My friend Joe Baker of Joe Baker Fitness organized a Tough simulation rucking event to help people get a realistic training experience and also give them a goal event in and of itself for people to work towards. He recruited an all-star group of co-cadres from the rucking community, who put on an event that was as well-run as any real SF-cadre-led event that I've done. It also ended up being quite unique with the combination of ruck event coaching and life lessons that were mixed in to the rucking and PT that one might find at a typical GORUCK event.
(Photo credits for all these awesome event pics: Tamara Baker Photography)
For logistical reasons, this would be a daytime event, instead of a usual night time Tough, which also made it unique.
At 8am, we formed up like we would in a real event, and the cadres introduced themselves. After that, we had a welcome party of exercises and some animal movements up and down a short but steep hill. Next, we had some short coupon movements where we learned how to deal with carrying a big tire as a team, handling swaps efficiently. After showing that we could do that, Cadre Bass had us repeat the loop, but with no talking allowed. It might seem at first that the no talking rule would make things much more challenging, but when you can't talk, you learn to be much more focused and aware of your teammates, and we were therefore able to do it just as effectively as in the talking round. It was a cool little lesson. Fortunately, we got to drop off the tire at a car parked nearby, and we started making our way towards a greenway. We would've been moving much more slowly if we had to bring that tire along.
At the 2-mile mark, we got to a little parking area next to a field. After a bathroom stop, we split into two teams, with a leader in each group. We had to do a couple of races as a group, carrying a 120# sandbag to a turnaround point and coming back, with SB on shoulder. It paid to be a winner, as the losing team had to walk in a few circles with the SB OH around the winning team, haha. Cadres say "it pays to be a winner" a lot, but many times, it doesn't mean much, and the winning just means that you get to rest until the slower people come in. It did pay well, in this case! We repeated the challenge, but I think the second time around, no shouldering was allowed. I remember not doing as well with this relay, but I don't remember having to pay a penalty at the end, either.
We got to drop off the 120# SB in a car, and we continued along the greenway. At one point, we came across a series of mini log pyramids, each made up of three log segments. I think the original plan was for us to do log PT with them, but they were nailed together and to the ground, so instead, we got a little teamwork challenge where we had to move all of the sandbags from one end of the series to the other, except we weren't allowed to ever be on our feet. The cadres liked it so much that we got to do it again.
It got quite muddy, but we were allowed to use one of the water bladders to rinse the sandbags off. Carrying those muddy things for the rest of the event would've been nasty. When it was time to move again, we had to link the sandbags in a circle, which made it much more difficult to carry, and which required more coordination for swaps. We had the bladders, as well, which stayed behind the sandbag circle. During the whole event, the team we had worked really well together. We all pretty much knew each other from the local ruck clubs, so despite the suffering from the coupons and the miles, there was a ton of joking around and laughter the whole time. That was really cool to see.
We eventually got to a field by some kind of manufacturing facility and had a long restroom break. Life Coach Ryan McKinney gave us a powerful talk. You can tell he's really good at and passionate about what he does. It was cool to have him be part of the event, since we got to grow our mindsets and not just our physical strength.
G.I. Joe Sag helped us get into a proper staggered formation, and then led us in body weight PT with a special emphasis on form. As an example, we did frog squats, where you have knife hands that should touch the ground each time, which helps your torso stay upright, and helps you make sure that you squat deep enough. He had gone to Ranger School, and it was cool to see him lead by example during the workouts, which is something that I respect a lot. Shannon jumped in as well, since she didn't want to let the participants have all the fun.
After that, we broke up into four groups for relays, with a team leader per group. We had to do continuous movement on different exercises that we rotated between, while a single team member at a time went out and back with the 60#-sized water bladder. There weren't enough water bladders to go around, though, so our team ended up with a 60#SB. The goal was to get the most laps back and fourth. Andrea was our team lead. We used sticks to count our laps. If a team dropped a sandbag, they had to do lunges up and down the field as a penalty. We did not want to have to do one of those!
We had a great team, which included Chicken Little, who I had first met at the 2018 Thanksgiving Tough in Charlotte with Fagan. That had been a memorable event for a few reasons. The week of the event, I had decided to accept a severance package at my job to voluntarily leave, and my plan was to move to Germany for another job (which I hadn't secured yet, but which I felt good about). That event weekend was going to be my last for quite a while. I was the only girl at the event, which doesn't happen super often. I remember Chicken Little very specifically because we ended up being buddy carry partners, since he was the second smallest person at the event. He was really muscular, so I could barely backpack carry him, and ended up dropping him on my first attempt to pick him up, which cracked the Fagan egg that I had stuck in the ankle pocket of my BDUs. I remember that he had carried the 80# SB for much of the event, even though he wasn't a big guy, and I had been really impressed by his work ethic and strength. He was really nice, too. Anyway, he was on our team, and was the strongest member. There are some pictures that pro photographer Tamara Baker (Joe's wife) took of him, and he was running with such joy and ease with that 60# SB.
There was a cadre near each team, to make sure that there was no stopping during the exercises, and that no sandbags were dropped. The team next to us did have a drop, as well as the leaky bladder.
(Bridget looks like a slightly buffer and taller version of me sometimes! I'm glad she got to make it to the event, since it's not always easy for her to get off of work and travel this far.)
Our team was doing too well because the sandbag had handles that made it easier to carry and move fast, so the cadres at the other end made us swap the 60 for an 80. It was a bit slower, but still OK. I think we might've shared results at the end, but nothing happened with it. We did well, though.
For our next movement, the sandbags were just in one long pain train.
Next, we rucked to a school, where we dropped our sandbags and went on a forced march. That was a relief for me, because it meant no coupons for a while. We did have to maintain a faster pace. Because this was meant to be a good teaching event, too, at one point, Shannon stopped us and taught us the shuffling technique for making efficient use of downhills, and we got to practice that a few times.
One downside of any daytime event, especially longer ones, is that it's harder to go to the bathroom in places with no bathrooms. No cover of darkness. We did manage to find one spot during our forced march that had enough cover and not too much traffic.
We went to the back of the school afterwards, where Cadre Mark and his son set up the field for a workout. We'd do 100 burpees, run a mile (4 laps around the marked off area), 50 burpees, and then another mile. We had a time cap, but we could help each other by doing burpees and laps for each other. Chicken Little ended up burning through a ton of extra laps at full speed, to help everyone. Even some of the cadres like Shannon joined in for some laps to help everyone make it in time.
Our team ended up winning. They started having each person remember two items once the mental list started getting built and shared within the group. That worked well. The downfall of the other team ended up being that they started recalling both a screw and a nail, and repeated that every time, even though there was just a screw, haha. Since I couldn't help with strategy, and I was too short for the tire crew, I ended up just walking back and fourth with the team, "directing traffic" most of the time. It was fun to watch this evolution go down.
The sun was setting, so it was time to start heading back. On our way back, we made one stop, where we used the bathroom (this time with the cover of darkness) and had an impromptu Q&A with Team Assessment finishers, since we've done a really hard event and could share some wisdom about what it takes, training-wise, physically, mentally, to do something like that. I think my answer was consistency and moderation, which means using good form, even if it means lower weights, and therefore not getting injured. I don't use big weights - I use 30-45# sandbags for most of my training. The 60# may come out for low reps of squat cleans, situps, or getups. The 80# may come out for low reps of dead lifts. I listen to my body. I take rest days when I feel like I need it.
Some team members were getting tired towards the end, as we were approaching 18 miles for the day, but everyone worked together and encouraged each other, and we made it back near the start... only to encounter a shark attack by Cadre Joe. Shark attacks consist of one exercise after another, pressure to move fast, behind told you're too slow and have to do something else painful for a while. It's designed to test your resolve and make you dig deep.
This event was awesome. It was about learning, pushing ourselves, and community. The cadres all volunteered their time to put on this event and give back to the community. All of the participants had such a good time together, in spite of the physical challenges that we were put under. We learned life lessons, rucking lessons, and teamwork.
I'm looking forward to the next iteration of this event!
