GORUCK Statesville Ruck Club Fit Party

TRAINING LEAD-UP

Sunday, Jan 22:

HDT 35.6.3 (Core) in 50 min

Tuesday, Jan 24:

HDT 35.4.2 (Core) with 41 min of BW PT plus a 3 mile easy run in 26:58 in the Brooks Pure Flow.

At Blackstone with SB.... we weren't shooting low left... we were taking care of the hostiles' attack animals.

Thursday, Jan 26:

Lunchtime skateboarding...

(not as cool as it looks... I was just in the middle of doing the flip-over start trick)

HDT 35.6.3 (Legs) in 44 min plus a 1 mile run in 9:35 in the Brooks Pure Cadence, which had no arch support and which made the ball of my left foot uncomfortable.

More Blackstone.  Winter weather makes my skin crack!

Friday, Jan 27:

30# ruck in the rucker v3 with mom and dad at the Cramerton greenway and goat island, in Salomon XA Comps.  We saw many animals along the greenway.

I played Pokemon, and we got up close to and played with one of the disc golf baskets.  

On our way home, we decided to re-visit a nature preserve that I had explored with my dad once before.  When I visited the first time, there was only a 100m trail that led to some fishing spots near the water, but nothing more.  In the years that followed, a nicer parking lot was built up, and we noticed more cars parked there.  It turns out that they recently added a nice 1 mile trail.  There are no bathrooms there, but otherwise, it's a great spot that's close to home.  The trail isn't too technical, so it could be good for something like trail marathon training.  It's mainly forest on half of the loop, but the second half goes along the water and offers great views.  

My mom's been away a lot visiting her family in Taiwan, so it was good spending time with both of my parents again.

GORUCK FIT PARTY

GRHQ started hosting some "fit parties" where people could compete in different divisions in short little challenges.  Ruck clubs or affiliates could also request to host them.  Statesville Ruck Club was hosting one, and it was free, so I RSVPed and managed to convince my dad to come along for his first rucking-related event.

This one wasn't going to be competition-style, which I was good with.  No pressure, just fun.  It was more like a well-organized 1-hr ruck club workout.  Many people from surrounding ruck clubs came, which was awesome.  Joe Baker's wife Tamara from Tamara Baker Photography came and took some awesome pictures.

We started with an 800m coupon ruck, with no shouldering allowed.  I brought a couple of lighter sandbag and KB options for my dad, which came in handy.  I also realized soon after starting that I was the only one who had decided to keep my ruck on for this part!  40#SB and 30#R.... not insignificant.

We did one-arm thrusters.  I was glad to have a lighter 20#SB option.  For the 60, I divided it up with half using 20# and half using 26#.

We did 50 burpee SB jump-overs.  My dad has good form!

We did a 15 AMRAP where we carried a (in my case 26#) KB and (in my case 40#) SB to the other side of the field (50m - the short way), and did 20 KB swings and 20 SB plank pull-throughs, and repeated, going back and forth across the field.  

It was a nice workout!

Good fun with friends.  The CLT area is large, so it's not that easy for everyone to all be together often, so this was a nice little reunion.

Sunday, Jan 29

Our original plan had been to hike along the trail by the Boathouse, where the South Fork Sampler had started, but it was muddy from recent rains, so we abandoned that plan quickly.

We drove over to Rocky Branch Park, for their gravel trail, instead, and covered 2.5 miles in 1:04:07.  I was carrying 40# and wore Altra Lone Peak Mids.

It's a nice little local getaway when you want some nearby quiet and nature.

O-Meet at McDowell Nature Preserve

TRAINING LEAD-UP

Sunday, Jan 15:

HDT 35.5.3 (Arms) in 44 min, followed by HDT 35.5.CP (Don't Look) 30 min BW AMRAP with 3 rounds and 5 reps.

Tuesday, Jan 17:

HDT 35.3.2 (Legs) in 26 min, followed by a 1 mile coupon ruck with a 30#R and 60#SB

Met up with SB at Blackstone.  I re-acquainted myself with my LMT with the red dot, and my Glock 19C.

Thursday, Jan 19:

My right butt wasn't 100%, but it felt better when shuffling.  This was a hard effort for a 12 miler in 3:25:44, compared to what it should've felt like.  My body is probably still recovering from Mammoth.

I didn't need a bathroom stop or food, and drank half a bottle of water.  I used the Salomon X Missions with Mudgear ruck socks that worked pretty well.

CAROLINA ORIENTEERING KLUBB @ MCDOWELL NATURE PRESERVE

This was SB's only second O-Meet.  I had been able to make it out to a handful of them (at Kings Mt NMP and Kings Mt State Park).  For her first one, we partnered up, which was fun to do as friends, and also allowed us to figure out how we liked to co-Nav.  This time, though, we chose to sign up as solos, so that we'd essentially get double the nav practice, instead of having to take turns leading and only getting about half of the experience.  It's nice to be able to talk through options during the event, but you don't get a chance to make mistakes, learn to correct, test theories, and have only yourself to rely on, when you're with someone else.  It's a very different experience.  

We chose a time to meet up, so that we could get our maps, independently plan routes, and then stagger our starts.  We still wanted to start at a similar time, so that we could re-connect afterwards to compare our routes and experiences.  

Going to CP1, it looked like I'd have to deal with water, potentially, but I banked on finding an easy way to cross the water and took a more direct route.  The water ended up being mostly dried up and minimal, and I was able to hug the stream on my way to the first CP.  SB took a longer, trail-based route to get there.  That was interesting, because she's normally the bigger risk taker.

Next, it was an easy 60* bearing to hit a wide backstop of a loop road.  I found my second right turn at the right point in the loop and took the side trail to an easy intersection with a powerline clearing.  

To get to the next point, first, I followed the powerline trail until I saw a left turn, which came up more quickly than I expected, but it took me where I wanted to go.  Afterwards, SB said that this was an earlier offshoot, and there was a second one later, but they ended up converging soon, anyways.  Once on the trail, I pace counted and looked at the vegetation on the map to get past a denser area and then turn right, to go into the woods at a 150* bearing south, to the next checkpoint.

I kept going in the same direction to get onto a trail and hit an intersection, which confirmed where I was, and then I pace counted 120m to decide where to turn left and go into the woods to find CP4.

I shot north to get back onto the trail, and was originally going to take a couple of trails to get to CP5.  There was a stream crossing that I was wanting to avoid.  When I got to the point where I'd start the big detour to avoid the stream crossing, though, I saw that the stream was passable without getting wet, so I cut through and jumped over the stream to get CP5, which was right on the trail.

I could continue on that trail to get back up to the paved loop that I had been on earlier, on my way from CP1 to CP2.  This time, though, I went left when I got to the loop, to take the shortest path towards CP6, which was also going to be easiest to get to via trails, without adding much distance at all.  CP7 was nearby, and as I ran to CP6 (I could run because it was on trail, and nav was straightforward), I looked left and saw the deer trail leading to CP7, and I could even see the CP from far away.  I got to CP6, whose turnoff had a backstop of a road, as a bonus, in case there were any issues, and it wasn't too far inland from there.

Running back on the trail to the deer trail turnoff for CP7 was easy, since I already knew where it was.

I took some easy trails to get to CP8, which was near a little bridge.

There were more trails that led to CP9.

To get to CP10, I continued on the trail, although there was one point where I could've saved some time by going off-trail for a more direct route, in hindsight, because the terrain was pretty flat despite being off-trail.  Then, at a certain point, I had to go off-trail and hug a contour (to keep it easy, vs shooting a bearing over a hill) to get CP10.

CP10 was at the top of a big, steep re-entrant.  I could see someone walking on a completely different trail, way at the bottom.  I took the re-entrant down to the trail, and used the trail for a straight shot back to home base.

Afterwards, I looked at the map and figured that the trail was the only sensible way to come back, so I started going back, to see if I could see SB along the way to snap some pictures of her finish.

She runs fast.

Afterwards, we compared notes on how we approached each leg.  

Good times, good learning.  I think we're ready for the next level up from Orange, though!  This level had a lot of trail-based options, so we need something that will challenge our pure nav skills a little bit more.

Later in the day, I did HDT 35.4.1 (arms) with 46 min of mostly BW yet still challenging PT and 19:10 for a 2 mile run.

Gun Run Team Match - Jan 2023

TRAINING LEAD-UP

Monday, Jan 9:

Yoga for Renewal with Adriene.  Therapeutic!

I got to spend time with my mom, while my dad visited my sister in Denver.

Tuesday, Jan 10:

HDT 35.5.1 (CORE) in 54 min

Wednesday, Jan 11:

Took my mom to explore Belmont, which still had its Christmas decorations out.

Thursday, Jan 12:

Took a yoga class at the USNWC.  They used to only have daily yoga from May - September, but due to its popularity, they started having it year-round on most days of the week.  This was my first time going during the other months.  It was held indoors due to the cold.  That was especially helpful today, when there was pounding rain that was really loud even inside.  It was a ruck club event, but we chose not to ruck afterwards.  My mom came along, which was fun.

Friday Jan 13:

We went to South End, but it was really windy and a bit chilly, so we didn't walk very far after lunch.

GUN RUN TEAM MATCH

SB and I were excited to get to do another team match together.  We had signed up back in December or something, knowing that it would be one week after Mammoth, but even if we ended up walking the 5K, that would be fine.  We were feeling OK after Mammoth anyways, so it wasn't a big issue.

We had a couple of friends who also teamed up to do the event, which was fun.  One of them was a previous partner of mine, and one was new to Gun Runs.  

We had a 11:30am brief for a 2:40pm run time.  The round count was 40R/35P minimum, and I brought 7 mags of 147gr pistol ammo and 3 mags of 55gr rifle ammo.  My hips were still recovering from 35 miles with a lot of weight from the previous weekend, and they got more bruises added to it from the heavy belt.

The run started with the obstacle course, as it often does at Sawmill.  We climbed through a window, over a wall, and over a cargo net.  Then, we ran towards the small connex, taking us in the opposite direction that we normally do the loop in.

SB actually dusted me on the O-course!

Stage 1:

This stage was pistol only.  There was a Rescue Randy, an Alice Pack with 37# dry, and a rubber gun, which you had to move from one side of the connex to another at some point during the stage.  We chose to tackle it at the end, so that we wouldn't have to shoot with our HRs jacked up and muscles fatigued.

We started instead by going up to the second floor, with me taking the stairs to get to the far side, while SB took the ladder to get to the near side, so that we wouldn't bottleneck each other.  

We each had to make 3 hits each on 3 targets.  We were working off of the same three targets, so we had to coordinate and make a plan to avoid both taking on the same target at the same time.  SB started on the leftmost since she was in the leftmost window, and I started with the center target, and we'd make our way towards the right.  That worked out well. 

Once you finished shooting the three, we'd swap positions and repeat.  The targets were about 30yd away.  Interesting, for some reason, we both only chose to brace on the window on the right.  

Once we finished shooting, we went back down to the ground level to move the objects.  I ended up hand carrying the pack and the gun, for speed, while SB took Randy.  That wasn't the original plan.  I think I was originally intending to help with Randy from the start, but I changed my mind.  I went back to help with Randy after I brought the first two objects to the finish line, but ended up pushing Randy onto SB, which hurt her knee.  Oops.  I felt bad.

We passed, though, along with 55 other teams from the 68 total teams.  We ranked 35th among them, finishing in 115s for the 180s par time stage.

Stage 2:

We went to the school bus stage next.  This was interesting.  There were three 12" gongs at about 75yd that we had to hit with rifle.  Shooter 1 would try to hit the first one, and then Shooter 2 had to hit, because the goal was to get 2 consecutive hits on each target, so you had to keep going until you did that on all three targets.  There was a steel locker that we shot from, kneeling.  I prefer prone, but I couldn't get enough height from the ground to see the targets properly.  Once we engaged all three, we had to repeat.

Interestingly, SB had to hold low to hit, while I aimed dead center and hit.  It's interesting, because we both have the same rifle build, and we both use 55gr ammo.

We finished the rifle portion by hitting an unpainted "high value" target, which we did.

Next, we had to clear rifle and move up to shoot pistol by the bus.  There were two poppers that would activate movers.  What I didn't realize was that one of the movers would appear only one time, for a single pass through a 10" horizontal lane.  I shot the popper to activate it, but had gone to the next popper to work on it, and SB could only get 3/4 hits on target on the limited mover, which was an immediate stage DNF, pretty much.  If I had been aware of the timing thing, I would've done things differently, but based on what I knew at the time, I don't regret the strategy... get both poppers activated asap so that we can each focus on taking our side's mover and save time.  

32/68 teams passed, though.  I don't know if I missed the detail in the brief, or the other teams just had better luck with timing.

Stage 3:

This was a challenging stage.  At Team Matches, there's typically a bounding stage.  This time, instead of bounding towards targets, though, we bounded laterally.

There were 3 reduced size torsos at 180-190yd, which required 3 hits per target, from 4 different positions.  That's a lot of shooting!  

Before the time started, I couldn't even see the targets for the longest time.  One was visible, but I could only barely see the tops of the two on the right, since I'm short.  

I went first, shooting from tires, while SB moved to the second position.  I shot many times to make my hits.

SB shot next, doing much better than I did.  While she shot, I moved to the third position, which was a series of rocks.  I had my mag on an angled rock, so I had bad recoil management and took a while re-acquiring sights on target after each shot.  The first target was very difficult for me to hit, but the next two were easy, which was strange.  

SB didn't have much time left to shoot when it was her turn, but she burned down what she could before we timed out.

37/68 teams passed.  That was some tricky rifle shooting for me for some reason.

Stage 4:

This stage was at the long range bay.  

We got a range card indicating which targets to hit, and how many times we had to hit each.  We had to take turns being spotter vs shooter, though, and only the spotter got to see the range card.  This stage tested communication, which was awesome.  We should be good at this, since we've worked with each other for a while.  

We had to use only one of our rifles for this, and we have the same gun, but I have better glass.  The eye relief and stock length was fine for SB.

The first part of our comms was slow, because I was trying to clarify whether the leftmost target that she was referencing was the same one that I was seeing, because it was way up and apart on a hill.  Once that was settled, though, we got to work.  

Another slow point was where she mentioned a ribbon as a reference point, but I saw two different ribbons.  

We swapped, but ran out of time with 2 targets left.  We have the ability to do better, but clearly can still improve comms.  The targets were about 300yd away.  

Since it was my gun, a lot of my ammo was used up during this stage, so I took a full mag from SB for the next couple stages.  

14/68 teams passed.  I do hope we get to see a similar style stage in the future.  That was a good one, and I know we can do better.

Stage 5:

The next stage was by the river.  

We started right by the river.  Shooter 1 started by going up the bank and shot at 2 large rectangles.  I chose to be shooter 1, since Shooter 2 had to deal with smaller targets, and SB is better at rifle.  Each target at about 100-130yd needed 4 hits each.

Next, I pretended to become a casualty, and SB had to drag me into the hole and apply TQs to each of my legs.  Then, she had to take her rifle and shoot at 2 smaller circles at about 85yds, 4 hits each.

To finish, she had to run forward and shoot weak hand at 2 targets.  She got it, which was awesome.

57/68 passed, as did we, in 36th position, in 122s.

Stage 6:

We were back at the big Connex stack for the final stage.  

One shooter had to go to the very top of the structure to make a precision hit on an 8" target.  SB did that.  The other shooter started with 4 shots each on 2 cardboard targets with rifle, followed by pistol hits on 2 torso steel targets.  I got a double feed after my first rifle shot, but the rest of rifle was OK.  

Pistol was messy.  I shot one round, then had an empty mag to reload.  Then, when I was working on the second steel target, I was flinching and missing so much.  It wasn't even that far.  Maybe I was frazzled from dealing with the two malfunctions.

Finally, I got to go up to the second floor an shoot at the same 8" target that SB had hit. 

We passed, along with 52/68 other teams.  We were 42nd, with 102s for the stage.

Results

30/68th in run time (not bad, given Mammoth!)

49/68th shooting (stage 2 screwed us, we screwed ourselves on stages 3 and 4)

42/68 overall