TRAINING LEAD-UP
Sunday, May 18:
Day 5 - Replenish & Day 10 - Connect | BREATH yoga with Adriene, which felt great after the 26.2
Monday, May 19:
18A "Upper Body Prep" in 22:22, HDT "Deltopec" 25 min AMRAP with 30#SB for mil presses, 30#R for croc pushups, 40#SB for strict presses
Tuesday, May 20:
Glute and pec PT v1 in 26:37, 18A "Hanging Abs" in 16:53
Wednesday, May 21:
No workout, but went to the airport overlook with my dad.
Thursday, May 22:
With the longer days and opportunities to ruck after yoga at the USNWC, I set up a ruck club event. Firefly season might be approaching, too, so I was hoping to see some.
The yoga class ended up having to scramble for impromptu substitute by asking for volunteers since the scheduled instructor cancelled 15 minutes before the class. The sub volunteered to jump in so that all the people who had come to do the class wouldn't have to go home disappointed. She was certified but had never actually taught before, so it was scary for her, but she did awesome and now wants to think about pursuing it again.
Afterwards, we did 3 miles in the MACV2s on South Main with a 30#R plus the yoga mat. No fireflies, since it was still pretty bright when we got back. We grabbed camping chairs, dumped rucks, and watched live music for a little while.
LAND NAV GUN RUN
SB and I had to miss Land Nav Gun Run last year because we were doing the 50 hour Rev3 adventure race instead. It's one of our favorite events, and it's so unique, so we were sad to miss it, after having done it in 2023 and 2022. We were excited to get a slot in the event this year.
Before we drove to Ellerbe, we met up at the start point of the CLT Memorial Day 26.2 City Ruck, which SB's fam decided to do (after SB had already signed up for the gun run). Once they set off, we made our drive.
We attended the 10:30am brief and had a 12:12pm run time, the third-from-last team to set off. While we were waiting to go, we heard that teams had had trouble finding the first point.
Point A:
It was our turn to go. We plotted the first point along the power line. We measured the pace count for the point where we'd need to cut right into the forest. There was an alternate attack point of intersecting power lines that was further down, but it looked like the appropriate distance from our pace counted point, so we tried the pace count attack point first.
We saw a perpendicular trail going across the power line. I shot my bearing from there and followed the bearing into the woods, not being pulled onto the path of least resistance. SB noticed that my bearing seemed to be hugging a bit too far right, so once we hit our pace count into the dense woods without seeing anything, we started bearing left. The sounds of people were coming from that direction, since many had attacked the point from further down. They were still quite a ways away, though. SB saw the point, and I moved forward to grab it, stealthily. I grabbed it, but then my rifle sling pulled my right ear pro out. I felt it immediately and could stop dead in my tracks to look for it before leaves and other movements had a chance to bury it. I couldn't find it and searched all over my clothes and gear, too, so I called out to SB for help in finding it, which she did, to my left!
Glad to have found the point and one earbud of my my $450 ear pro, we scurried back onto the powerline, with nobody else in sight, and moved with a purpose back to CP.
Back at the CP, we were directed to go shoot Stage 1.
Stage 1:
- There's a barricade with 2 steel targets 20yd in front of it (plus paper no-shoots on the sides, far to the side)
- One person goes to each side. Shoot 1 target with your outside hand (other hand is allowed to support) with 5 hits, then repeat on the other target, but both shooters can't engage the same target simultaneously, so you have to communicate.
- Swap spots on the barricade, and repeat
Learnings/Outcomes: Pass in 83s (48/60 pass, and we are #28)
- good comms on when to switch targets and safely switch sides
- I was missing at one point, and so was SB so I said "slow down" for my own sake and hers
- I scratched my left thumb knuckle, but it wasn't until I saw some video that the RO took that I realized how I did it (on the barricade when bracing)... it turns out that happened to another team, too
- I don't see how anyone would've shot the no-shoot, since they were so far away. Apparently, at least one team did, though, so it's more a mental thing than a skills thing. How would you even incorporate that into your course of fire, though?
We were directed to run along to Stage 2. On the way, I topped off my mags. I had had a bunch of loose rounds in my pocket, which had kept banging into my left knee during each step, so I was glad to get rid of most of them.
Stage 2:
- The first person takes the hatchet and crawls under a single wall of barbed wire
- Chop the log wearing the shirt, representing a sentry
- Both crawl into a hide
- Shoot 2/target, going L->R, with both hitting the target before moving on. The targets are torso, diamond, torso, at about 150yd across the pond.
- Do the shoot 2x through
Learnings/Outcomes: Pass in 130s (21/60 pass, and we are #15)
- SB lifted the barbed wire for me as I crawled under. Apparently, we were the only team to help each other. SB said she was ok doing it by herself, so that I could move on to hatchet work
- I missed sometimes, due to a lack of visual patience.
- I had to ask SB not to move on the barricade while I was shooting... no adjusting magnification or panning, since the pallet would shake
- SB realized that her rifle was shooting low and left. I'm glad she figured it out, because we weren't getting feedback from the vegetation in the background.
- It was a little loud in the shack, which was part of the point
We had one more stage in this series... lots of shooting early on!
There was a good bit of wait time here. Someone who was also waiting mentioned that this was their first Land Nav Gun Run and had stumbled upon this blog while they were researching it, haha. I don't really publicize my blog, so that was amusing and nice to hear!
Stage 3:
- Use one round in the chamber (no mag otherwise) to shoot at a HVT @75yd + 30yd, which looks small vs my wobble zone
- If you make it, your team can run up about 30yd to the barricade directly. If you miss, you have to carry a stretcher up there
- Switch rifles with your partner, for an extra twist
- Read a paper with your 3-target sequence and hit count requirements, which you shoot from 3 different ports, changing ports for each target
> 75yd torso x3 (I choose low horizontal rectangle)
> 200yd x4 (I choose large square)
> 100yd x2 (diagonal rectangle on top)
- SB repeats, using my gun
Learnings/Outcomes: Pass in 169s (21/60 pass, and we're 17th)
- We had seen many teams time out while we were waiting
- I attempted the HVT, since my hold was more certain than SB's based on what we saw her gun do in the second stage
- The stretcher wasn't heavy, so it actually wasn't a big deal, and you're almost as well off taking a bad shot and jumping straight to the stretcher, but you don't know ahead of time how bad the stretcher will be
- As I began to shoot SB's rifle, I asked her to confirm what offset I had to use
- We both remembered to compensate for the canted ports
- Eye relief was off for me on SB's gun, but it wasn't terrible... same with her on my gun
Point B:
At the RP, which was at the end of the trail, we were given coordinates to Points B and C, which we could get in any order.
We decided to get point B first, since it was the furthest out. We attacked it from the tower. There were actually two towers, but they were aligned well enough. We had to move 450m due south (plus 9 degrees of declination). There were some sections of dense vegetation, but we eventually ended up in a clearing with a few other teams. Based on elevation, we guessed that we needed to go left and downhill from there, so we did, but we hit water and seemed like we had gone too far in that direction. We went back and tried to spread out and search with other teams, although we hadn't planned a GOTWA with them, so it wasn't clear how long or far we should look.
I searched southward, since people often don't go far enough. I didn't see anything promising, though, and when we got back to the main clearing area, nobody else was there. We decided to give up on this point and started heading north. We ended up running into another team who had found it, so we went back to grab it. We had been much farther east and south than we thought, when we were in the clearing. So many other teams had been there, too. I wonder how we all made the same mistake, because we were going through thick stuff to get there and weren't simply taking a path of least resistance. I wonder if the towers could've yanked the magnet in the compasses?
To get back to the main road, we stayed west and on high ground, hoping to avoid the denser vegetation. This was a very time-consuming point. The time taken to find it was probably about the same as taking the penalty, but you never know how easy or hard it will be up-front, and you don't know if you'd be missing important intel like the one we had found at Point A, or if there's an object like a shotgun shell that you need to collect there. My left knee was starting to complain near the end of our Point B pursuit, with all the uneven terrain.
Point C:
We were glad to be out of the Point B forest. Point C would be in a planted pine grove. It was much more straightforward, and it was less distance, which was a relief.
Back at the RP, we were told to go down to Stage 4. There was more wait time there.
Wait time is tougher for RDs to control at a match with land nav, since it's less predictable how long people will take to do their movements between shooting stages. There may be long lulls with nobody shooting a stage, followed by a big spurt of people. Once you get a backlog and more come in than the rate at which you can process them, it would be hard to recover.
Stage 4:
- SB takes an ammo can down the lane between two ponds and shoots 3 gongs L->R, 2x through
- Meanwhile, I shoot 7 knock-downs
- We must both also shoot a slanted large gong 5x and a 200yd rifle target across the pond 5x, but we can't shoot the same target at the same time
Learnings/Outcomes: Pass in 115s (36/60 pass, and we're #34)
- I finished first, since I didn't have to do all that running
- One of the knock downs fell on their own, to my benefit
- I used prone on the rifle... not sure why the other teams didn't do that and used stuff like kneeling instead
- SB got back while I was wrapping up rifle
Stage 5:
- Do lateral bounding across 7 trees, alternating shooters so that each person is shooting every other tree
- I choose to go first, so I shoot an extra time
- Make 4 hits from each tree, and you can only move when your partner starts shooting
Learnings/Outcomes: Pass in 92s (49/60 pass, and we're #21)
- I was able to go prone at maybe 3/4 spots. Vegetation forced me to brace from the tree while standing only once, maybe
- I didn't tell SB that I was done after my first tree, so I wasted about 5s. I had assumed that she had heard the 4 hits, but that was a bad assumption, since everyone's going to be more focused on what they're doing
- Otherwise, it was a pretty clean run, and I shot well
- This was a fun stage!
Point D:
We went back to the RP, and they said that we only had 72 minutes left before the drop dead time for the event. They suggested that we may want to skip Point D, because it had been taking teams around 30 minutes to grab. It was straightforward, but there was distance to cover.
We did wonder whether Point D had the shotgun shell. The ROs didn't know. Our buddy's team came back right then and confirmed that it did had the shell... bummer.
We decided to skip D, though, to make sure we could get to all the shooting stages, since that's the main reason we do the event. We get many opportunities for land nav already.
Once we got to the next point and were on wait time, though, an RO announced that they had extended the drop dead time by 30 minutes. I was upset, since if we had known that, we might've made a different decision about going for Point D. By now, backtracking to the RP would've eaten up a lot of time, and we had already been waiting for a while to shoot the next stage. I did wish that we had recorded the coordinates for Point D so that we'd at least have the option of grabbing it later if it was convenient.
As one of the last teams to set off, we'd have the way less time on course available, than teams that started earlier, that could've used all day looking for points if they wanted.
Stage 6:
- I shoot from 4 positions over a trench at a single target, with 4 hits from each position
- After I finish and holster, SB goes into the trench and does the same, crawling between positions.
- After I holster, I can grab a 55# ruck (I had estimated 35# but on the IG AAR, they said it was 55#... as usual, guys overestimate and some said it was 75#) and rubber ducky and crawl into the trench behind SB
- Once SB is done at her last position, I also shoot 4 hits from that position to finish
Learnings/Outcomes: Pass in 124s (51/60 pass, and we're #39)
- SB was happy with our role choices, since she'd be closer to the target and could brace
- I thought the target looked plenty big and wasn't concerned
- I started well on the first target, but I missed more on the second target due to flinching
- I forgot to follow SB at first, after holstering, but I quickly caught up with the ruck and rubber ducky
- This was also a fun stage! (and we got to leave our rifles since this was pistol only)
Stage 7 was right next door, so more wait time.
Stage 7:
- On the beep, we each hit our respective pistol steel targets, 2x each. They were very close.
- I go to the left barricade, while SB goes to a hut on the right
- I use a radio to tell her the azimuths for her 3 targets... 108, 54, 100
- I shoot my own three
- Once we are both done, I can shoot the S-Vest in its steel head
Learnings/Outcomes: Pass in 160s (41/60 pass, and we're #32)
- We decided that I'd give her all 3 azimuths at once, since it would be hard to do that once either of us started shooting
- I read all three, but SB started talking before I was done, because she was mid-sentence when I got off the button, which is why waiting for "over" is important
- I took a long time to find my first target because it was shot up and grey and in the shade of the forest. The RO had recommended that I remove my sunglasses to see it
- I got a round stuck in my chamber, and anohter jammed in, partway through my COF. I dropped the mag, ejected something, saw a round stuck in the barrel, so I mortared it out... the RO said afterwards that the primer looked fine
- It was OK after that, and I got the S-Vest in one hit
Stage 8:
- We had no shotgun shell since we had skipped Point D, so SB shoots the target with 5 pistol hits, instead
- Afterwards, I go right and shoot ~6 close cardboard targets, 4x each (one of the targets was wearing blue pants)
- I also shoot a steel torso 4x
- SB is climbing up the ladder and must shoot the same steel torso 4x but not simultaneously as me. She also has a plate carrier cutout target to engage
- I apply a TQ on a log (1 turn of the windlass is sufficient)
- I then complete a dueling tree over and back over
Learnings/Outcomes: FAIL (15/60 pASS), since we hit the no-shoot, even though we were still within time
- I was still on high magnification from the previous stage, so I only saw the cardboard toros and not what pants they were wearing
- I would've had a chance to see them with my eyes, too, before I raised my rifle, but I didn't have situational awareness and missed the pants
- I shot well on the rifle steel and pistol, though, and finished before SB did
- Some teams never even had a chance to avoid the no-shoot, if they hadn't found Point A and the intel there
Point E:
Back at the CP, we got the coordinates for the next point with 30 minutes left. There were punch spots for an E and an F, but you don't know ahead of time how many points there are or how many shooting stages there were.
We went for it, because it was close to a known landmark. We went to the southern end of the pond and searched for quite a while. I exited the forest and was going to go further south to search, when SB found it further north. We had somehow passed it earlier, even though it was right there. We weren't the only ones who did this, either!
There was no Point F and no other shooting stages, so we just had to get back to the CP.
OVERALL
12th / 60th, 16th in the run and 16th in shooting. It's cool that we did well with both.
We could've done even better had I not shot the no-shoot. It was neat that we would've otherwise cleaned the shooting stages, though! And had we had an earlier start time, we could've gotten Point D instead of the 1 hour penalty, so that definitely would've been better.
- Good checking on each others' ammo levels as time went on
- Good topping off ammo as I moved
- Felt good to be lighter after the first movement, where I felt like I was breathing heavy
- Good comms overall, though we can still improve on radio ettiquette
- Good playing to each others' strengths
- I need to signal when I'm done shooting and when she can go, vs making assumptions
- Continue using 17 rounders... I did use 16 rounds on the last stage, so I would've had to do a mag change if I was using 15 rounders
- Good adapting to a bad zero on SB's rifle
- I feel like I can improve my shooting by 25% simply with visual patience and not flinching... low-hanging fruit
- Our nav was pretty sound
- Use a good protractor whose line isn't offset from the cut
We covered 8.7 miles in 6 hours with a record 99 minutes of wait time.
It was such a fun match, even with the wait time and deadline and everything. So fun. And we're thrilled with how we did.
GORUCK MEMORIAL DAY BASIC
I had been hoping to get back from the RNG in time for the Light, but with the 30 minute extension of the drop-dead time plus awards and prize table afterwards, we missed it by an hour. That's fine... more rest.
I was able to do the Basic the next day. It started at Elizabeth Park. We did Fagan's 300 WOD, slick, in the park.
We had a nice pit stop at Independence Park, with a real bathroom, where we did have one VW who probably didn't understand what she signed up for.
At the park, people got to share about those they wanted to remember. A few of the participants were veterans who had friends that they had lost.
Later on, at Alexander Street Park we did bear crawls up and down the hill that we had used at the super rainy and cold
T-day Tough. We also played "conveyor belt" with the rucks. That's when you find out who overpacks.
We did our usual SpongeBob Square Pants and Baby Shark renditions in the pond on the greenway.
At the end, toasts, beer, and patches!
We covered 6.4 miles in 3:44:33.
Went home with leftover eggs, too!
