GORUCK St. Patty's Day Tough/Basic - Savannah 2021

TRAINING LEAD-UP

Sunday, Mar 7:

HDT 23.4.3 (Legs) in 52 min for PT, plus 1 mile of no strap 30# rucking.  Followed by 30 min Baba Yaga AMRAP with 40# SB.

Monday, Mar 8:

Timed 12 miler in 2:42:23 with 30# in a v3 shorty and a fresh pair of Salomon X-Missions.  Ate a Larabar and drank 1/3L at mile 6.  Pretty good given yesterday was leg day plus a CP, and I had no motivation and was sore today.  It was 43* at the end, and I was in shorts and a t-shirt.

Wednesday, Mar 10:

2 mile slick run as a warmup, then HDT 23.5.1 (Core) in 53 min, then 1 mile coupon ruck with 30#R / 30#SB in Altra Torin Plush.  Did this at 5am to get 48+ hours rest before the TB. 

Thursday, Mar 11:

"Yoga for a Fresh Start" with Adriene.

Friday, Mar 12:

PT Session 4: 50 PU / 79 SU / 10 SC@60 / 15 PP@60 / 3 TGU@30 / 1:10 DH@30 in the morning before the TB.

ST. PATTY'S DAY TOUGH

I had been wanting to do a St. Patty's Day event for a while, since it was one that I had not been able to check off the list yet.  They don't have them in very many cities... Boston is one.  Savannah is also one, because they have a big celebration for it every year.  

This would be my first time having Barbarossa as a normal challenge Cadre.  I first met him at the 26.2 Star Course in Savannah.  He was a Cadre at Team Assessment 2020.  It would be interesting to see what he was like in a setting somewhere in between a Star Course and Team Assessment.  

I signed up for the T/B because I was already making the long trip down to Savannah, and another big plus was that he was offering a wooden nickel to anyone who did the TB.  A bunch of people ended up going for it.  The last part of the drive into the city was pretty.

The beginning of the Tough was quite relaxed.  We introduced ourselves to the class by leading an exercise of our choice, and we recited each others' names each time along the way.  Two very special participants were Cadre LDB and his daughter.  We ended up having 3 Larry's in the class, too, which was fun.  The other Larry's were using this event to test out their ruck load-outs.

Once we got the coupons, the event turned difficult really fast.  There were 60# SB's and 60#-sized water bladders.  I feel like I was carrying a 60# something for the vast majority of the event.  There were almost no substitutes to provide relief.  Everyone was carrying, and everyone was carrying the same size of coupon, so you didn't even have the option to switch to a different kind of suck.  I remember this being a difficult start to the event for me, mentally.  It was just suck.

One bright side was that at a few stops, Cadre Barbarossa had special surprises for us.  He is into mixology, so he shared specialty drinks at each one.  That was a first, and something unique.  It made the drudgery of the 60#ers slightly better.  

I guess a 60#er is still better than the beast that some had to team-carry.  We had a series of sandbags linked together.  We tried to improve our situation by rigging up a litter made out of.... litter (wood) that we found lying around.  And apparently, a future cadre named Dan was a participant at this event, too.  I'd end up doing quite a few tactical events with him later on.  He's a super nice guy.  But SB and I had no recollection of him being at the Savannah event!  He was apparently under the beast the whole time.

At each stop, like our first stop at the riverside, we got to make deals, choosing between door #1 or door #2.  For the first deal, the door that we chose (which was to not keep status quo) required us to tie the sandbags together, but in exchange, we were able to break up the beast.  There were no restrictions on how long or short the ties had to be, fortunately. It wasn't too too bad, I suppose.  We had to do PT since we didn't make our time hack.

This was the one and only event that I got to do with Lisa Norman (pictured below holding the bucket).  I remember talking to her after the Tough, when she was sitting on the curb waiting for a ride.  She ended up passing away in late summer after contracting COVID.  It had been her first Tough.  She was training to hike the AT.  She was a nurse, a mom, and a wife.  I'm glad that I got to meet her before she passed, because she was a nice person.  For all of social media's downsides sometimes, FB has actually been amazing for her grieving husband, who has been re-sharing her FB memories with her login.  It keeps her memory alive.  I'm sure it has helped him, and I've gotten to learn more about who she was through the posts.

At a second stop, we chose a deal that got us hosed down while doing some PT with a hose that didn't stretch super far.  We had to do more PT since we didn't make our time hack.  During this leg, no stopping was allowed, or else things would get bad really fast.  It was tough, and there were many threats.

Savannah has a lot of nice green square parks.  You get to enjoy it a tiny bit if you look up while rucking under the coupon.  We had been asked to learn Savannah and St. Patty's Day history.  I had researched the latter by listening to podcasts on the drive down... one very entertaining one from Hysterical History (Episode 146: St. Patrick the Snake Slayer).  They provide commentary that makes you laugh really hard, making the facts very memorable.  Unfortunately, the quiz questions were about Savannah during the Tough, so that didn't help.  They were about whose statues were at the square, how many squares there were, etc.   Savannah also has a cute downtown, but I didn't notice or get to enjoy much of that, either.  While we were walking through the neighborhoods, some had St. Patty's Day decorations.  I also didn't really notice that.  

At Forsythe Park, we did races around the giant park.  At least we didn't have to carry the coupons anymore.  We were smoked, though.  Losing team had to do a little PT, but it wasn't much, so you had to weigh the impact of the PT vs the impact of pushing really hard on the long ruck race.  

At the end of the Tough, Terry P led us in a flag retirement ceremony, with us honoring the 13 original colonies with the stripes disassembled, and it was all burned in a hole in the volleyball court.  It was my first time getting to experience that ceremony, so that was cool.

We covered over 15 miles at the Tough.

BETWEEN EVENTS

Between events, I was excited to use a real restroom at a Chinese place where SB & AT got food.  Kids are funny.  I napped in the car and ate leftovers from something I had gotten the day before.  SB & AT napped outside, but I don't like bugs and noise and allergens.

BASIC

This was going to be my first Basic!  It had all been Lights up until this point.  2021 was the year that the Basic was born, to bump up the level of difficulty.  The main difference was that the weight would now match the Tough weight.  I think GORUCK's goal was to make it a more on-par stepping stone for the Tough.  Rather than having the Tough be more difficult in two dimensions (weight and duration), they wanted to make the weight the same.  This made the Basic too intimidating for some, though, especially those who had originally signed up while the events were still Lights.  Cloverleaf is meant to be a way to train up for a Basic.  I don't have a strong opinion on it.  I generally support trying new things.  Sometimes, it works, and sometimes, it doesn't, but the best companies and people continuously evolve and adapt.

We started with a similar warmup and intro circle as the one that we had in the Tough.  We had lots of coupons again, so it was a heavy Basic.  We went to a little green space, where we had a quiz competition between two teams.  Wrong answers equal PT.  There were St. Patty's Day questions this time, but my particular podcast didn't cover all of the topics on the quiz (like what the colors on the Irish flag stood for).  I'd dispute the official answer to the question about which city had the first St. Patty's Day parade.  I did know the question where the answer was "Cobbler", thanks to the podcast. 

When we got to Forsyth Park, a random guy on the street recognized me.  I'm surprised that he did, because I had on long sleeved everything, shades, and a hat.  He was a GRT who happened to be on vacation in town.  He knew Joe Baker, and during our break at the park, he actually did a Marco Polo with shirtless Joe and us.  It was an unexpected and fun incident.  

We traded 100 jumping jacks to get rid of a sandbag or two, I think.  There were lots of people in the park that day, and some kids joined in and even tried lifting one of the sandbags.  We cheered him on, and we all had fun.

Eventually, we made it back to Daffin Park.  It was a long walk with a lot of weight, but everyone hung on.

We covered 6+ miles.  You can see how many T/B finishers there were in this picture.  We definitely had to earn that coin.  It was a lot of weight.  I've mentioned that quite a few times in this post.  While it sucked at the time, it would end up paying off at the Bragg Alpha Shooter event, which you can read all about in a future post.

There was a Cloverleaf the following day, and some people like the three amigos from Fort Mill Ruck Club, would go on to do that as well.  Crazy!  I was satisfied with just the T/B, though.

Anna earned the first Barbarossa leather patch for completing 5 of his events.  We all went out for Mexican food afterwards.  I stayed at a hotel that night because my friends already had one booked, but I was going to head to CHS afterwards, so we drove separately.

(Lots of green!)