TRAINING LEAD-UP
Monday, Apr 19:
I hosted a ruck club workout to tackle the April Tribe WOD, the Bataan Memorial WOD. We started with a 2 miler in 31:39 along the greenway starting from Clanton Park, before diving into
9 rounds:
- 10 Burpees
- 11 DLs with 80#SB got difficult
- 12 Thrusters with Ruck
- 13 American Twists with Ruck (hard)
- 14 Arm Circles
- 15 Neck Circles (hard)
- 16 Situps with Ruck
- 170m March (30# ruck shuffle)
Wednesday, Apr 21:
PT Session 9 with 48 pushups, 84 situps, 13 SC@60, 18 PP@60, 5 TGU@30right, 1:45 DH@30.
Thursday, Apr 22:
Just after midnight, I knocked out PT Session 10 to complete the challenge. To mix it up, I added my rifle so that I could get used to exercising with it, too.
PT Session 10 with 37 PU with rifle, 48 SU with rifle OH, 11 SC@60 with rifle, 15 PP@60 with rifle, 4 TGU@30 left, 1:20 DH@30 with rifle (rifle = 7.5#).
+ later, the next day after a sleep and daytime, Yoga for Uncertainty in 51 minutes.
TRIBE REUNION BASIC
Disclaimer about how accurate or inaccurate this account may be:
- I'm writing this 9 months after it happened.
- I did these two reunion events (the Tribe Basic and Tribe Tough) a few months after doing another set of Jax Beach Reunions (the 10-year St. Augustine and 10-year Jax Beach), which increases the risk of mixing incidents from the two together.
- I decided to wear the same clothes for the Basic and Tough for some reason, so even the pictures don't help me figure out what happened in the Basic vs the Tough very easily.
This was the first time I'd be doing a Basic/Tough, as opposed to the typical Tough/Basic. I liked that they changed it up. It presented a new mental and physical challenge.
Since this was the Tribe Reunion, the renamed version of the Cadre Reunion, weights requirements for both events were 30# for people weighing 150# or less.
This was Cadre Spark's first time at a GORUCK event. After reading his book and learning about the multiple lifetimes' worth of experiences he's had, I was really excited to be able to do an event with him. He helped out at the Basic (which was led by the always creative DS) and was lead Cadre at the Tough.
We started with admin and a welcome party, which probably involved doing reps for the no-shows. There were 43 participants total, with about 10 newbies, and 8 women in the class. We did quarter mile loops around the block.
There was a very strong and poignant theme for this event. We'd live out the basic needs of Tribes over the course of the event. Food, air, water, shelter, and security. DS always does an awesome job with event themes.
For food, we had to dump all of our food into a 5-gallon bucket that became a coupon to be carried. We wouldn't be allowed to eat until designated times.
For air, we followed a tradition used by some indigenous cultures to test prospective warriors. You get your mouth filled with water, and then you exercise (in the indigenous peoples' case, a day-long run, and in our case, plank, bear crawls, pulling security during stops, and then a quarter mile ruck). See if you have the mental discipline (and basic physical fitness) to not swallow your mouthful. At the end, you spit it out to prove that you were successful.
We went down to the beach to fill up sandbags and sing the national anthem with as much enthusiasm as we could muster. There were many 40# fillers and a few 60's. That helped to offset the increased ruck weight a bit. The increased ruck weight is largely a mental thing because you're typically carrying a lot more already, in the form of sandbags.
For "food", we got two "water buffaloes", specially made 210# SBs. Some guys did log PT with it initially. The team carried it around the neighborhood. Then, they said that only girls would be allowed to carry one of them.
We went to the police station, where we helped to wash their cars as a little service project. We also had a "dance party" inspired by Jason.
The last movement was challenging, as usual. We weren't allowed to shoulder the coupons anymore.
BETWEEN
After the Basic, they brought in a little food for us, which was nice.
I went to Mickler's to look for shark teeth, as is my tradition. I also tried to nap before the Tough, also a tradition. I found a tiny tooth, the smallest I've ever found, but the strong winds blew it away, and I lost it, unfortunately. I did get a picture just before I lost it, though.
TRIBE REUNION TOUGH
As expected, it was quite challenging to get back out for the Tough. The Basic was difficult, and that was supposed to be the easy part.
For the Tough, I stepped up to lead the welcome party. I don't particularly enjoy being TL, but I'd rather be TL than have to endure some kind of punishment for class complacency, and I'd rather be TL than have someone potentially disastrous lead us. I think we started with the usual exercises for no-shows.
A theme of the tribe events was rites of passage. As a society, we don't have them as much as we used to, at least meaningful ones. This was a way to get back to our roots and really test ourselves.
The Tough started off differently in that the TL after the admin portion was going to be something that people actually wanted to be. In Tribes of old, it was a privilege to be a leader, and to become one, you had to have the respect of those you were leading. To pick the first TL, there was an OH hold contest. After a while, it was down to three, including me and Bridget. The ones who had already dropped were then asked to vote for who they thought would win by crowding around the candidate they believed in the most. Bridget ended up winning, and the other groups had to do a little PT, I think.
We did the hold-water-in-mouth challenge again. I intentionally do some runs where I only breathe through my nose, so I'm used to the feeling already. It does give me a nice little high. I think it's the oxygen deprivation.
We gave up our food again and headed towards the beach, where Bridget led us in low crawling towards the shore with the coupons. She did a great job of keeping everyone together and motivating us. We then did surf PT.
He led us in a really cool evolution that he used to take sniper school students through. Over the course of 30 minutes, we had to get from a standing position to a prone position, without noticeably moving at any time. If any of the cadres did catch you, you'd be taken aside for PT with DS. I did not want to get caught. Everyone was very slow to start. I don't know if it's because they didn't understand the task, or if they were going to leave it to the very end. I was a bit more proactive at the start, knowing that I had to keep up a good enough pace of progress to get down in time. It's a long way to go. You have to think about what kinds of positions you can hold without gassing yourself or losing balance. I liked my strategy of using my arms as a brace against my legs as they slide down, and then gradually getting my butt low while keeping some weight on my hands to relieve my legs. I didn't get all the way to prone in time, but I was still happy with the result.
We did a difficult coupon movement on the beach, with more coupons than people, including water buckets that couldn't be spilled. It was slow-going and challenging.
Sara Jones saving the day by remembering nearly everyone in the class's names, which allowed us to drop some coupons, I think. It might've even been water buckets that we got to dump, coach-at-the-end-of-a-football-game style. That may not have even been the intention. She may have just wanted to celebrate in an epic way. Up until then, DS would select two random people and see if they knew each others' names as a result of getting to know each other during the event. We kept failing.
We did relay races. It's always nice to have a little team competition in the events, especially on day 2 where you're individually tired. We also had challenges as an entire class, where we had to move coupons and casualties from point A to point B along the beach, without being able to stand up and carry stuff. We tossed everything along and dragged it. I'm not able to toss very far, especially on my knees, but my teammates helped out, fortunately.
We got to enjoy being out there together on the beach, watching the sunrise, appreciating the priviledge of being alive in the best country in the world.
We washed cars at the Police Station again, and had another challenging coupon movement with more coupons than people. It's always cool when you meet fellow GRTs who are willing to dig deep and carry extra burdens for the sake of the team. I found that in DV, a first-timer, and a new friend named Savan. A Tribe Tough is quite a first-time event!
Of course, we didn't get to just go back to HQ and get patched. Jason makes sure that the event finishes with a bang, not a whisper, and gives us a "goodbye party". We shuttled rucks to and fro and did lot of PT. It ends with each Cadre taking us through their favorite exercise to push us to our perceived limits. OH holds, flutter kicks.
It was good to see DS back in the States again. His events are awesome.
AFTERWARDS
On my way home, I stopped by Fort Caroline again. On my last trip, it was closed on that day of the week, even though there was no mention of the closure online. This time, it was open.
It's nice active recovery to walk around, and an opportunity to see more of that part of the region and learn more about history.
Back in Charleston, I was quite proud of myself for some landscaping work:
Wednesday, Apr 28:
Went on a 5 mile progressive recovery run at 9:18 pace around the neighborhood. I've had a crick in my neck for the past few days. Looking at the pictures of me under the "buffalo" from the reunion, I can't say that I'm surprised, haha. The chiropractor helped a little, but not all the way.
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