Post GORUCK Challenge depression…………

Surely you know what a GORUCK Challenge is by now. For those of you who don’t let’s review.

Their website says

15-20 MILES. 8-10 HOURS. GOOD LIVIN’

A picture of Java from their facebook page

They state that it is a team event and never a race. They talk about this being a guided tour of the city. They often tweet about their love for grilling and summer living. They even regularly post pictures of Java, the good looking Labrador that  GORUCK founder Jason never leaves behind, well almost never. Sounds nice, sounds enjoyable.

But I don’t understand why they are using that word “CHALLENGE.” Maybe it’s because there are a few more details. You complete the GORUCK Challenge wearing a GORUCK Rucksack with four to five bricks and any supplies you may want during this adventure. These Challenges are inspired (as stated on their website) by the Cadre’s specialized Green Beret training. They won’t tell you what you’ll be doing, how far you’ll go or how long it will take. They don’t even tell you where to show up until a few days before the Challenge. To entice you more they post a video from a NYC Challenge. GORUCK NYC video. 7 hours, 17 miles were the stats from this video (these are important numbers to remember).

I’m in, anything that requires a Death Waiver has got to be cool! I started recruiting friends, coworkers, strangers. You would think this would be easy since I work for the fire department and these guys spend their days off doing triathlons and adventure races. They fly to foreign countries to climb mountains that movies and books have made famous. The answers I received ranged from “hell no!” to “there’s no way” and a few answers I can’t share ’cause my kids will read this. I did find one taker, but he couldn’t get the time off. I tried to assure these nay sayers that it was very doable and that it would be a blast to do together. Well I still showed up alone.

I’m not gonna lie, leading up to the GORUCK Challenge I was like a kid waiting for Christmas morning. My wife coined the GORUCK Challenge my girlfriend. She would say things like “you love her more” and “why don’t you love me like that.” Let’s not forget that the journey leading up to the challenge is a big part of the adventure.

As for my training not much changed. I have always worked out and have been doing CrossFit type workouts for the last few years. I get bored easy and the GORUCK Challenge was just what I needed to keep me focused. I kept my regular workouts but added some weighted rucksack runs. You can see my workouts under the Daily Workouts tab. I listened to my body when it said it was exhausted and listened when it said it was ready to rock. I don’t belong to a gym but have access to some stuff at the fire house. I didn’t go find a log to carry or water to do flutter kicks in. I did the rucksack runs to see if my knees and feet could take it. Yup, the body can pretty much take whatever the mind tells it to take. You’ll learn this during your challenge. My favorite workout leading up to the Challenge was putting on a weighted rucksack (avg between 25-35 lbs) run 1.25 miles (’cause that’s how far it is to the park by my house), 100 pull ups, run 1.25 mi, 100 push ups, run 1.25 mi, 100 abs, run 1.25, 100 squats, run 4-5 miles.

The week before my GORUCK Challenge I started 100 days of 100 burpees. This was a Burpee Challenge I put together benefiting The Green Beret Foundation and in honor of the 10 year anniversary (rather memorial) of the 9/11 attacks. I got up the morning of the Challenge and did my burpees. I had activites most of the day which helped keep the nerves in check. Then it was time to go to our check in point at the REI Flagship store in Denver.

I arrived early and it was easy to see who my new best friends were, not many people roam the streets of Denver carrying five bricks and peanut M&M’s. Then our GORUCK Cadre (Brian) showed up. Brian took us through all of the administrative stuff (GORUCK rucksacks, death waivers etc.) and gave us a few minutes to get our stuff together. Then Brian had us form two lines, seven challenge takers in each. We were off!

I won’t give all the details because some of them you just have to live through but I will go through some highlights.

About 20 minutes into our adventure class 041 dropped to 13 GORUCK Challenge takers. I have admiration for anyone who would sign up and show up, enough said. We continued.

After our warm up on the train tracks it was time to cool off, or so Brian thought. Conveniently we were right by some water and in we went for some team building.

Brian thought it would be good team building if we did some community service so he had us do some roto-tilling GORUCK style for the local neighbors. They stood by anxiously waiting to plant their new gardens when we were done.

On we went.

Now is a good time to add some of the details of class 041. GORUCK tells each team that they are in charge of bringing one 25lb weight. Knowing that barley and hops come together to make up the official beverage of GORUCK, class 041 brought two mini kegs that each conveniently weighed 12.5 lbs when full. We decided to evenly distribute the weight, a GORUCK first I believe but not sure.

This almost led to a definite GORUCK first…………….

13 GORUCKers in the back of cop cars.

Not knowing what they would do with our team building log they sent us on our way. The Rockies were playing that night and the Denver night life was in full swing. Spirits were high and guys were having fun despite the four pounds of sand in each shoe.

On we pushed working more and more as a team

It was easy to keep the spirits high when the streets were full of intoxicated party goers that cheered you on. Soon we moved away from the cheers. Now it was dark and quiet. Brian seemed to keep a constant eye on us because the minute we were out of formation or not working as a team we found ourselves doing some more GORUCK style team building.

We continued as a team shouting cadence and keeping our formation tight. We learned many lessons, most of which the hard way. We marched on only to learn the lesson that walking was for golf and we most definitely were not playing golf.

Remember those stats from the NY video? During the Challenge I definitely did. I had 12 hours stuck in my mind knowing that this is what classes had been averaging as best I could tell. This would mean that shortly after the sun rose we would be cruising into REI. Well I was kinda close. Sure it was after sunrise and sure we returned to REI. What I didn’t account for were the three other stops of increased Good Livin’ and a few more hours of running.

We went long enough that everyone ran out of water. I had gone through all of my food except my Peanut M&M’s.

After the “false summit” a few hours back I was not going to make the mistake of thinking we were almost done. That being said, we had been headed back towards REI for quite some time and now we were close.

13 plus hours into it we found ourselves doing some more GORUCK style team building.  Our minds were numb and had been for many hours. We were all running on pure will. We were communicating like we had been together for weeks. We were officially a team.

The front of REI was crowded with people getting ready for bike rides and people enjoying a beautiful Sunday morning. As we approached we were sounding off loudly GO-RUCK-GO-RUCK-GO-RUCK. I will always love looks we got that day from those who had no idea what we had just gone through. We knew. We will always know. Those who have gone before us know.

GORUCK tells you that they under promise and over deliver.

The Promise

15-20 MILES. 8-10 HOURS. GOOD LIVIN’.

They delivered

17-18 Miles. 13-14 Hours. GOOD LIVIN’.

Several thousand calories later, a good nights sleep and it was back to work………….

Really back to work…………

Which called for a day off and some advanced cellular repair technology………

The GORUCK Challenge is over now. My “girlfriend” had left me and I was sad, straight up depressed. I started looking at Challenges in nearby cities that I could drive to. Then the miracle. An e-mail from GORUCK stating they had just added a GORUCK Challenge in Colorado Springs just a few months away. This coupled with the Ascent 2011 should be enough to keep me busy for a while. I’ll keep you posted.

My eternal thanks goes out to GORUCK, the GORUCK Cadre and the members of class 041. Until the next time……..

Stay tuned for a review of the GORUCK GR1, just a few more tests.