Vortex Spectating, Rail Trail Lights, TA Sim Event

Sunday, Feb 21:

HDT 23.3.CP (O2 Depletion) 25 min AMRAP.

Tuesday, Feb 23:

HDT 23.3.3 (Core) in 84 min for the PT.

Wednesday:

My sister visited, so we tossed around a frisbee, went to Copper for Indian Food (the best), and explored the Lights exhibit on the rail trail.

Thursday, Feb 25:

PT Challenge Session 3: 51 PU / 82 SU / 10.5 SC@60 / 16 PP@60 / 4.5 TGU@30 / 1:20 DH@30.

Followed by HDT 23.3.2 (Arms) with 34 min of PT, then 2 mi easy run in 19:06 then 2 mi Timed Run in 14:59.

Saturday:

A friend was competing in the Vortex Sniper Challenge, and invited SB & I to come spectate and see what it was all about.  We were fairly into pistol and rifle by now, so this was a third platform to learn more about.  It's a thinking person's platform, especially with math.  And with the team challenge, communication, spotting, and strategy would also be tested.  At this event, they had three different divisions.  "Mechanized" allowed participants to drive from one shooting stage to another.  "Trooper" required participants to ruck from one stage to another with a certain pace (which would be challenging with the muddy and hilly terrain).  "LRRP" was like Trooper, but participants had to live out of their rucks all weekend, too, including camping.  We followed them along on one of their rucks, SB with a loaded ruck and me with an empty one.  Many used hiking poles.  Their rucks weighed quite a bit, with food, water, gear, and ammo.  Full rules can be found at https://rocksolidshooting.com/rules-of-engagement . 

It must be interesting to be a range officer helping with the event (or a spectator), because you see a wide range of strategies that the teams try.  One stage involved engaging pistol targets at close range after exiting a car, and then going up to another car for long distance shooting at targets that they had to find.  Another stage required teams to shoot off of circular reels and other implements on targets that they had to locate.  Another stage had them go prone to shoot cards corresponding to cards that they flipped.  Another stage had them carry a sandbag a short distance and then make a hit on a golf ball at 100yd.  The last stage of the day, which we didn't get to watch, apparently involved taking pistol shots from a moving car.  There are time limits on each stage.  

There was an all-female team there too, which was cool to see... like one team among 20-25.  Our friend hopes that SB & I will do this event one day, too.  We are pretty good on rucking and know each other well enough to probably be OK on communicating.  The shooting is going to be a different story, though!

Sunday, Feb 28:

HDT 23.3.CP (SIAS) for 30 min (above and beyond the required 15 min), then hDT 23.3.1 (Legs) with 59 min of PT, then 0.5 mi ruck OH, then another 0.5 mi cooldown.  

Tuesday, Mar 2:

Since my sister and I enjoyed the Lights exhibit, I set up a ruck club event around it.  We started at Scaleybark station and did 5 miles round trip in 1:47:58, stopping for pictures along the way.  30# with the 25L v3.

Wednesday, Mar 3:

HDT 23.4.1 with 33 min of PT, then 1 mi farmers carry with 30# plate and brick in 24:49 in MACV1s, then 2 mi strict ruck in 23:52 in Salomon XA Comp.

Friday, Mar 5:

Since it had been forever since my coworkers and I had seen each other in person, and we had newer team members who we had never even met in person before, we met up for disc golf at a park.  I borrowed a disc from a co-worker who had gotten into disc gold during COVID times, since it was a safe outdoor activity.  I liked the putter the most, because it was stable.  The driver tended to get wonky on me.  

While there, I also took the opportunity to explore trails, because a rucking friend likes to run there.  The one that I found was sloped, muddy, and rutted.  It wasn't even enjoyable for running.  It did turn into forest later on, and that was a bit better.  The trails took me to parts of the "gold" course, which has a higher difficulty level.  It had some crazy holes that involved going over a drainage valley.

Saturday, Mar 6:

SB, JB, and I put on a free TA Simulation Event to help those who wanted to experience the 48 hour TA event in all its glory, in a 6 hour time window.  We put a ton of planning into it.  My rule of thumb for meetings at work, which applies here, too, is 1 hour of prep for each hour of meeting.  

We had done recon ahead of time to figure out a good venue that had a hill, a loop, water, a "soccer field" for relays, and a field for PT.  It even had a pavilion with picnic tables for weigh-ins and check-ins.  It was quite perfect.

We did intros to explain the intentions and rules of engagement, we did the ruck dump with tips given afterwards, with the exact wording of the real thing, we did the PT test, we did relays in the "soccer field", we did a wheelbarrow race followed by wheelbarrow instruction, we did a recon loop, we did a clean and toss evolution and lessons, we did PT test part 2, we did water bucket iterations, we deck of cards with an impossible time hack, we did loop iterations with different activities, we did a walkthrough of MREs, we did the sandbag mountain competition, and then we had a shark attack.  No patches at the end, because this was all about training, but they did all get a roster patch.

Everyone got a lot out of it, which was cool to see.  It was a pretty amazing and well-orchestrated event, if I do say so myself.  When people put their planned partnerships to the test and see how they perform under pressure, it really can be eye-opening.  Better to do it here in a simulation than in real life in front of the whole world.