a time waster.
Anyway, not sure what to do at the moment. I haven't been back to my AFCO yet. I was thinking maybe to try RMR, but i'm not sure how that would go with me being banned from CTCRM for 6 months?
PS, sorry about the waffling on this post, didn't think it would be this long! Just thought it might be helpful to some of those who have PRMC's coming up, and wanted to get some of it off my chest!
Take care.
how kind of it to reacure during that prmc
