- Valentine's Day Light CLT in Feb
- Immersion 12 ATL in May
- Expedition 12 CLT in June
- D-Day Tough CHS in June
- Independence Day Tough Chapel Hill in July
- Operation Red Wings Tough in CLT in July
- Traditional Light in Winston-Salem in August
- 9/11 Light in CLT in September
- Mog Mile Tough/Light CHS in October
- T-Day Tough/Light CLT in November
- Santa Ruck Light CLT in December
Plus Pathfinder Endure, City Ruck Tour Columbia, Biggest Fox, the Rain Ruck Ruck Club Callout, and War-X Survival Weekend.
I went from having one ruck and no hip belt (just a $2 webbing strap with a buckle), to having more rucks and accesories than I care to disclose.
I did some more events in 2019:
- Battle of the Bulge Integrated Tough Savannah in Jan
- Pistol ASI and F.I.G.H.T. FAD Myrtle Beach in Feb
- Star Course 26.2 ATL in March
- Bataan Light CLT in April
- Constellation 12 2.0 CLT in April
so I was keenly interested in finally getting to visit GORUCK HQ, where all the magic happens.
When they announced that the annual Reunions events would happen at Jax Beach, it was a great opportunity to attend my first Reunions while also getting to see HQ, meet Monster and the crew, and all that cool stuff.
TRAINING LEAD-UP
Monday, Apr 15:
I had some catching up to do on GORUCK's April Rucking Challenge - Lucky 7's, with its 7 workouts over the course of the month. I had only done one so far, so I doubled up with days 2 and 3 on this day, after a nap in the car after work.
Day 2:
5 x
- 10 Walking Lunges
- 10 Plank Pull-throughs
- 10 Overhead Presses
- 200M Ruck AFAP
which I completed in 23:03... barely felt this one.
Day 3:
1 mi ruck in 16:08
10 x
- 50m Suitcase Carry
- 10 Ruck High Pulls
- 25m Bear Crawls
Afterwards, I did another 4.7 miles of rucking at 15:22 pace (I think I had practiced integrating a 1 min shuffle each mile), since I was still feeling pretty fresh. During this ruck, I was on Messenger with my DC Star Course team members, and we came up with a team name, which was exciting.
Wednesday, Apr 17:
Rucked 5.8 mi at 19:03 as a gear test. I tried out a fresh pair of Salomon XR Missions (I loved my first pair, which I've been using for a long, long time). I also tried rucking with a 15L Bullet with an unpadded hit belt, with a 10# plate held up high on a Greyman Tactical Molle Panel, plus a little bit of extraneous gear to mimic the extra weight of gear. I also tried spike poles for a tiny bit (I couldn't find my rubber-capped ones) before I quickly gave up on that idea, since 1) it felt extremely awkward and not like something I could even get used to, 2) I realized that it would be impossible to navigate if I had poles in both of my hands.
Didn't do Pokemon Go. Didn't shuffle. Just paid attention to how the gear felt.
Thursday, Apr 18:
Wanted to get in a run because I needed the cardio. I could've done a strength session instead, but really wanted cardio. 5.0 in 41:12, 8:15 ave, 2 degrees of incline. (Splits> 8:35, 8:28, 8:23, 8:11, 7:33). I ended up feeling sore the next day. What's happening to me and my running?
Friday, Apr 19:
Chipped away some more at Lucky 7's, with the Day 4 workout. I stuck indoors this time, to not destroy my hands during bear crawls, using the larger exercise room at the gym at work. It was also threatening to rain outside. It wasn't a killer workout, but I did breathe a little hard towards the end. I used a Rucker V1 with no hip belt, so I tied up the ends of the shoulder straps together as a workaround. Better than nothing. I normally have a hip belt, so it made me appreciate having a hip belt more. I seem to have been going without gear that I normally take for granted recently.
1 mi ruck at 14:00 pace (on the treadmill, did it in 13:47)
10 x
- 10 Thrusters
- 25m Bear Crawl
- 10 Ruck Swings
Saturday, Apr 20:
Since my running ability has clearly deteriorated, I really wanted to try to salvage some of that fitness with a run today. 13.0 miles in 2:15:28, 10:25 ave on the trails at Latta Plantation. It was in the 50's, with light rain. I need to get my endurance back, because if I can't even run for 13 miles comfortably, how am I going to ruck with gear and weight for 50 miles? No food or water necessary during the run.
Sunday, Apr 21:
Lucky 7's Days 5 and 6.
Day 5:
1 mi ruck in 16:56
10 x
- 10 Russian Twists
- 10 Pushups
- 10 Overhead Squats
1 mi ruck in 17:06
Day 6:
10 x
- 100m Suitcase Carry with Switch Halfway
- 10 Squats with Ruck Front
- 10 Swings
I discovered a nice place to do outdoor ruck workouts in my neighborhood - the boat landing. It was wide, peaceful, quiet, and untrafficed.
I was amazed that I had so many workout days in a row. I normally only work out once every few days, to allow for recovery in between efforts. After having to let my left foot get back to health after the Star Course 26.2, I was glad to be getting back into the swing of things.
Wednesday, Apr 24:
Rucked 1.4 mi round trip to the subdivision fitness room.
4.0 mi run in 33:20, 8:20 ave. It felt way harder than it should've, since it was only 4 miles, and I was well-rested. My arms have felt cold and numb today, from shoulder to h and. It was weird.
At the gym, taking of my ruck, I had warm fuzzy feelings about how awesome GORUCK bags are. They make me feel like I'm ready for anything.
DONUT RUCK
GORUCK HQ makes a full weekend out of Reunions. The first official event was the Donut Ruck, which is a weekly outing that some of their employees take part in, where they ruck to a donut place for miniature sweets and coffee, before rucking back. Since it started at 9am, I decided to head down to Jax Beach the night before. It was about 6 hours total of driving, so I left after showering at work, and then slept for a few hours at a rest stop before doing the last hour. I got there an hour early, then went into the PX building.
From my first 5 seconds there, I was amazed by the warmth of the group. The CSRs there greeted me as if I was a VIP or a friend they hadn't seen in forever or something, even though I'm a nobody. They are stellar people. They had some gear to browse, including unicorns. More GRTs showed up. I tried my best to meet people, even though that is a little out of my comfort zone.
It was pouring rain at start time, so we waited it out for a few minutes until it calmed down outside. By the time we decided to go out and got started, though, it started pouring again. What's a GORUCK event without some epic-ness, though?
We started with a group photo, before we headed out through some neighborhoods. People were meeting each other, and one guy was splashing into every puddle he could find, trying to splash as many bystanders as possible.
The Donut Ruck is meant to be an accessible event, and they especially wanted to keep it light before the Tough, so that we didn't go in already tired. We got to the Mini Bar, where a line formed to get coffee. Back outside in the courtyard, HQ treated us to 3 tray boxes of their mini donuts, which was a nice surprise!
Of course, there were some shenanigans, too, like when we challenged ourselves to make a pyramid out of our rucks, instead of just arranging them in a row against the wall like normal people.
I don't normally drink coffee. I only do so before marathons, or I'll eat a couple of chocolate covered coffee beans before events. I had Nitro Brew there, though, since it was special.
Back at HQ, I met Monster. I also visited SCARS, where I dropped off my Rucker V2.1, to add side handles. HQ is a cool place. So much GORUCK.
JAX BEACH AND GRAFFITI
After the Donut Ruck, it was time to explore Jax Beach a bit. HQ had emailed out a list of ideas for things to do. HQ is located only a couple blocks away from the beach, so I headed there, first. I grew up a few miles from the beach (although I'd only go like once a year, since I always took it for granted), but this beach is better than the ones that I'm used to. The sand was super fine and soft and flat and clean. They have an initiative that encourages locals to help pick up trash. It was nice weather, not too hot, and it was cloudy, so I just felt so peaceful walking along the surf, listening to the waves, and looking for the occasional shell.
While I was there, Bomber posted that there would be a meetup for lunch at Graffiti, and I saw that it was only a couple of blocks away. GRTs and some people from HQ had gathered around a couple of tables in the outdoor seating area. I was still pretty full from the donuts, so I went for zucchini fries, and had a beer.
I know of Lee and Bomber from the GORUCK Show Facebook Live Feed and podcast. They're quite a pair, and are always a highlight of my Thursdays. I had done an event with Lee in CHS last June, although I was only barely getting into the GORUCK show at the time, and didn't know who he was then.
HQ people gave Lee a little surprise in his free beer.
After lunch, I decided to go to Mickler Landing to hunt for shark teeth. Over the course of 2 hours, I found 7. The sun was beating down hard, so I did my best to shield my body from the sun.
It was hot, so I tried to take a nap in the car, but maybe due to the coffee, I couldn't fall asleep. I decided to go to Bird Island Park, which was on the list of recommended things to see. It was a nice little park. I didn't ruck it, since I didn't want to put more hard miles on my feet before the Tough, but I did walk around and get some Pokemon, and I enjoyed the unique-looking birds from the area. They don't look like the birds from the Carolinas.
I opted to just get something for dinner at Trader Joe's. I wasn't craving anything heavy, after Donuts sand Zuchinni fries. I craved phytonutrients, maybe because I had been out in the sun. I got a vegan wrap. Not super satisfying, but it gave me the phytontutrients.
I drove out to Beaches Town Center, a nice shopping and restaurant area that was also on the list, but it was dinnertime on a Friday, so parking was harder to find, and I decided to give it up and drove back to HQ.
I tried to sleep, but again, no luck. Maybe the excitement, maybe the Nitro Cold Brew. While I was waiting for 1am (with an 11am HQ doors open time), I was thinking about how much I preferred 9pm/10pm start times.
When doors did open, I got to meet Ryan from Ruck.Beer, who had been parked next to me and had also been trying to get some sleep. It was time to gear up. I was glad to have a spot close to HQ. There were many people. No issues finding parking, that I'm aware of, but lots of people.
We decided (or were told... I don't know)... to line up alphabetically. There were 200+ who signed up. 173 showed up. The line of people stretched so long. I'm in the middle, but I was afraid that the "A" end would stretch to the next postal code, or into the beach already. With us lined up, the Cadres (JC, Beaux, Jason, Dustin) were able to do roll call and gear inspections a little bit easier.
Getting everyone together for an intro speech was a little bit harder, with so many of us. It was like a mass of cows. Eventually, we got underway with the event, though. We had 4 ranks, and we started by walking through some quiet neighborhoods. It was a little wild, at first. I'm used to the crowd of GRTs from the Carolinas. Here, there were maybe some outliers who stuck out, but there were guys burping unabashedly. Anyway, we got to the beach, and it was time for surf PT. I figured that we wouldn't have an event at Jax Beach without getting into the water. I guess first thing is as good of a time as any.
We did some push-ups, we had to roll to the left and the right in-synch, and we had to practice and re-practice standing up in unison. It was cold and uncomfortable, although not to the point where I feared hypothermia. It was probably in the 60s, for air temps. I am surprised that nobody quit, though. Even though it's an event called "Reunions", that brings together many of the most ardent GRTs in the community from across the country, there was also a decent number of first-timers. I wonder what was going through their minds during surf PT.
After that, the real welcome party began, for me. We split into four teams, one per flag (Thin Red Line, Thin Blue Line, Florida, USA), and we had to do a relay race. We split into 7 ranks per group, and each rank would take turns going down to the surf, filling about 6-7 sandbags with wet sand, then bringing it back up to the top of the beach. In the meantime, lots of difficult PT. I remember that even the first round was grueling, and I couldn't believe that we still had 6 groups to go. Overhead holds, pushups, group caterpillar pushups, squats, more overhead holds. I was with JC. As much as all of that PT sucked, though, I was grateful to be with him instead of with Jason's group next to us.
Someone in Jason's group had said that they were cold to the point of having goosebumps, so he warmed them up by getting them in the center, then having a sand storm coat everyone. I'll take the PT, thank you. I think the group to our left also had to get sandy. When I say sandy, it's like multiple inches of sand coating them.
After we finished the relay, we were relieved to get to fill 80 sandbags, and we started on a trek along the beach for a few miles. It was so beautiful out there. The moon was super bright, and shining across the ocean, close to the horizon. It was quiet, and I was in a mass of GRTs. Good thing the Cadre weren't strict about formations... we were a huge group. With 80 sandbags, there were about 2 people per sandbag. After a while, I settled into a swapping pair with a really nice guy.
We finished the beach ruck and got to refuel for a bit and dump sandbags, before going on a ruck through some neighborhoods. It was at this point that things were feeling pretty easy... no coupons, just rucking through Jax Beach and enjoying the city. We were still all wet and a little cold from the surf PT. I was glad to have my long sleeve shirt on, not only for sand chafing, but also for a bit of warmth.
The intensity came back up once we got to an astroturf field, though. While we waited for people on a bathroom break, we got some extra special Jason time. He brings a whole nother level of enthusiasm, energy, and a special kind of humor to the event. He doesn't cadre that much anymore, since he focuses more on the bigger picture vision for GORUCK, so it's special when you do get him. He has a way of making you work hard and maintain standards, while also making you laugh. There's no hiding with him. He'll call you out if you're slacking. He'll also inject dance parties into the event, to keep things fun.
We did a couple of exercises up and down the field, and then we did a sequence of buddy carry variations. I've done these before at other events, so this kind of felt like a "best of GORUCK". At the end of many variations, the sun started coming up, although because the event started at 1am, it meant that we were still really only like halfway through a standard length event, which was slightly demoralizing.
We rucked through some commercial parts of the city as the sun came up brightly. It was kind of weird that after like 6 hours together, we were finally seeing what everyone else looked like, for the first time.
During the event, apart from the team weight, we also had the Rooney Ruck, to honor the renowned Cadre who passed away from pancreatic cancer earlier this year. It was 75lb, and the goal was to get everyone to carry it for some point during the event. They also had some collage memorials posted in HQ, and there was a raffle to raise funds for his family. I was thinking that we may do the Rooney WOD some time during the event, although we didn't.
Our next destination was a high school field, where we formed the world's longest tunnel of love. We were told that we'd have to tunnel from one side of the field to another, and back. It was a massive field. It was sooooo hard to hold the position, with 173 of us crawling through. I did my best, but snuck breaks in between people whenever I could. I was about halfway down the line, and I was only in the early phases of the crawl before the Cadre finally called time on this evolution. Crawling felt way more comfortable than holding the tunnel, I will say. I did have the benefit of gloves, long sleeves, and long pants, though.
After this, we split up into two groups. We had a race that consisted of a tug-of-war, a run around two fields while carrying a casualty on a stretcher, and a run around two fields while pushing a football tackle sled. Then, we did it again, I think. I was not of much help during this race, on any of the tasks. I wasn't even able to ruck very fast. A jog was feeling very strenuous at this point.
Afterwards, it was our group's turn to go to the nextdoor police department, where we had a service action built into the event. Our task was to wash a few cop cars, while also doing a collective 500 pushups, 500 tricep dips, and 500 pull-ups. I didn't contribute a lot, but I did what I could. It was a nice way to have teamwork and do PT while also doing a service action. This was my first in-event GORUCK service action. Although it's no longer required, the service action normally consists of collecting items for donation before or after the event.
After that, Jason gathered us together, we did a little PT while getting sprayed, as a cool-down.
Next, he told us how it's important that we be able to create our own motivation. Our group got to pick how to motivate ourselves. Someone said that the blue team had chosen to do pushups (I thought it might've been overhead claps), for their motivation. Someone on our team, though, came up with the brilliant idea of doing the limbo. People had already been holding a broom and a hose from the car wash, so we started cheering for each other as everyone took turns under the limbo pole.
It was one of my most fun GORUCK moments ever. The guy who was holding the limbo pole... I don't know if he was a GRT or someone from HQ or the PD, but he was hilarious. He interacted with each person in a different way. He even limbo-ed himself at the end!
We took pics with the cars at the end, and thanked the PD for what they do for the community.
Finally, a full class picture, along with a police escort back to HQ.
Back at HQ, we celebrated being one big crazy family, we celebrated Rooney, and we had beer and got patched.
Afterwards, we washed our rucks as instructed, to get rid of all of the corrosive salt water and take good care of our gear. HQ ordered tacos for us, so we all refueled.
I got to meet Bomber in-person. I love him. It's impossible not to love him. I also got a pic with a good representation of the Asian GRTs.
After this, I went to the hotel, showered, and decided to sleep until I naturally woke up. It had been a long weekend already, with not much sleep, and I'd have to drive back home the next day. I was aware that this may mean missing the bar crawl and not waking up until like 16 hours later. I ended up waking up like a few hours later, and I decided to make the most of the weekend and go out to the bar crawl.
BAR CRAWL
I was about an hour late, so people were just wrapping up there and paying checks. I chatted with a group for a little while, and then we walked a couple of blocks over to another place.
It was loud at the other place, so I met a couple of nice NYC ruckers, and got tips on Star Course and NYC rucking events. I hadn't had dinner yet, so I decided to go back to the Blind Rabbit to get something to eat. I ate it all. After that, I went home. Ironically, I had no beer during the bar crawl.
SCAVENGER
I had heard that some people are used to finding teams for Scavenger, the morning of the event. I had gone to Reunions alone, so I didn't have a team pre-planned. This time was a bit different, because the Cadre asked us to prepare team shirts with the theme of Heroes and Villains, since Marvel End Game was coming out that weekend. Many people came dressed in groups. I was worried that I wouldn't find a team. I saw a couple of people with a dog, and I figured that a group with a dog might be nice and let me join, and they did. It turns out that the team I joined would have Cadre Rick and Kit on it.
It was my first Scav, and I have been wanting to try one for a while. I was the TL, and ended taking point on Instagram, where I re-purposed my Star Course account for the Scav team. The rest of the team took care of figuring out the waypoints and deciding on the optimal way to see all the sights and get points.
There were many ways to get points.... do PT every few blocks, thank an officer, do/see something cool, find certain things, do certain things, perform/teach certain things, snipe other teams, challenge other teams in PT, drink beer, find Bomber, jump in the ocean.
We hustled, and it turns out, we actually got first! Drager for the win! Ironically, I hadn't had anything to drink during the bar crawl, but I had a personal record on number of beers during a 3-hr window during the Scav. That made being the instagram hashtagger extra challenging.
PARADE
The Scav was shorter than normal, from what I understand... 3-ish hours? I don't know if it was because of the parade that was happening in town, to celebrate the first day of beach season. I went over to see it for a little while, and get one last stroll along the beautiful beach, before the drive back home.
It was an awesome weekend to be in Jax Beach. The Scav was extra special because of all the people and floats who were around.
SUMMARY
I was looking forward to some great things going into the weekend, but HQ exceeded my expectations. From the my first few moments there, to the end, it was packed with fun and family. It was great to be immersed in GORUCK people, GORUCK culture, and GORUCK fun for a weekend. Special shoutouts to the incredible CSRs who make us feel special, the Cadre who impart their wisdom and life lessons to us, Bomber and Lee who were fantastic hosts throughout what must've been an endurance weekend for them of event after event, and my fellow GRTs who remind me of how great it is to be a part of a community like this, where we're all connected and feel like one, despite coming from very different places and having different backgrounds.
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