NYC
I landed in NYC and took the bus over to my sister's apartment, where we had brunch with her boyfriend's family. Their apartment had a nice shared rooftop lounging area with nice views.
I took a nap afterwards, to try to catch up on missed sleep. At night, we went out to a club / concert type thing at the Brooklyn Mirage. My sister likes that kind of music and travels around the US to go to these things. To me, it's interesting to experience for a little while and to understand her hobbies better, though I'd much rather be working out. It would've been cool if it was a gym and they were playing that music in the background, with the lights and everything.
The next day, we went to her friend's place in Brooklyn for a Memorial Day BBQ. I was surprised that he had a little backyard behind his brownstone. It was a nice and relaxing time. It might be the first time that I've been to a Memorial Day BBQ, too!
Next, my sister and I walked the Brooklyn Bridge, which neither of us had done before. It was kind of crowded, but not terrible. The architecture is pretty neat. It's a pretty unique looking bridge. I got in about 4 miles of rucking. I only brought a 10# plate (really, 2x 5# plates) on this trip since I was just doing a Light the next weekend, and I didn't want to have to check in bags, so I carried extra water to add weight.
On the way home, Wholefoods.
Tuesday, May 28:
I still had 2 more Honoring Service workouts to complete for the May GORUCK challenge, so I did the Teacher workout, followed by the LEO workout. It was fun getting to do it in Central Park.
Teacher:
- 1 mi ruck (15:13)
- 1 min squats
- 2 min plank
- 4 push-ups
- 8 deadlifts
- 16 thrusters
- 32 ruck swings
- 64 ruck lunges
- 128 flutter kicks (32 x 4-ct)
- 2 mi ruck (29:51)
LEO:
3 x
- 1 min sit-ups
- 300m sprint (ruckless)
- 1 min push-ups
- 1.5 mi ruck (21:52, 21:29, 22:57)
And I like round numbers, especially since I round down for Pathfinder logs and I want to get my mileage's worth, so I did another 1.5 miles afterwards. It was a lot of fast rucking. I averaged 15:38 for the 9 miles. It's not crazy fast, but I felt like I was pushing hard the whole time. It was about 26 min of ruck PT and 145 min of rucking, in all. A little light on the PT side, but the rucking intensity and volume made up for it.
After the workout, we went to the West Village to have Joe's Pizza, visit a Caulipower-based pizza pop-up shop, get some chocolates, and visit Washington Square Park for a geocache.
In the evening, we met up with some friends for an Escape Room. It was time travel-themed, with half of the group stuck in WWII, and half of us stuck in Medieval Times, and we had to find our way back together into modern times.
We had beer and food at the Beer Authority by Times Square afterwards.
Wednesday, May 29:
My sister and I had a big day planned with watching both halves of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. It's 6 hours in all, and depending on the days that you book the tickets, you either see half on one day and half the next day, or you see it all on one day. Our first half was at 2pm, and the second half was at 7:30pm.
In the morning, I shined my MACV-1s for the first time. They were scratched up, and that's fine, but they started getting some spots, so it was time. I tried following instructions from Youtube. The "after" picture looks better than it really looks in person, but I guess the shining still helps. Shoe shining is more involved and more time-consuming than I expected!
I wanted to get in a workout beforehand, so I did Yoga for Beginners on Youtube. After that, I got in a 3 mi-ruck while getting another geocache in Central Park.
The Cursed Child was great. It's not a musical. It's a combination magic show plus non-musical Broadway show. They had some neat special effects. It's everything you'd expect from JKR.
We had tacos during the break between the two halves. I often had a craving for tacos during this trip, for some reason.
Thursday, May 30:
The day after, my sister had to fly out for some weddings that she was attending, so it was a day spent mostly at home.
I started the day with a 10.5 mi run in Central Park. I like rucking, but I also like running, and it would be a waste to be in NYC and not run there. Since I haven't been running much, I didn't have any particular expectations on how much distance I'd cover, but it actually went pretty well. I got in some distance and speedwork, by doing about 4 miles of fartleks (Swedish for "speed play"). I'd go fast for a while and try to hold it for a while (trying to keep going until I hit the next path intersection, at least), recover, and repeat.
10.5 in 1:34:32, 8:59 ave.
I've been waking up at like 5am for all of my workouts in NYC, to avoid the heat of the day, and to make the most of the daytime to spend with my sister. After the run, I did a 1 mi ruck to a bagel shop, since that was one of the New Yorky things she said that I should eat while I was there. They had a whole wheat everything bagel, and I got it with tofu cream cheese. Pretty good!
I wanted to take advantage of my time in the city, so in the evening, before my sister left, I ventured out to the Financial District, to go to O'Hara's pub, which is famous in the GRT community for being GRT-owned, and for having a bunch of patches covering everything inside.
Despite pouring rain, the place was really busy with people in the financial district coming in for after-work drinks. It took a while for me to get a seat at the bar, but I used the time to look around a bit. I had a beer, then went back home.
Friday, Mar 31:
Before I went down to NJ on Friday morning, I got in another early morning workout, this time, in the apartment. It was a core workout involving bridges, plus a little ruck work. It took 44 min, and then I got in a quick 1 mile 16 min ruck afterwards.
I had to improvise a bit. I couldn't find my sister's yoga mat, so I used a flattened cardboard box. For the bridge platform, I used one of those foldable step ladders. And a GR1 is not optimal for ruck workouts because it's really floppy and doesn't have handles. It makes me appreciate the Rucker all the more.
NJ - 10TH REUNIONS
After that, I took the metro down to Penn Station, the train down to Newark, and a rental car down to Princeton. I met up with a friend, and we explored our favorite spots on campus and watched a Glee Club concert, and then I went to the '09 dinner, followed by Friday Night Fellowship with the Princeton Christian Fellowship. It was good seeing everyone again.
I was tired after the long day, so I didn't go out to the party tents that night, but I did stop by to watch an a cappella arch sing for a little while before I drove to the motel. On the way to the motel, I came across at least a dozen deer (no more than like 2 at a time). It took a lot of paying attention to drive, since I didn't want to hit any of them crossing the road, and the drive was about 40 minutes long.
Saturday is the biggest day for Reunions.
- Kindred Spirit a cappella arch sing & alumni reception
- Class brunch & class photo
- PCF lunch
- P-rade (a parade that goes down campus, made up of the alumni in themed costumes... ours was "Nine-ten-do" (since we were '09 at our 10th), plus local bands and tiger-themed floats and vehicles)
- Post-P-rade PCF reception
- The best fireworks show on earth
The last time that I went back was for the 5th. It was different this year, since a number of my classmates / roommates had little kids now. They're very cute.
I skipped the tents again (I'm even more awkward than I usually am, when I attempt to dance) and opted to drive back to NYC after the fireworks.
GORUCK LIGHT D-DAY NYC
I've done NYC, and I've done Reunions, so the most unique part of my trip was going to be doing a GORUCK Challenge event in a different region. I've done Challenge, FAD, and Survival events in NC/SC/FL/GA, but besides the DC Star Course, this would be my first time going by plane to an event.
Since I'd get to the start point by subway, I was concerned about how dirty I'd be after the event when it was time to go back home. I messaged the event facebook page to ask the locals about it, but they assured me that it was no big deal, and joked that I'd still be the cleanest one on the subway.
Before the 1pm event, I met up with my parents' godson for brunch. It was some delicious pre-event fuel.
I got off at the South Ferry stop and walked a block to the start point at Battery Park. There were a few GRTs there, and the group gradually grew. Fortunately, there were public restrooms at the nearby Ferry Terminal. That would've been rough, if it wasn't there. You can't really go in public in the middle of NYC during the day, and it wouldn't have necessarily been easy to find a shop or restaurant that quickly.
The view from the park was terrific. There were boats going back and forth across the harbor, and a little Lady Liberty could be seen across the harbor. The Cadres were Hot Mike and City Ruck Tour Daniel. It was my first time with either of them. It was a light, but Hot Mike meant business. Cadre Daniel was the "good cop" that helped all the new people not feel quite so terrified.
It was an HTL weekend, so we had about 5 return from the H and T. They all seemed to be in good shape, and in reality, I couldn't tell that they had done the H and T already. Maybe a little more than half of the class was new to GORUCK. I got to meet some people that I had only previously known from Facebook, like a fellow Pathfinder roster, and another person who's active on the GORUCK Tough facebook group.
Apparently, these Cadres liked us to take everything out of our rucks for gear inspections. According to the H and T people, the gear had to be positioned in a certain spot, relative to our open rucks, too. That was different. We also did a few count-offs where we had to hold a certain position (like a high plank or OH ruck press) and then do a single-count exercise while we counted our number (a push-up or squat). Fortunately, we didn't really have to do any re-dos due to mess-ups.
We did a welcome party under the guidance of 2 newbie TL's, and did a couple of tiny movements with some history lessons mixed in. Something else that was different was that the Cadres told us about the significance of Rangers and the Airborne Rangers in the Sky, so each time they said "Rangers", wherever we were, for the rest of the event, we had to quickly tidy up our coupons (which were essentially only 5 normal flags without shovels) and then get into a high plank with our feet elevated on something like a bench, and wait for the command to do 10 ruck push-ups plus one extra for the Airborne Ranger in the Sky. We probably did 4 of those during the event. It did take a couple of tries sometimes, though, since not everyone was always in plank position by the time we needed to be, for some reason.
We went north along the promenade, with the Hudson river to our left and green space to our right. It was a really pretty day. There were no shadows following us, so I had to take mental pictures of everything. The sun glistened off of the sky scrapers on the NJ side of the river. It was a beautiful day to be outside. It was a little warm, but not terrible, and it got progressively cloudier as the event went on, which offered us shade.
Our first major stop was at Rockefeller Park, where we learned how to do fireman carries and buddy bear crawls. Fortunately, there was a girl who was my size there, and I was amazed by how easy she was to pick up. We continued north, and eventually stopped at a little stretch of grass by the sidewalk to do the Tunnel of Love a couple of times, followed by body surfing. During body surfing, I was near a really funny girl who provided some entertaining commentary as people went over us.
As we left, it was misting rain, and by the time we got to the 9/11 memorial, it was pouring rain. I'm glad we got to go there, as part of this event, even though it's not particularly related to D-DAY. We got to take a few minutes to walk around and reflect on the memorial in silence.
During the whole event, I was expecting to have to get into a body of water the whole time, because
1) the cadres warned us about water-proofing our gear
2) the H and the T had done PT in the Hudson and the East Rivers
3) it was a D-Day event
Fortunately, we never ended up having to do that. I don't mind it too much, but I would have minded having to get onto the plane the next morning with a wet and smelly ruck. And I would've been uncomfortable subjecting to fellow subway riders, if I was drenched with the Hudson River. We got wet, but it was only with rain, and my ruck was dry by the next day.
Also the vast majority of the event was along the promenade, so we only had to cross one street the entire time. It's a little ironic that my event in a big city had fewer street crossings than events in far smaller cities.
After the stop at the 9/11 Memorial, we started on our next movement, only to learn that it would only be about a block in length, since we had come to our ENDEX point. We were at the War Horse Memorial that overlooked the 9/11 memorial. I didn't know it was there, so it was cool to learn about. It was my first time ENDEXing a challenge event at a place that was different from the start point. I guess if you're in NYC, it's easy to metro to wherever you need to go, if needed.
During the whole event, I was expecting to have to get into a body of water the whole time, because
1) the cadres warned us about water-proofing our gear
2) the H and the T had done PT in the Hudson and the East Rivers
3) it was a D-Day event
Fortunately, we never ended up having to do that. I don't mind it too much, but I would have minded having to get onto the plane the next morning with a wet and smelly ruck. And I would've been uncomfortable subjecting to fellow subway riders, if I was drenched with the Hudson River. We got wet, but it was only with rain, and my ruck was dry by the next day.
Also the vast majority of the event was along the promenade, so we only had to cross one street the entire time. It's a little ironic that my event in a big city had fewer street crossings than events in far smaller cities.
After the stop at the 9/11 Memorial, we started on our next movement, only to learn that it would only be about a block in length, since we had come to our ENDEX point. We were at the War Horse Memorial that overlooked the 9/11 memorial. I didn't know it was there, so it was cool to learn about. It was my first time ENDEXing a challenge event at a place that was different from the start point. I guess if you're in NYC, it's easy to metro to wherever you need to go, if needed.
4.6 mi in about 4 hours.
For the ENDEX, we learned about the War Horse Soldiers, and then it was time to get the HTLers patched. But to earn it, they had to do 30-35 thrusters, and to support them, the rest of us held a high plank with our feet up on benches. After the patching ceremony, a group went to O'Hara's. Apparently, it's a tradition that whenever an event ends in this area, they go to O'Hara's, so I got to go back again, this time, with some fellow GRTs. We got beer and food, and talked GORUCK. It was fun hanging out with NYC GRTs. So much unites GRTs across the country and the world, with our values and such, but it's also neat that different GRT communities also have their own unique characteristics and sub-culture. I got some exposure to non-Southeast GRT communities at Jax Beach Reunions earlier this year, and I hope that I'll get more opportunities to travel for events in the future, because it is cool and different meeting other GRT groups and doing events in very different locations.
I started this post with my story of missing my flight out. My flight back home was also eventful. My original direct flight home got cancelled, and I was automatically rescheduled for a different flight that left a little while later, but that had to do a layover in Pittsburgh. I was tired from all of the week's activities, so I was only awake enough to know that we took off, and that we landed. Once we landed and were taxiing, though, as I was waking myself back up, I noticed that the other passengers were unusually quiet and were a bit anxious. It turns out that our plane's engine had "ingested a seagull" along the way, and to minimize risks in case of damage to the engine, the pilot decided to take us to the nearest airport immediately, which turned out to be the airport that we had left from.
The maintenance crew would need at least 3 hours to assess the damage. Apparently, there was seagull everywhere. Since my final destination wasn't in PA anyways, it wasn't worth waiting 3 hours to see if I could go to PA, so I got rebooked on a different flight back home. I eventually made it home.
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