I had recovering to do after the Fayetteville Triple, so I only did one workout in the week leading up to Rugged Maniac NC 1 and GORUCK Expedition. I would've wanted to taper for Rugged, in any case.
Tuesday, May 15:
4.2 in 34:45, 8:16 average. I did my second run with the treadmill app that simulates running in outdoor locations. I did the Magic Lake video, which is flatter. It was a recovery run, sort of. I didn't need to go fast. I just wanted to move some, to maintain fitness and shake out from Fayetteville.
My body is ok. I haven't done anything speed-related in a while, though. I took a nap before the run after work, since I was passing out tired and would've needed adrenaline to force myself to run despite the tiredness. Right arm is still 30% numb from the HH12HR.
Splits> 8:47, 8:34, 8:21, 7:50, 1:12 for 0.2.
RUGGED MANIAC
Since Expedition is more about learning survival skills and not about enduring a bunch of PT, I wasn't concerned about tacking Expedition on to my existing race plans for Rugged Maniac. I was glad to be able to fit in both. I'd be done with Rugged in the morning. I'd have to skip the volunteering that I'd usually do, but I'd drive to Expedition afterwards, with a chance at a nap before the 12hr overnight event.
At Rugged, they had the same set of 2018 obstacles as the ones I encountered in SC. The main challenge was the rain that made all of the obstacles tougher than usual.
The rules allow for help on the warped wall. I wanted to try to do it myself, and I tried, over and over again. It normally takes me like 3 tries. I tried over and over again, and it still wasn't working. You may find a drier spot on a normal race day, but today, everything was wet. 2nd and 3rd caught up to me, and they were going with volunteer help. My chance was slipping away. I lost one spot, then finally got help up and managed to get 2nd, maybe because the 2nd girl up the wall knew that I had been there for a while and felt sorry for me. She was nice. Anyways, I was happy just to podium, and to get through reasonably well in the rain. It'll be like that in England, probably, so I need to start getting used to wet obstacles. I'm ok at best on dry ones, and wet ones are normally nearly impossible. We'll see! One day, though, I want the top spot at Rugged.
GORUCK EXPEDITION
The packing list for Expedition said no food, which is different. I figured that we may learn how to find food. I didn't want to go in empty, especially after doing a race right beforehand, though, so I fueled up at Arby's. I wanted salt, meat, and lots of sauce. Plus, lots of light lemonade for hydration in the heat. It was warm.
I realized that I didn't have everything I needed, so I swung back home before going to Westminster Park. I don't know what kind of park it is, but it's open to the public during daylight hours. It has some open fields, plus access to a river.
After introductions of the participants and cadre, we split up into 3 groups of 13 to learn how to build a rope bridge, which includes a figure 8 knot and a knot with a bite, and the alpine butterfly, plus the Swiss harness. I've never been good at understanding knots, visualizing how they work and are assembled. This practice helped, though. After doing rope traverses with a caribeaner (not with pure arm and leg strength like in Spartan with the Tyrolean Traverse), we practiced all connecting ourselves, which was cool and unique.
Next, we learned how to estimate distances with paces and keep bearings with a compass. Then put that into practice during a map making exercise, which was more challenging than usual because we had to do it in the dark. There was some wild terrain with elevation changes and bushwhacking to get through, too. When I was a kid, before the days of Mapquest and later, Google Maps, I'd ride all around my neighborhood in my bike, and mapped all of the roads and ponds and other landmarks. It reminds me of that.
The 6 hour Expedition people taught us about first aid, which we also covered in Constellation and Immersion. It's good to get some repetition, though, to reinforce it. First aid isn't something you think about on a day to day basis, so it's easy to forget unless you get it reinforced.
After that, we learned foraging techniques and fire building techniques, including how to prep rabbits, eggs, etc. That was very new to me, too. There were a lot of people in the class, so not everyone got to do everything, but there were chances for each person to contribute in some way or another. We learned about using the skillet, aluminum foil with food by the coals, and boiling.
The fire building instruction was useful. The patience to do the necessary prep at the beginning to get enough wood and tinder, and to sort it, is critical. We kept the fire going on the jetboil to sanitize water.
We did a mission where we got to put a lot of the learnings into practice, using our previous exploration and map making of the area to go to a location, build and cross a rope bridge, get water, bring it back, and boil it.
After that, we learned about making shelters, staying dry, staying off the ground to stay warm, creating insulation, etc. That was pretty cool. I car camp occasionally, and I usually try to avoid using AC or heating, and maybe wouldn't at all, except I don't want to damage my house with the temp swings and extreme temps. So this was useful to learn about.
Our time ended too soon, but for those who could stay and wanted to stay, we could go through the culminating exercise that had been planned. It involved doing a 1 mile float down the river, Immersion style but with the added skill of the rope connection with alpine butterfly knots. Afterwards, we navigated our way back to the start point. I was game. Going through missions are my favorite parts of events like these.
The water was cold, but we endured and swam our way downstream through the uncharted waters. The currents were a little stronger in some areas, but we all made it through to the landing spot. It was a little surreal, floating under I-77.
Next, we started navigating back to the start point. There were twists and turns and obstacles along the way, but that's an important and normal part of navigating that's good to learn and get used to. The most intense part was the final stretch, which I had planned on being a straight shot back home. However, it was a path riddled with obstacles of all kinds. I thought numerous times that there's no way we were getting through this or that, but where I saw obstacles that prevent us from getting where we want to go and doing what we wanted to do, the cadre saw challenges to get through and overcome. It was really cool to see them operate in conditions like this, and to see how they think and get through unpredictable situations. That's what training and learning like this is all about. It was such a special opportunity to be able to go through this Expedition Extra with them and the team in a more intimate setting.
We got through at last, and round 2 of the beers felt so rewarding after what we accomplished together.
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