SOC Timing

flash9933 SG

Anyone knows what is the current record of SOC timing?

And wat is your best timing?

wuming78 SG

my "best" timing was not good at all. Laughing

Icemoon SG

Haha, he asking for the fastest SOC timing in the history of SAF bah.

ditzy SG

I've seen 6min 50sec from an armour unit. I think got faster than that even. Laughing

Icemoon SG

Can anyone tell me what is the running distance before and after the obstacles?

Moxie SG

I once mentored a recruit (Alpha Battery, 21 SA, mono intake, circa early-198 Cool who timed 5:51 or thereabouts. Can only recall his surname - Seow - now but otherwise it was a vivid competition between him & 2 others (an Indian recruit from another battery, plus my new BC officer Mike Yong) to see which of the 6-minute runners was the fastest.

My own best was a 8:03, a highlight of my NS stint considering I was Pes C (obese) & ran my 1st-ever SOC in 15 minutes (got stuck at the monkey bars, my nemesis throughout Tekong). The irony is I was more or less a 10-minute runner as a NSF, then got attached to Temburong Jungle Training with 6 SIR for 5 weeks, then surprisingly ran a 8:56 timing - with little loss of breath - on my return. My then-unit only ran 2 more SOCs before it ROD'ed, & I found myself improving by 20-second blocks each time as I pushed myself.

It all went downhill from there. With the extra half-year to serve out. I was attached to Arty Training Cadre for 3 months & then mainly clearing leave & off-in-lieus during the remainder days. My ROD SOC timing declined back to 10:05.

P.S. To be fair, I ran with the Carbine rifle & not the heavier AR15.

ditzy SG

800m start, end 700m.

Icemoon SG

Hmm .. I think Moxie should be at least 40 years old now?

Moxie SG

Hey! Hey! I'm still a 38 "young" ~lol~

P.S. It was the days when the Hokkien peng nicknamed themselves "Xiao Ma" or "Ah Hao", way before the Straits Times (let alone Hollywood) fawned over John Woo.

Hunt around last nite for that BMT graduation photo & found it. His name is Seow Meng Kee; I remember him as a bit of a pre-Forrest Gump personality - don't think he ever got the hang of sighting or zeroing a rifle - but boy can he run. I vaguely recall it was the Indian recruit who won Best SOC, though, based on a one-off contest result.

Actually, I ended up "loving" running the SOC more than the 2.4km myself, after getting hantamed every day as extra training in my NS unit & Tekong respectively. The 2.4 was boring as can be - all you basically do is set a fast pace & sustain it - whereas the SOC was more mentally challenging &, for me, the end satisfaction is greater.

I tended to set progressive mini-targets along the way too, like reaching the low wall in X minutes & finishing the 10 obstacles in Y minutes. Tip: There's really not much improvement you can significantly do in these 2 stages - you can save back 10-15 seconds at most with better fitness. Instead, everything comes down to the last stage - the run home - when IMHO you can cut down your timing by as much as 2 minutes. That's when exhaustion sets in, but instead of "hanging on" (the norm in BMT) you learn to block out all the physical fatigue.

flash9933 SG

My fastest timing was 7 mins 55 sec during BMT. After that, did not clock under 8 mins liao ...

Heard that the current SOC record was held by a PTI some years back.

Ponders SG

Heard BMTC Comd COL Lo YP is 5:55. 2.4km timing at 6:45.

saintboy SG

Haha, mine was 9:15 in BMT. It was the first and the last time i took an SOC test until now after 8 months of service…

storywolf SG

Join the combat engineers !

We alway got kick in asses one. Alway when SOC, crazy course commander alway ask us to do mutiple SOC.

Which you do SOC x 3 or more time with 3- 5mins rest in between. The top 10 guys alway achieve below 8 mins regardless of how many times they do, they alway still have a lot of reserve energy left just in case they are ask to do another time.

Joshua1975 SG

Record at 5min 34sec. Who and where no idea liao, maybe die oredi. Sad

My Embarassed always 9min 12, 3 or 4sec. pass can liao.

jOhO SG

hmm if it's the same LO Y P then he used to be my CO.

never remembered him to be that fast? i'm sure the whole battalion would know.

oh well... *shrug*