Jericho R.E.A.D.Y. Tournament #002 - Feb 2022

TRAINING LEAD-UP

Monday, Feb 7:

14.9 mile ride around the neighborhood at 10.7mph in 93 minutes.

Lessons:

1. It was 43 degrees outside, so my fingers got cold towards the end of the ride, using my fingerless gloves.  I did buy full-fingered MTB gloves and looked around for it prior to the ride, but didn't find it.  I will find it before my next cold ride.
2. My body was warm wearing a windbreaker, a grid fleece, and a wool base layer.  It was nice to be able to zip all of those down to let cool air in.  My back was warm and even sweaty against the backpack.
3. My feet were getting cold, but not terribly so, since air flowed through the vents of the shoes.   I know they make shoe covers for this situation.
4. I used a chamois (with undies still on, as usual), underneath my sweatpants.  It was fine.
5. I noticed that our team would want to have agreed upon hand signals for use while biking, especially since we won't be facing each other, and since wind and car noise also messes up communication.
6. I'm getting more comfortable about not having to brake quite as much before 90* turns.
7. My eyes stung with the cold wind at times.  I didn't wear eye glasses this time.  They might've helped against the wind.

Tuesday, Feb 8:

My plants from DC are getting bigger, despite the cold temps in my house!

Did the 40#x60s sandbag burpee challenge for the GORUCK Games data collection exercise:

In the evening, I did HDT SAQ 2.1 in 55 min total, including 8.5 of warmup and setup of the exercises.  I feel good after these workouts.  I get more agile each time.

Wednesday, Feb 9:

7.8 mile bike ride for 40 minutes.  I forgot to add the AS2 pack on my back for AR prep.

Thursday, Feb 10:

I did the 60x40 with 15 reps to see if I could beat my previous record (no luck), I did the JBF "Sandbag Cardio" workout in 30:30 with a 40#SB, then 100 30# ruck situps to kill time, followed by the Cabarrus Ruck Club Cashe Hero WOD 12 min AMRAP, followed by 2 miles of rucking intervals.

SFC Alwyn Cashe was serving in Iraq when an IED hit the vehicle he was in.  He risked and gave up his own life while moving 6 of his fellow soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter from the burning vehicle, sustaining and later dying from burns on 72% of his body.  For this he was awarded the medal of honor.  That amount of self-sacrifice leaves me speechless.  It's one thing to die in a quick way, but another thing to put yourself through something like what he did, for others.

Friday, Feb 11:

Deepen and Flow Yoga with Adriene.  My legs and even some of my arms, were sore from yesterday, so I needed to stretch today.

My sister was visiting, so I took her to Belmont, where we went to Primal Brewing and walked around the cute and decorated downtown area.

JERICHO R.E.A.D.Y. TOURNAMENT #002

I was excited that SB could join me this time in this different format of shooting competition.  It had been a cool experience doing the first one.  I liked that the stages were more involved than the shorter ones that we'd typically see at Gun Runs.  I liked that we got to watch other competitors shoot the stage, so that we could learn from techniques that others tried (either successfully or unsuccessfully).  I liked that they emphasized a slightly different set of skills than other competitions I've done, too.  It's not that one set of skills is more important than another.  It's just different applications.  I want to be well-rounded, so it's good to understand what capabilities are viewed are important by different experts.

For this event, women had to wear a 7# plate carrier.  We also had our battle belts with pistol and rifle.

Stage 1: Gunsmoke

Round Counts: 4x10 pistol, 5x5 rifle

10 min PAR

1. Standing rifle at the Z-zone of a target maybe 75yd away.
1. 
2. Sled drag to a wall 
1. I was the first to go, so I was the one to figure out how the strap was configured, and how to best utilize it.  It turns out that it wasn't a giant loop like I had expected.  I think it would be fair for people to see how it is, pre-stage.
2. 
3. 
3. From the wall, standing rifle in the A-zone again
1. 
2. 
4. Jerry can carry forward
1. 
5. Pistol head shot standing
1. 
2. 
   
3. 
6. Go back to the tank trap at 75yd for A zone rifle
1. 
7. 60# SB carry to the wall
1. 
2. 
8. Braced rifle at the A-zone from the wall
1. 
9. 60# Sandbag carry forward
1. 
10. Pistol head shot standing
1. 
   
2. 
11. Prone Rifle A-zone again, from the back
1. 
12. Pinch grip 2x25# plates to the wall 
1. Super hard, especially with cold fingers and rain.  Even in normal conditions, it would be difficult for me.
2. 
13. Prone pistol A-zone
1. I like the roll technique for prone pistol.  I think it worked well
2. 
14. Pinch grip pates forward
1. I timed out after step 13, before time was up.
15. Pistol head shot standing

Quite involved!  Since it was all on paper, I couldn't tell if I was making my hits, as I was going.  None of the competitors were able to finish in time, so I didn't feel bad about not finishing, either.

It was raining, so I wore my non-electronic ear pro.  The rain made the pictures look absolutely epic.

SB went next:

Stage 2: Obstacle Course

Round counts: 3x5 pistol, 3x5 rifle

10 min PAR time

1. Up to 60s to memorize 10 items that were inside a jerry can 
1. I took the full 60s, even though I probably had it earlier, maybe even within 30s.  I didn't want to mess up the thing that I'm good at.  I used pairs to memorize the contents, since there wasn't an obvious story that emerged for me.
2. 
3. 
2. Standing pistol on baby popper
1. 
2. 
3. Tire wall climb without rifle
1. 
2. 
4. Balance beam
1. If you fell, you'd have to do 10 burpees.  It probably takes the same amount of time, maybe less if you traverse the balance beam carefully and slowly, but it would jack up your HR more.  I decided to try not to fall on the balance beam, in the spirit of the event.  
2. 
3. 
5. Over/under/over/under logs
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2. 
3. 
6. Standing rifle
1. Pulling the rifle into me gave me more stability.
2. I as happy with how quickly my HR recovered after the O-course each loop.
3. 
4. 
7. Repeat steps 2-5
1. I climbed faster each round.  I learned that I could descend quickly, and let gravity do the work, since there was plenty of footing for my feet to find.
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
8. Kneeling rifle
1. Somehow, my kneeling is worse than my standing.  I need to work on my technique, I guess.  Something about bracing throws me off.
2. 
3. 
9. Repeat steps 2-5 
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. On my third run of the balance beam, I started holding the rifle in the crook of the mag well, which made balancing easier and which required less effort.  I did the same on the O/U/O/U, too.  I had been holding the rifle by the pistol grip for the previous loops.
6. 
7. 
10. Seated Rifle
1. I was shooting into the dirt of a baby hill between me and the target, since I was short, and I had to hold low at the hill for the arc of the bullet to make it to the target.  I ended up shooting dirt the whole time, though.
2. 
11. Recall the 10 items
1. TP roll, flag patch, rock, challenge coin, 3 AAA batteries, screwdriver, dry erase marker, lock, cleaning brush, shotgun shell
2. 

Since I had gone first on the first stage, I went last on this stage.  There's a lot of physical work to complete between the opportunities to shoot.  Many were missing pistol shots.  I joked to SB that my strategy could be to make all 5 of the pistol shots at the beginning, and then I could stop after that and still win.  One guy ended up doing really well, so that strategy wouldn't have been enough on its own to beat him, but it would've been enough to beat everyone else.  I did indeed crush those pistol shots by taking my time, so the rest if the 8 minutes (after 60s for memorization and however long it took me to do the first pistol shots) were just icing on the cake.  All of the ball and dummy pistol practice that I had been doing paid off!

Stage 3: Running Between Pistol Bay and Obstacle Bay

1.5 miles total of running

Round count: 2x12 pistol, 1x1 pistol, 2x8 rifle.

1. Run from the tire obstacle to the pistol bay
2. Shoot a mag of 12 on the 12 plates at about 10 yards.
1. I chose to square up on the leftmost pie plates.  I always hit the first two, but would miss the rest.  I think I need to reset my squaring instead of turretting my body.  It's slower, but even on paper at close distance, I seem to go right when I aim to the right.  I guess I'm jerking the gun right with my trigger finger when I'm turned right.
2. This was fun, despite my misses.
3. 
4. 
3. Run back to the obstacle bay, and shoot the mag of 8 rifle standing or kneeling at about 100yd.
4. Run back to the pistol bay
1. 
5. Repeat steps 2 and 3
1. 
2. 
6. Bonus at the end: 1 pistol round at 100yd.  Making it gives you 60s off your time.
1. I aimed right at it and missed.
2. I later researched the drop for 115 grain, and realized that I probably should've held 10 inches up.

Aggregate:

There was another bonus stage that we did during the day, whenever you had a chance to go over to the pistol bay.  It was called the "aggregate", and it tested technical skills (close range holds).  GORUCK's close range shooting helped here!

Round count: 2x6 pistol, 2x6 rifle.

1. Shoot 2 at A-zone with pistol on three targets, from the right of the barrels.
2. Shoot 2 head shots with rifle on the three targets, from the right of the barrels
3. Mag change and repeat steps 1 and 2, but from the left of the barrels.

Outcome

As a really nice surprise, I got first!  Accuracy paid off.

The more events I do, the more experience I gain on what techniques work, and what doesn't.  

I got to go home to my sister "studying".