Success

Today's belt test ran just over two and a half hours in length, with not much by way of rest.  Notes to myself for future reference: next time I need to bring a towel for sweat and a much bigger container of water.  Say, one of my kids' half-gallon jugs that they use for soccer camps...had to send a friend's son out to the water fountain to refill my bottle halfway through the test.

BUT.

I now have one of these, and I earned it fair and square.

And more importantly, I walked out of that test feeling good about myself, unlike the last one.  This is not to say that there aren't a bunch of things I still need to work on.  There are, without any doubt.  But this time, I didn't embarrass myself.  All the work with cardio and weights paid off: when the test ended, I still had some gas in the tank, and I didn't crash and burn on any techniques.  I could have kept going at the end if I had to, and that is HUGE.  (It would have been beyond depressing to have trouble with basic fitness again.)  And best of all??  I managed to avoid further injury, which was a big worry going in, especially since my bad knee was bugging me this morning.

I cannot begin to tell you how relieved I am to have that over with.  I likely won't be testing again for a year or so, which is just fine by me (generally, the higher the belt, the longer it takes to earn the next one up.)  It'll be next fall before I'm willing to undergo another round with the wringer, anyway!