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
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