It was pretty exciting to see Chuy listed as the cadre for the GORUCK D-Day events in Charleston, SC. I'd consider Charleston events anyways, but this made it a no-brainer. He doesn't lead legacy events often, but he was doing this one for some reason. Maybe it was a chance for either F3 guys to prepare for an upcoming custom HTB that he was leading, but that's just a guess.
TRAINING LEAD-UP
Tuesday, June 1st:
"Yoga for Neck and Shoulder Relief" with Adriene, because my shoulders were really stiff. The yoga didn't really help, though. I did that for 17 minutes, followed by "Runners Yoga" with Adriene for 30 minutes.
Wednesday, June 2nd:
2 mile recovery ruck to get blood flowing with 30#, wearing the Altra Torin Plush's. My shoulders were getting a little better.
THE TOUGH
There was a lot of rain on the drive down to the event. We stopped by Pete's restaurant (Tropical Grill) for some tasty and healthy food. Unfortunately, they had to close later in the year. It's a tough time for businesses. I would've gone often, if it was in town. A number of participants and Chuy were there. Water jugs were filled up. Three from the Bass fam showed up to do the event. SB forgot her shoes back at home, so she had help getting some new ones on the way down.
Downtown Charleston is nasty when it rains. Streets become rivers. I'm amazed that my car made it through. At several intersections, I saw cars that got swept away by the rain. It was a heart-pounding drive. I parked at the usual parking garage by Waterfront Park, and loaned out my 25L Rucker and 30# plate.
Fortunately, the rain had stopped. We waited out on the steps of the art gallery. The event began with the APFT. Chuy often does events that simulate SFAS. I did 52 pushups, 79 situps, and a 14:44 2 miler. SB happened to be my partner for the PT, which worked out nicely. It's technically a PR for me on pushups, although I'd need to have video to know if I really went down far enough each time for me to be satisfied.
For the 2 miler, we went along the Battery. It brought back memories, as usual, of middle school Running Club days, since that was the farthest segment of our out and back route. With the deluge that had just occurred, the humidity in the air was nuts. Fortunately, Simple Pants and Salomon X Missions aren't bad for running in. I think I came in second. Chuy berated me for being dramatic with heavy breathing afterwards, haha.
We did ruck dumps, introduced ourselves, and sang the national anthem with rucks overhead.
We learned Individual Movement Techniques in the field by the pineapple fountain. High crawling, low crawling, and bounding. I helped to demonstrate the techniques. It feels good when you get picked for something like that, from someone you admire.
We broke up into three squads in order to come up with a plan on how to infiltrate the parking garage and get to the fourth floor. First, we talked within our squads to come up with a plan, and then I shared our plan with the other squad leaders. Each squad had to approach from a different cardinal side of the garage and move clockwise. We ended up all going up our individual staircases. During our hot wash, Chuy suggested that another option would've been to have one squad responsible for just pulling security at the bottom, rather than having everyone go up at the same time.
When we got to the top, we sung the national anthem with rucks overhead. We had fake draft cards to fill out as part of the scenario. We needed pens for this, so a few of us went to our cars to get some more to expedite the process. Sharing one pen with a large class would've otherwise taken a while. We already had a time hack established for when we needed to be at a beach on the other side of the bridge.
Once the draft cards were complete, we got moving with a litter, an empty ammo can, a nearly empty but still heavy jerry can, and a skedco. The route was fairly straightforward until we got near the beach at the Patriot's Point complex, but it wasn't too hard.
We did blow our time hack, though, so at the top of the bridge, we had to do PT for a while. We were moving and pushing the group somewhat, but not har enough. We also hadn't tried to negotiate for more time when the draft cards took a while. One guy was cramping and needed some attention to help him feel better. Another guy with an existing condition wanted to quit because he was worried about whether he could make it, but he did fine.
Once at the beach, we walked along the shell shore for a while before we found a good spot for everyone to get in the water. We didn't have to do surf PT. We just went in and were quiet for a while.
We got back out and made our way to the USS Yorktown parking lot, where we learned some Small Unit Tactics like the wedge with Alpha and Bravo teams, ranger file, and bounding in teams. We learned stop the bleed techniques with the IFAKs that we had brought. After learning to use the tools, we ran drills for different scenarios, where different things would be wrong with the designated patients. In our teams, we'd address the issue while having some people pulling security, and then we'd evacuate them. It was fun doing this in front of the Yorktown.
I was afraid that we'd procure sandbags that would magically appear from some stash, but fortunately, that didn't happen. In the morning, some people came with a truck to set up for a ceremony for Gold Star families. They were volunteers/organizers who were dressed up nicely, and they had many chairs to set up. We offered to help, and with our large group, it was set up quickly.
We went back over the bridge and back to Waterfront Park. It was a false finish, though, because back at the truck, we picked up sandbags and jerry cans for pretty much everyone and brought it down to the bundt cake fountain that I grew up playing in. One group had to farmer's carry the jerry cans while another group did some serious sandbag PT with 60#ers... thrusters and tosses that I'm not sure I would've been able to do once I got to that station. Fortunately, I was in the half of the class that started with the farmer's carry station. Even that was a struggle. While this event hadn't been super heavy sandbag-wise, it was still somehow very challenging and tiring (while still being fun and unique), so that false finish workout was brutal.
And that wasn't all... it had to end with a shark attack. We had to keep all of our coupons lifted while we were standing in the fountain. We did a bunch of PT in the fountain. We were never moving fast enough, or there would always be someone who had put a coupon down when they couldn't hold it any longer. Eventually, though, we earned our patches in the fountain. We certainly had to earn that one.
