The day after the Fort Mill "Tough Love" Basic Sim, I did PT Challenge session #2, hitting 26 HRPU, 43 BSU, 9 SC@60, 16 PP@60, 3 TGU@30 with right arm only, and a 1:25 DH@30.
Monday, Feb 8:
I did HDT 23.1.CP (Sanddoom 20 min AMRAP) with 30#R and 30#SB, then a 2 mile run in 15:52 in Kinvaras, then 100 situps to fill up the time.
(morning matcha)
Tuesday, Feb 9:
HDT 23.1.1 (Arms) in 42 min, then 2:30 slick dead hang filler, then 6 miles in 1:29:03 with the v3 25L with 30# expert plate. That felt better than using the 30# standard plate, since the standard plate felt like a giant block against my back, with nothing form-fitting about it. This was my longest ruck yet with the Ballistic trainers. It was good, but I'm not sure if I'd last 12 miles with them, yet.
Wednesday, Feb 10:
45 min of Slow Flow Deep Stretch Yoga for Flexibility with Kassandra on youtube. My legs were sore today from yesterday's 6 miler.
Thursday, Feb 11:
HDT 23.1.3 (Legs) in 60 min. Getting it in before a busy Saturday of ruck club workouts planned!
(Tibs... something I used to do against the edge of my bed to make my Tibialis Anteriors feel better, when those used to feel really inflamed)
Saturday, Feb 13:
I was asked to lead a workout for Cabarrus Ruck Club, so I chose one that coincided nicely with a beer release event taking place in San Antonio that same day to honor David Roten. I made it scenario-based, since that's always fun. I pretended that Cadre Ragnar had called me up, telling me that they had an issue getting beer brewed for the release party, and they knew that NC made good beer and wanted to see if we could help. Our warmup consisted of different movements that matched the brewing process (milling, lauter tun, boil kettle, fermentation, packaging). Then, I broke out the toy car that I had rescued and had been saving as a coupon for a workout. We had to "drive" the beer to San Antonio, with two people responsible for pushing me in the car while the two others "built the road" as engineers by doing sandbag tosses. Once we got to San Antonio, we did the 300 hero WOD.
It was cold and rainy, which made it even more epic.
(I was glad to be able to carry hot tea with me)
After the workout, Shannon and I went to Frank Liske Park to do some recon for another event that we were planning, for TA hopefuls. It would be a simulation event, so we looked for a "river", a "big hill", a "loop", a "soccer field" for relays, a "checkin pavillion", and a place to do the PT test. We actually found all of those things, and we were able to design a perfect course and place for the event.
All still on the same day, I hit the range with SB.
And then at night, I hosted a CLT ruck club February Tribe WOD with the Iwo Jima WOD, followed by a 5 mile Tribe ruck in 1:39:19 with 20#, including a trip around Lights.
What a full day, spent with people I love.
Sunday, Feb 14:
HDT 23.1.2 (Core) in 40 min with 30#. Glad for lower weight easier stuff, which is what workout #2 in any given HDT week tends to be, since the workouts from yesterday made me sore all over. I also added 175 pushups and 200 situps afterwards to catch up on some PU and SU practice that I was encouraging Compete people to do, based on the great results we saw from the Core 10K challenge in under a week. Your body adapts to doing a bunch of reps of exercises, even spread out over the course of a day, pretty quickly!
Monday, Feb 15:
Yet another ruck club workout! A GRT's dad was from CLT, and there was a hero WOD being done around the country in his honor. It was only fitting to have the CLT RC host one as well. It was cold and rainy again, but two brave and kind souls joined in to honor "The Paperman".
We actually had to modify our route, because part of the greenway had turned into a raging river!
It was a really well-designed workout, one that I'd do again. I was glad to be able to support the GRT and honor her dad, too.
Tuesday, Feb 16:
HDT 23.2.1 (Core) in 48 min, followed by 2 mi of coupon rucking, alternating back, bear, farmer, single shoulder, bear, back carries for 44:08. 30#R and 30#SB and XA Comps in the V3 shorty.
Wednesday, Feb 17:
HDT 23.2.2 (Legs) with 39 min of PT, then 0.5 mi run in 3:36, then 2 mile ruck in 24:39 in the v3 25L in Kinvaras.
Thursday, Feb 18:
HDT 23.2.3 (Arms) in 52 min, then 2 mile ruck in 36* and rain in MACV1s and v3 Shorty in 38:18.
With this name, a Tough sim would've been a bit more fitting, but it was still a nice event, and a great way for people to try out a Basic-style event with low pressure. It was organized by a guy from the Fort Mill Ruck Club. They only asked for $10 to help cover the cost of a custom event patch, so it was really accessible. The packing list was the same as the usual Basic one, but I decided to go with a 30# plate for training purposes, particularly because 30# is the standard weight for PATHFINDER Compete. I wouldn't do this at a normal GORUCK event, since that would blue falcon my team, since I'd be able to carry less extra weight as a result of carrying more on my back already. Since this was low-key, though, I bumped it up. I also wanted to test using my shorty rucker in an event setting.
We gathered at Tega Cay YMCA. We were encouraged to bring ruck club flags, so I brought the one from Charlotte, although that was the only RC flag that there ended up being. The organizer Terry introduced himself, emphasized that he wasn't a cadre but more like a cruise director. He asked for a TL, and I am familiar with how events go, so I stepped up and led the group in a series of warmup exercises. Fagan and his brother came as well, although Fagan didn't feel well after the warmup and ended up sleeping in his truck to try to get better during the event.
After that, we set off with a series of coupons, including sandbags and cloth litters holding more sandbags. We could choose how we wanted to carry everything, so we could've not used the litters, for example, but I wanted to give people the experience of hand-carrying things and not just having sandbags on shoulders. We did have a remembrance poppy team weight that Terry provided, which has been used as the team weight at some other GORUCK events that I've done. Fortunately, we didn't have to carry water jugs.
Our first stop was behind Tega Cay Elementary School, about a mile away. We got to ground our gear and do a lap of the stairs behind the school. Then, we had a "musical interlude" on the artificial turf playground behind the school, with "Bring Sally Up/ Bring Sally Down" pushups.
We switched TLs, and I got to carry things for a while. Sandbags had to be linked, which was one factor that we had to deal with when I made the litter decision. We went with shoulders for the next movement, though. I shared the pain train with someone whose first "event" this was, which was cool. She led fitness classes, and someone from the ruck club, one of her instructees, had convinced her to come along.
We did step-ups on a retaining wall as part of a deal to disconnect the sandbags when we got further along. The path there isn't completely flat, so some sections were quad burners.
Our far point was Runde Park, where we did some ruck exercises and a little bit of low crawling... just a 25 foot taste of it. The 20L shorty v3 ruck is OK for PT, but I did notice that for coupon rucking, the shorter frame makes the "shelf" for coupons much lower than I'd like. I'd prefer to have the coupon as high up and hear my neck and on shoulders as possible. If I let the hip belt be near my actual hips by making the shoulder straps loose and long, then the ruck ends up sitting way low, which also means that the weight plate is lower than would be ideal.
We started making our way back. My feet were tired from all of that rucking, so I was glad to be going back. We made a stop at Turner field, which was wet and muddy in parts. Our cruise director let us choose whether we did PT on the grass or on the asphalt in the back, and we went with asphalt. It would be hard, especially for exercises like the getups, but we preferred that over getting wet and muddy, especially the newbie girl, haha. She was having none of that mud.
We made it back to the end and enjoyed beer and patches. It was cool to see that ruck club put on a nice event. It's a good way to introduce new people to rucking, or give them extra practice at things that they may encounter at events.
In all, we rucked 7 miles. 250# of coupons for 12 participants.
JBF's "Sandbag Top" and "Sandbag Strength" workouts were my first ones back since Bragg, because I had to let my inner thigh chafing heal. It felt good to get blood flowing to my muscles again. I used a 30#R and 30#SB and focused on form. Each workout took about 27 minutes.
Sunday, Jan 24:
After not performing as well as I wanted to at my first experience with Force on Force, I was determined to try it again and do better. I skipped the Saturday Constellation class and just went for FoF in ATL. Most of the scenarios were the same, so I knew better what to do this time. It feels like cheating to know the answers to the test, but I guess that's a good things that I know the answers now. If I run into those particular scenarios in real life, I know how to respond. With that said, as we also discovered during the first class, even tweaking the scenario slightly can sometimes change how you may make decisions.
Scenarios:
- Oddly behaving strangers in a parking lot at work (this time with a couple extra role players in the picture, which added another element)
- Break-in scenario with family member held hostage
- Cafe stickup
- Kid at school with disturbed classmate
- NEW: Protesters blocking your car (instead of the workplace Christmas party one)
Unfortunately, for the one new-to-me one, I was a role player, so I didn't get to test how I would've responded fresh in that scenario. I would want to think that I would've responded in a smart way, but who knows, especially when you see many other class participates respond in a way that ends badly. It is neat how the classes are adapted, and the scenarios continue to evolve, based on current events.
I did get shot in the hand this time. It left these little blood blisters, which would eventually go away on their own.
AT came along to shadow, since her husband was doing the event. It was a great experience for her, since she got to see all of the scenarios play out as a role player, and got to become more comfortable with firearms prior to taking her first class.
Tuesday, Jan 26:
JBF "Movement Transitions" workout with 2 min max's with 30#R, in 30 min. I PRed in 3/4 exercises (presses, squats, lunges), and tied the 4th. That's awesome! Even without strength gains, I think the established muscle memory helps.
I followed it up with 2 miles, but I rolled my ankle at the end of the first mile, so I walked it off in the second. My splits were 13:17 and 17:00.
I finished with an extra 150 BSU, 100 flutter, 50 HRPU, and 25 burpees in 16 min.
Thursday, Jan 28:
5 mile ruck in 1:36:43 with 30#. My feet were feeling it after a while in the Salomon XA Comps, but that was probably the remnants of trench foot from Bragg. It was my first time using the Rucker v3 25L. It felt about the same as the other V3s (standard 20L and shorty 20L) at the time.
Saturday, Jan 30:
Cabarrus Ruck Club hosted the HDT workout of the month. It involved some pretty heavy and hard sandbag work for the last AMRAP. Each round of that AMRAP started with 1 rep of each exercise, then 2 reps, then 3, etc. The 40#SB was a lot. I was barely doing the movements with any kind of form.
After the workout, SB and I headed down to Pete's range in SC. We were going to meet AT there to get in some practice on basics, so that we would be ready for Greenville weekend in April. CT was also there.
I used the G43X today, so that AT could get used to the G19. Not bad.
Looking back and writing this about 9 months later, I can see where I used to have some flaws in form. Who knows if I'm much better now with form, but at least I know enough to notice the areas for improvement. Here are some examples...
1. In prone rifle, my feet can be more flush against the ground, for added stability.
2. In standing rifle, my right foot could be moved back, so that I have more stability when I get recoil pushing me backwards.
3. In standing pistol, I could thrust my hips forward a little bit to lock that out and have a more solid and immovable platform, and potentially offset my feet a little bit more by bringing my right foot back.
Monday, Feb 1:
I completed the HDT March Madness 2021 seeding test, with 10 minutes of working time and 19 minutes total because of all of the rest allowed between exercises. I followed it up with the HDT pre-training run in 15:42 and added on a 2 mile ruck in 27:53, which would double as ENDEX stats for PATHFINDER Class 026. This was triple-dipping March Madness, HDT prework, and PATHFINDER ENDEX work! Very efficient. 30# in the v3 shorty. I used the Altra Torin Plush for the ruck, and Kinvaras for the run.
I signed up for my 5th round of HDT, since that was the recommended companion program for PATHFINDER Compete, which I was now co-CAing with SB starting in Feb. We had used HDT in the lead-up to Team Assessment. I wanted to do HDT this round so that I could better relate to the rosters who would be prepping for Compete and/or their TA attempt, although I cared more about the actual TA hopefuls.
Tuesday, Feb 2:
For Compete, there's a PT test based on the TA PT test, which we would repeat throughout the 3 months. I knocked out the first session early on, with 26 hRPU, 44 SU, 8 SC @ 60#, 14 SB PP @ 60#, 2 TGU @ 30# with right arm only, and 1:20 DH with 30#. I also did the remainder of the HDT SB&R+ pre-test. Lots of testing in the past 2 days! There was only 11 minutes of working time on this day, so I didn't count it as a workout.
I remember JB and SB joking at the 2020 July 4th GORUCK Light about always being "Heavy ready," meaning being in good enough shape at all times to be able to do a Heavy. I feel like it's reasonable to always be able to pass the 2020 TA PT test. Minimum standards must be upheld. No resting on laurels.
Wednesday, Feb 3:
Did the TEAM SPEARHEAD "Six is Sexy" workout with 30# in the v3 shorty in 56 min. My left shoulder didn't like the thrusters or the OH crunches. My body was sore earlier today from the recent tests, so this was good active recovery. I wasn't in the mood for heavy SB work, so this ruck WOD was perfect.
Thursday, Feb 4:
I tested out the 30# standard plate in the 25L v3 rucker today and was not a fan. It's too long and too rigid. I wasn't a fan of how squishy the Altra Torin Plush felt today, either... it was way worse than any beach ruck could ever be. At least I got Pokestops.
Friday, Feb 5:
Did the TA PT Test, with 27 HRPU, 45 BSU, and 10SC@60#. Glad to see SC numbers coming back up.
