Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 17, 1991                   TAG: 9102150136
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: JUSTINE ELIAS/ SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SHE'S FIT; JUST DON'T ASK TO SEE A PULLUP

The pullups are a killer.

Using the standards for 17-year-old girls, I took the Presidential Physical Fitness test recently. My goal was to test above the 50th percentile in each discipline.

Sit-ups? Flexibility?

No problem.

On the track at Blacksburg High School, I jogged a mile in eight minutes, which put me above the 85th percentile.

After I finished congratulating myself, I tried to do a pullup.

Not even close.

Every night for a week, I'd hang from the pullup bar, vainly trying to lift my chin above the bar.

It's embarrassing.

Once I managed to get myself eye-level with the bar.

"You jumped," said my friend, Eric the weight lifter. "You're never going to do it if you cheat like that."

Some people feel overweight and out of shape only when they look at their bathroom scale.

I feel it when I look at the pullup bar.

To make me feel even worse, it wasn't always like this.

Back in the days of the bent-arm hang and the 600-yard run, I won three Presidential Physical Fitness Awards.

In the fifth and sixth grades, I passed every test without too much trouble.

My favorite sports back then were figure skating, gymnastics and track.

As a girl, I was a decent athlete - not outstanding, but with enough of the foolish confidence of childhood to try back flips and handsprings if somebody dared me.

Each spring, though, I got serious.

I'd train hard for the 600-yard run, even getting my parents to come outside and time my practices. I didn't just want to pass the test, I wanted to be the best runner in my class.

My one last stab at athletic glory came when I was a 14-year-old freshman in high school.

Gym class was no longer fun. We had to wear uniforms, and I spent most of my teen-age years mortified about my appearance. I wore oversize sweats no matter what the weather was.

Also, the presidential standards seemed to have gotten much harder to meet. Unreasonable, even.

Or maybe I'd just lost my taste for competition.

On the hot April morning I took the test in gym class, I told myself I just didn't care about winning a badge.

But to my surprise, I did pass - just barely - all but one of the tests.

The 600-yard run was left. It was about 85 degrees and humid. I still wouldn't take off the sweats.

I missed the qualifying time by 10 seconds.

"Come back after school," my gym teacher said. "You can try it again. Without the sweats."

The gym teacher thoughtfully recruited a member of the girls' track team to pace me.

This story ought to end with something like, "I ran as fast as I could, passed the test and became a high school track star."

Well, I did run a fast enough time to pass the test.

And I did join the track team. And the cross-country team. And the swim team.

But I was never a star athlete after the sixth grade.

I was tenacious and well-trained - but never great.

Now, at 26, I jog or work out nearly every day.

I can see the muscles in my arms. This fall I bench pressed 100 pounds.

Once.

But that doesn't mean much when I'm trying to do a pullup, feeling every ounce of my weight and staying - despite all my effort - perfectly still.