Beast tears through Army physical fitness tests

FORT SILL, Okla.--For someone nicknamed "The Beast," Spc. Christa Draggie possesses a beaming smile and perky personality that does not scream intimidation. She has earned the moniker by being a fitness animal, tearing up physical training tests in basic combat training with a score of 395.

For her final test, the 30-year-old pumped out 94 pushups in two minutes, 104 sit-ups in two minutes and ran two miles in 12 minutes, 50 seconds. Her secret' Enough mental discipline to put Tony Robbins to shame, she said. Draggie explained the mental conversation she had that kept her from quitting.

"When I get tired I don't let myself know that I'm tired, I just keep going. I tell myself it's only two minutes. You can do anything for two minutes. You just keep going. When I start to get tired I'll be like I've only got 30 seconds left how hard could it be'"

She graduated two weeks ago from D Battery, 1st Battalion, 40th Field Artillery with a quiet confidence and overwhelming humility.

Her peers describe her as a robot, but not in the emotionless way. They said her physical strength seems to be super human, which explains her second nickname "Super-Draggie," as she's called in the female bays.

As far as which name she prefers, she said she is undecided because they both caught her off-guard. She thinks of herself as normal. And, for those skeptics who are determined to believe as a woman Draggie is a part of a weaker sex and she has an unfair advantage because of different standards, she proved them wrong by maxing out the men's PT scale as well.

In fact, she beat out all the men in her unit, pushing her body past everyone else's.

"All the PT tests I've been really close to her but this last one I don't know where she came from. She just destroyed everyone," said Pfc. Joe Raymond Vera, her closest competition.

Fitness is nothing new to her as she has a history of running cross-country and track and even trained in mixed martial arts six weeks prior to coming to Fort Sill. As for push-ups, she's practiced those for almost a decade now with a little game that started at her work, "One of my co-workers and I decided we weren't very strong in our push-ups so every other day whenever we would have to go to the bathroom we would do five of them. And the next week we'd up it to six push-ups."

Eventually she was able to do 50 or 60 at a time, which she surpassed with her final accomplishment of 94.

For her, it's about more than just scoring points on a test. Being physically fit is a lifestyle choice.

"I never want to be out of shape because at any point if someone asks do you want to go climb this mountain' Or do you want to go on a hike' I want to be fit enough that it's not going to hurt or I'm not going to be like 'hey, can you guys wait up' I'm dying back here.' I think it's just wanting to stay physically fit so I can do anything and everything whenever the opportunity presents itself."

Even during other parts of training when others might be mentally worn out, her optimism helped her through.

"I just looked at each day and was like what do we get to do today' What experience are we going to have' And then you get out there and you're freezing your butt off standing in the cold and you think this isn't really all that much fun, but after this is done I wonder what we get for dinner'"

On top of the respect she has earned with her strength, she has also earned the admiration from her peers by sharing her gift.

"We love her. We love the fact that she's in our platoon. And she's not one of those people that are arrogant with it. She's very easy to talk to and we get to learn all the tricks. There have been PT failures and she's been helping them work on their push-ups and sit-ups and things like that," said Pfc. Jasmine Engler.

Draggie has a degree in engineering and is going home to start her training to become an officer in the National Guard.

She added that being physically fit helps her perform to the best of her ability.

"I think just in general it helps you to be disciplined overall no matter what you do. For me, if something is difficult I try to train harder in that element of my life whether it's studying for a test or doing the PT test."

She received the Physical Fitness Award during the graduation ceremony March 26 at the McMahon Auditorium in Lawton.