Presidential Mile

     Does anyone remember those presidential fitness tests from elementary school?  Or, is it just me?  I remember the preparation for those with practice miles around the track, pull-ups (which I could never do!), sit-ups to Rocky music, and the balance beam.  Those activities seemed to happen every year.  The sit and reach test and the shuttle run were other events that sometimes seemed part of the whole festivities.  I never earned a patch because I couldn't do any pull-ups and my mile time wasn't the best either.  So with such wonderful memories of this yearly torture, who would of thought that I would come up with the idea of running the presidential mile the first Tuesday of the Month?!?  
     I showed up at our track workout location today and no one was there.  So, I thought why not?  I'll see how fast I can run a mile.  It shouldn't  be too difficult since I've run 13.1 miles 9 times in the last 6 months, right?  I was in for a rude awakening.  I started off at a nice slow pace and tried to keep that pace for as long as possible.  My long as possible was 8 minutes before I needed to walk and recover.  After recovering, I started off again but only lasted 4 minutes before walking to recover.  Then, I didn't bother to keep track.  I was just waiting for my timer to let me know I had run 1 mile.  Final time?  15:39
     I found the norms for the presidential mile:

    There I fall.  Somewhere between the 0 to 5th percentile for ages 17+.  I could be in the 10th percentile if I was 8 or 9 years old.  Which I am not!  The 25th percentile is the highest I could be if only was six years old.  Wow!  I'd have to be six to be considered just low average and not significantly below average.  Just when I think I'm making progress I get confronted with this!  At least it provides a baseline and there's only room for improvement.