TRAINING LEAD-UP
Sunday, April 3:
10-hour Spartan Build volunteer shift
Monday, Apr 4:
I hosted an "Intro to Rucking" clinic at the park where the Pearl Harbor Tough had been held, since it was a nice location.
I talked about ruck and sandbag options, and then we did quarter mile loops. There was a pile of sandbags weighing 20, 30, 40, 60, and 80# for people to try out.
Afterwards, we did a 10 min, mostly ruck-based workout. You could scale it to be slick, or add more weight with sandbags and ruck wearing. We did lunges, SB DLs, ruck swings, flutter kicks, and push presses, for one minute each, for two rounds. I thought it was a decent mixture of muscle groups worked, with good scaling options.
Lastly, since GORUCK is known for its team-based events, I split them into two groups for relays, but they got to strategize a bit on which sized sandbag to use for the two movements - tosses vs sandbag bear crawls, and they worked with a buddy to go out and back.
We finished with another tradition of GORUCK events - beer at the end. Blue Blaze Brewing was probably less than a quarter mile a way, fortunately for us!
It's awesome that such a big group came out. I wonder if it sounded very approachable, or if the title made it sound official. All of the Charlotte Ruck Club events are scalable to any level, but this one seemed to really appeal to people.
Wednesday, Apr 6:
JBF 30 min "Ladders" SB workout with a 40#SB and 30#R, wearing Ballistics and a v3 shorty ruck.
Finished with 19 min of 2x(100 situps, 25 pushups) and 2x(50 4-ct flutter kicks, 50 ruck swings).
Tacked on 4.5 miles with Pokemon and the Straight Dope podcast as a recovery ruck in 1:33:32.
Thursday, Apr 7:
Joined Cabarrus Ruck Club for a history ruck. We covered 2.5 miles in 1:06:07, including a stop in a cemetery where we saw a monument that honored Lt. Col. Samuel Iredell Parker, who at least a county is named after. He was awarded the MoH for his acts in WWI. When machine gun fire from a hill exploited a gap in the allies' formations, he led a group up there to storm and overtake the position.
GORUCK BATAAN BASIC CLT
This would be a very unique Basic, because it would be held at night. It's cool that they're willing to change things up to see what sticks with people. That gave me the opportunity to do the Basic, and still get to the elite wave of Rugged Maniac 2 hours away. The Tough would be held during the daytime, so I'd miss that.
I was so glad to be able to do this, since Cadre DS was leading it, and he always puts on unique and quality events. It was also the 80th anniversary.
The start point was Romare Bearden Park, and I don't like paying for parking, so I rucked 1.5 miles in to get there from free parking.
At the park, we went barefoot, like we were just chilling, and then had to respond to air raid sirens to get to the other side of the park. We did this a couple times, as a part of admin. One guy had left his ID in a car, which was unfortunately within retrieving distance, so he had to bear crawl to get it, or something.
Our first stop was at a Japanese restaurant. We had to drink up, since we wouldn't be allowed to take more sips of water or eat until we were given permission to, again, the way the prisoners had to keep going despite hunger and thirst, even when they walked by potential sources of comfort. We had to keep our water containers out, as a reminder. We got hints that the soldiers would've tried to resist by getting what they could past the watching eyes of their captors.
We went to Pearle St. Neighborhood Park near Trader Joe's. I never knew that a park existed there. We did a round of the Bataan Memorial WOD.
We learned Alpine butterfly knots and connected our rucks to it for a movement to Freedom Park. At the park, the rucks stayed connected as we did exercises in a circle. We took turns introducing ourselves and an exercise, and as each person took their turn, they had to recite the names of everyone who had come before. Fortunately, I knew many of the people in the class already, and it wasn't a huge class.
After that, we learned some BJJ moves, where you grab someone's arm and twist it behind their back.
We went up to Latta Park for more PT, and then made our way back into uptown. We did another round of the WOD, still with rucks tied together, in front of BoA stadium.
We covered 7.2 miles in 4:31:06.
RUGGED MANIAC NC I
Before:
After:
In Between:
Still got it! I got first place again. Fortunately, I didn't get asked to give advice on stage, like they sometimes ask the winner to do. I'd end up saying something dumb.
The balance beam was new for this year.
It was good to be able to go home and rest afterwards, as opposed to doing a volunteer shift.
SPARTAN SPRINT CLT
The next morning, though, it was time to race again, this time with Spartan.
This was a very interesting vehicle to park behind. It didn't seem super new or clean, though. I wonder what the story is behind it. Bold choice, especially at these races... at many races where it rains, these fields become mud pits where cars get stuck. I
once had a $1000+ repair bill from it.
Since GORUCK Games includes an OCR component, these back-to-back rucking and OCR events were a good confidence builder. My goal wasn't speed, by this point in the weekend. It was just completion.
This was an honor series race, so the medal was really, really cool. Maybe the coolest one so far!
Afterwards, I volunteered at the kids' race, followed by tear-down.
Post-race "Excitement"
As I exited the farm, though, I somehow managed to drive over a piece of rebar that was on the dirt road. I heard it happen. While driving, I'd hear a clanking noise. Further into town, though, my tire pressure warning came on. I pulled over in a random parking lot and saw something sticking out of the tire. Air was coming out of the tire quickly. I looked up auto repair shops on my phone. This late in the day on Sunday, not many were open. An AutoZone was just down the road, though, so I went there. I bought a patch kit and borrowed a pair of pliers, but I couldn't pull the thing out. Little did I know that the thing was like a foot long in there.
A guy coming off his shift from the Autozone helped me swap out the tire with my spare, though, out of the goodness of his heart. That allowed me to drive home. Fortunately, this was a CLT race, and not a "middle of nowhere" race that was hours away, so I made it home, and was able to take the car to a shop the next day to get the rebar pulled out and the hole patched. The guys at Comptons saved the day again!
The car issues stemming from the parking situations at these races have ended up being pretty costly elements of the racing budget! Almost makes you think twice about racing, even. You can't predict the weather beforehand, for the mud pit scenario, unfortunately.
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