Ow.

Long story short: I'm doing the black belt test next Saturday. The fact that I passed everything but the 3.2k, that I didn't give up, that I sprinted like whoa for the 200m, and the fact that, as the black belt tried to put it delicately before remembering I'm me and just saying "We make allowances for people of the... older generation," results in me being allowed to test after all :) :) :)

And God help me beat some sense into me, I'm still thinking of continuing the training so I can run with Chris when he tests in May, and actually get to my goal. I will hopefully be cured of this insanity before January, but right now all I can think is I really really really wanted to get it. And despite weighing too much I'm in better shape, right now, than I've ever been in my life. I clocked in at 10 minutes exactly at the 1600 meter mark, a full minute faster than I was able to do at age thirteen despite being about sixty pounds slightly heavier.

Final black belt tutorial today consisted of sparring drills, kicking and punching and dodging and pivoting, back and forth, for two freaking hours. I would've been speechless with disbelief and barely suppressed eyerolls at the sadism of the black belt who was running it except he's one of the black belts going for his 2nd Dan, and thus had run twice as far as I had, and he's older than I am, and... yeah.

I hurt in places I didn't know had nerves.