SIGNING UP
I signed up for this event as soon as it was published. I love doing events in WV, and there aren't very many HH's around. When the theme of the event was announced a few months later, SERE, I got ultra-psyched. This was going to be unique.
PHYSICAL PREP
There was a posted PT test for this event, which consisted of a 2-mi ruck with a 15:00/mi pace, push-ups and sit-ups based on gender plus the oldest age category. If you couldn't meet this, you'd probably want to reconsider showing up, because the event would be pushing you way harder than this.
There would be no Timed 12 miler. Caitlyn's reasoning was that she wanted to maximize time for other neat activities during the event, so I didn't go out of my way to do a 12 this time.
I did do more trail rucks and mountain rucks than usual. You use a lot of stabilizer muscles on uneven terrain, and going uphill with weight hits different. Green Beret Fitness's specializes in mountain rucking events, so those were good training opportunities.
I did some workouts with Joe Baker Fitness, which had a great community training together on the Marco Polo app, helping future teammates get to know each other and motivate each other. I did lots of 18A and HDT workouts as well, keeping me healthy and building strength. Showing up to the event healthy is as much of a battle as enduring the events themselves, for many people. You have to get to know and listen to your body to find the fine line between under- and over-preparing. This comes with experience and with not having insecurities or egos that cause you to do unreasonable or unsustainable things. Fortunately, I learned my lessons in this area at the beginning of my running career about 15 years ago, so I've been able to find a good balance for me ever since.
The GORUCK Day of the Ranger Double Tough 3 weeks before the event was a good dress rehearsal for the physical plus mental challenge that goes into doing back-to-back endurance events. There haven't been as many GORUCK events this year as in past years, so it was good to get under some heavy weight with teammates again and feel what it feels like to go back out for event #2 after being smoked from event #1.
KNOT PREP
For this event, we were required to learn certain knots:
End of the line/adjoining knots:
- Square knot secured with two half hitches on both ends (30 secs)
- Double sheet bend (30 secs)
- Double fisherman’s knot (30 secs)
- Water tape / retrace knot (30 secs)
Anchor knots:
- Bowline secured with a half hitch (30 secs)
- Bowline around an object (30 secs)
- Double bowline (30 secs)
- Clove hitch (30 secs)
- Four finger pursik secured with a bowline (45 secs)z
Middle of the line:
- Figure eight (30 secs)
- Directional figure eights (with bites inboard OR outboard (30 secs)
- Retrace figure eight around an object (30 secs)
Speciality knots:
- Bowline around the body secured with a figure eight (45 secs)
- Swiss seat/ rappel harness secures with half hitces (45 secs)
- Munter hitch (30 secs)
I started learning 1-2 at a time once these were posted, and tried to get more frequent, shorter practice sessions, instead of trying to cram all of them at once. There's something about frequent practice separated by sleep that I think is better for learning. It would be tough to cram it all in at once without mixing things up or being overwhelmed with drinking from a firehose. I'd still continue to repeat ones that I had already learned. Some of them I already knew, which helped to ease the learning burden.
I'd bring rope to my parents' house when I visited and wanted to kill time. I also brought some 550 paracord to Denver to practice when on vacation, even when flying Frontier meant very little extra space for packing.
Rope choice seemed to matter... some people on the FB group complained about their ropes being really stiff and hard to work with. I was using an old rope, which made it easier.
I practice timed. I practiced enough to figure out where I could get snagged up and waste time and avoid those situations. Having to undo a messup and start over is a big time suck. Realizing halfway through that you didn't leave yourself enough rope is a big time suck. I learned to do different things with each hand at the same time, to maximize time. I figured out little tricks and techniques that worked well for me.
What I didn't do, not realizing its importance, was learn the rules for how much spare rope you needed on the ends, or how big or small loops had to be to count as following the standard.
NAVIGATION PREP
I do enough navigation-based activities for fun that I felt good about it. Summer isn't peak time for nav-based activities because of vegetation, but I did get in a little nav at USARA Nationals. One of the Cadres for this event had been at the May Land Nav Gun Run, too, and we felt good about how we did there.
TRAINING LEAD-UP THE WEEK OF
My taper for big events (marathons, 50 mile rucks, GORUCK Heavy and above) consists of doing the last major strength workout about 10 days out, doing no more than about 6 miles of running or rucking on the weekend before, and 3 days of full rest before the event.
Sunday, Oct 19:
Fundamentals of Ease & Lower Back Mobility yoga with Adriene.
Also took multiple naps.
Monday, Oct 20:
Glute and pec PT v2 in 12 reps per set instead of 10, in 24:56. Then HDT Santa's Baby 25 min BW AMRAP, taking it slow and easy with 6 rounds and 45 reps. I then did a 1.5 mi ruck in 33:47 with the Altra Torin Plush with 30# in the rucker V2 to keep my shoulders adapted to weight.
PACKING
The packing list was expanded for this event, based on the theme and some of the activities we'd be doing.
Traditional gear list applies and ADD:
- a compass
- a protractor (1:24,000)
- some weatherproof note taking gear
-12’ - 14’ 11mm piece of static or dynamic rope (Not that shit from Home Depot or Lowe’s) Tubular nylon will work for a rappel harness, for a knot test you’ll need a section of climbing rope.
-Gloves (x2), one set you can rappel in(welders gloves, or leather palmed gloves), and your traditional mechanics gloves or whatever
-Fixed blade knife (folding blade will be suffice but not recommended)
-Ferro rod
-Canteen cup/ stainless steel nalagene cup
-water+chow will be continuous so ensure you have what you need no telling if you make it back to your kit to restock during the events
This added weight to the rucks, plus it required extra practicing-with-your-gear and planning. Weather would dictate how much extra winter clothing we needed, too. People were experimenting with 34-40L long range ruckers and 25L ruckers with added field pockets. I settled on a 25L rucker v2, which conforms nicely to the shape of my back, with essentially a dump pouch in front. This would cut down on bulk (vs a field pocket) but would still give me space to stash stuff if I needed more volume. I also lubed up my zippers, in case we had to do ruck dumps.
All this prep on gear would become ironic later on, based on what would happen the day before the event...
THE DAY BEFORE
SB wasn't able to do this event, but she'd be helping out, so we drove up the previous night. She'd be helping out with loaner rucks later in the month, so I brought 20 rucks and ruck plates over to her house, before consolidating gear for the weekend in her car.
We drove up through Winston Salem and on to Glen Jean.
When we got there after a 3.5 hour car ride and were unloading the car at the hotel, I realized that I didn't have my fully-packed event ruck. All of my event gear was in there, apart from the clothes that I'd be wearing and my day 2 refit kit bag. I realized that I had left it on the floor behind the passenger seat, and I had missed it during the gear transfer.
It was already 9pm. I thought about whether I was going to have to 1) drop from the event, 2) drive back to Charlotte and back to Glen Jean for at least a 7 hour drive, or 3) figure out how to make do with stuff that we did have plus a shopping trip. Driving for 7 hours straight the night before a 48 hour event didn't seem like a good idea, because it would make the event itself quite challenging. Dropping seemed like a waste. Option 3 it was...
SB happened to bring some event stuff with her, even though she wasn't doing the event. I borrowed a protractor, rappelling gloves, water bladder, collapsable nalgene, space pen, compass, ferro rod, food, canteen cup, and rope from her. I happened to bring a $25 Amazon survival kit, thinking I'd play with it and see what was inside during our car trip, and that gave me some more items. I had some spare headlamps in my day 2 kit bag. SB helped me assemble a suitable IFAK, while I prepped the sternum strap on her ruck that I'd be borrowing. It didn't have side handles and would be a tight squeeze, but beggars can't be choosers!
We figured out what I was still missing. I still needed 20# of weight and more volume. I had a GR2-sized field pocket but wasn't thrilled about the idea of doing PT with that. We went to Walmart, where we found 2x10# circular plates and a runner's fanny pack. The water bottle holder on the fanny pack would make for a good gloves holder. Most of my food could fit in the fanny pack, which would allow me to eat more easily, too.
We shared about the mishap on Marco Polo with the JBF Fitness group, and I also checked if anyone had spare weight plates or v2 25L Ruckers, but no luck on that.
I think we managed to figure this out within 2 hours. It was a little dicey, but we were going to make it work! It was cool that we could immediately go into problem-solving mode once this hit, the way we tackle other unexpected speedbumps during adventure races or other events. I was glad to be able to take on this unexpected challenge with my battle buddy instead of having to do it all alone, too.
SERE 1
We rolled up to the venue the next morning. The fog over the mountains and the fall colors were spectacular. The big towers did make it look like a POW camp, like someone in the training FB book had remarked.
Quite a few people had camped out the night before. It sounded like it was a cold night, so I was glad that we were in a hotel the night before and able to get good rest before the event.
I ran into Brittany before the event, and she kindly offered up her 20L Rucker v3 with side handles. Side handles are a big plus, so I took her up on it and moved my gear over to that ruck and re-arranged the sternum strap. I was very happy.
Welcome Party
At start time, the cadres came out guns ablazing, in POW camp mode. We were doing PT, low crawling, bear crawling, doing gear checks, progressively losing the priviledges of wearing select articles of clothing, more crawling from ditch to ditch, getting tested on our first knots with gloves on for added difficulty, having to retrieve clothes and gear, more PT...
PT Test
We moved into the PT test afterwards. The standards had been out there, so you knew what to expect. We did push-ups, sit-ups, and the 2-mile ruck. We called out and had our reps and times recorded against our roster numbers.
(photo credit: Eric Perry aka @steelcityshadow)
(photo credit: Eric Perry aka @steelcityshadow)
(photo credit: Belinda)
Afterwards, we did a variation of a fitness assessment that Cadre Cleve had previously posted in the FB group. We did step-ups, pull-ups, 60/80#SB carries for 100yd, 36/44# SKB snatches. I had the best sit-up count but the worst snatch count. Roberto had asked me whether I was injured, but no, I was just weak... I think I tried one with my left arm, and the rest I did with my right arm, and even that was dicey. I strained my right shoulder a wee bit trying to get the reps... probably not a good idea, in hindsight... not worth whatever the penalty would've been for not having as many reps.
Welcome Party, Continued
After finishing the 2-mile test, we eventually got formed up properly, with the help of Justin, who stepped up to be our incredible Team Leader for most of the event. He was willing to put himself out there and fail or succeed for the sake of the team, with a great blend of care for the team but also confidence and competence.
Since it took us a few tries to get perfect, we had to pay in the form of maybe 200 reps of different exercises... lots of brickyard manmakers and 8-counts, with some swings, flutter kicks and other things thrown in towards the end.
Swiss Seat Test
Next, we had to tie Swiss seat harnesses, and then we put them to the test by buddy dragging each other. You quickly figured out how tight and secure your knots were. It was probably hilarious for the cadres and photographers to watch, too.
The Raising of the American Flag
We took a moment to stop by the flag poles to put up the American flag and sing the national anthem. We learned the meaning of the colors and stars and stripes. We were told that this would come into play later on, but we didn't get any more details than that.
Land Nav Training
We then filed in to the Eagle's Nest mess hall for land nav training led by a Cadre who's really passionate about it. He had cool giant-sized compass and protractor props to help explain everything in a way where the whole class could see and understand. We were given large 1:24,000 maps of the area and practiced plotting points and identifying terrain features. I teamed up with a couple of newbies in land nav, and it was cool to see them be very good at plotting by the end, with all the reps we got in.
Next, we went outside to count and re-count our 100m pace count, as it started to get dark.
We then put our plotting, declination setting, azimuth shooting, and pacing to the test finding a series of about points around the Eagle's Nest A-zone and B-zone camping areas in the dark. We were broken up into teams, and each team started at a different point, to try to minimize follow-the-leader. We worked together and took turns being the one on the map or the compass, so that we all got a chance to practice the skills and get comfortable with it. We covered about 5 miles in 3 hours.
Once we got back and had proved to the Cadres that we had some amount of proficiency in the safe confines of the camping area, they felt comfortable enough to let us loose in some larger areas of the property later on.
Resistance
Like at other GORUCK events I've done, we learned some restraint defeat techniques. I do still have trouble with duct tape for whatever reason and end up shimmying my way out of it in the end.
(photo credit: Eric Perry aka @steelcityshadow)
Land Nav Exercise
The next event had us setting out in our teams again, with staggered starts. We infilled to a helipad and had to make our way to a rally point. This time, there would be OPFOR patrolling the roads, so you wanted to stay off of them as much as possible.
From the start, we had to make some route choice decisions. Since the map wasn't super detailed and didn't show all the roads, there was some guesswork and risk taking involved. There might've been some northern route, but we weren't sure if the roads would connect and go towards where we eventually wanted to go. We could bushwhack downhill until we hit known roads and landmarks. We ended up doing Plan C, though, and going further South before bushwhacking down, since the initial area's vegetation looked super dense and the terrain was super steep.
Eventually, we found ourselves in a clearing. It appeared sooner than we expected the road to be, but there wasn't a clearing on the map, and we weren't keen on continuing on that bearing (although in hindsight, continuing on would've been fine and would've gotten us to our road eventually), so we took a random gravel road. It wound around in some undesired bearings, which we were closely tracking, but we always felt better when it took us back to our intended direction of travel. There were side roads that went who-knows-where that we had to intentionally ignore.
We finally saw something we recognized - the South Gate of the Scout Camp. We also happened to see Cadre Cleve, who told us to get off the roads, haha. We ran into a couple other teams there, too. Who knows what kind of journey everyone had been on to get this far, since it wasn't easy.
Our initial attempt to get back into the woods had us going downhill when we were expecting to go uphill, but we quickly noticed that and course-corrected and entered the woods in a different location. We had to find a passable way to get up, waiting until we saw a break in the cliffs, and then we climbed and climbed, until we got to the top, where deer had previously made a nest. From there, we found the clearings that were present on the map, along the ridgeline. We navigated from clearing to clearing until we finally made it to the rally point.
At the RP, we were told to make individual fires strong enough to boil a cup of water. As usual, I had trouble getting anything started and had no fire by the end, but while we were waiting for other teams to arrive, I did warm up by other fires that people had built to stay warm.
Rope Practice
After an exfill back to the lodge, we refined our rope tying technique with Cadre Norwich. He had us tie knots behind our backs, which really shows you if you know what you're doing.
Once everyone got back, we did AARs, with each team going up in front of the class to explain our strategies, experiences, and lessons learned from the land nav exercise.
(photo credit: Eric Perry aka @steelcityshadow)
Group Movement, Mortars, Hatchets
To end the event, we rucked as a group with water jugs out to the pond, where Cadre Dan led us in firing some water mortars.
Then, we got to throw hatchets for a while. The targets had a layer of frost on them. After a number of practice rounds, some people started landing their hits. The competition then began... we had 4 lanes, and if your lane's thrower made their hit, you could avoid PT, but if they missed, everyone in the lane had to do 10 reps of some exercise. I had a few close ones, but no sticks. Some people were really good and got pretty consistent hits.
We rucked back to the start, got patched, then set off to do a quick refit before the next event.
IN BETWEEN
Refit the ruck, change clothes, get in some food, and nap. I didn't have a ton of time to nap, but even 20 minutes helps. I had to shuffle a bit to get to the start on time.
HEAVY 2
The Cadres can in with guns ablazing in their pickup trucks. They had replaced the US flag with the GORUCK flag, to symbolize how we were now in a POW camp.
Welcome Party
The heat got turned up in Welcome Party #2.
At some point, during burpees, some people had stopped doing burpees and were just sitting. I had no idea what they were doing, so I kept doing burpees. Eventually, word got spread down the line that we were resisting. After the whole class had decided to resist, the cadres suddenly left. At that time, we decided to take the opportunity to escape. We didn't really have a plan, but once we were one field over, we started discussing whether we wanted to split up and how to split up. One of the Cadres had stayed behind to administratively wrangle us back up before we completely blew up the event plan with an escape into who knows where with no way to track each other. We waited for a while as new plans were made and the Cadres brought us back in.
What was probably going to be a 2-hr welcome party ended up being 15 min instead, thanks to the resistance. Maybe the one time in the history of GORUCK where resisting the Cadres will end in a good way.
Nav Exercise #3
Now was actually the easiest land nav exercise. We had the benefit of daytime for the first time. Our teams each met up with locals, who took us in the back of a truck to a point where we had to navigate back to the lodge.
We went for speed this time, plus extra stealth, since the OPFOR could see us more easily, too. We started near a lake, so once we bushwhacked there, we could handrail it until we got to a major road crossing. Near the end of that trail, we saw a guy up ahead and bolted into the woods. The guy didn't move, and we realized it was likely an employee who was probably very startled by our odd behavior. That was kind of funny. We explained to him that we were playing hide-and-seek.
We crossed the linear danger area, then cut into the fields and bounded from building to building until we got back to the lodge and met up with our local contact. It was a little under 2 miles in a little less than 45 minutes.
As we waited for other teams to arrive, we took the opportunity to practice knots some more... every chance we got, pretty much, we were either doing priorities of work or practicing knots.
Nick Rowe
Cadre Dan taught us about Nick Rowe's experiences, helping us get in the right mindset for the rest of the event.
Long Land Nav
We went on a long land nav exercise next, with a series points to find in an overall circular shape, with half of the groups going clockwise and the other half going counterclockwise. It was good that we ended up going CCW, since the CW groups ran into some challenges with cliffs. It started in the daylight.
We got rolled up way sooner than expected. As a penalty, we got held for a little while, had to do a little PT, got restrained and had to break out before proceeding.
Like before, many dirt roads weren't mapped, but we sometimes hoped for the best and as long as we were going in the right general direction and had a good chance of hitting a main road, that seemed like a better option at times than some dense bushwhacking.
Cadres were about on patrol, so if we did choose to use roads at times, we had to be situationally aware and be prepared to bolt into the woods at a moments' notice.
We all worked together on some challenging nav and learned from each other, using different tools like the slope direction of cliffs to right ourselves when we weren't sure where to go.
One of our teammates had rolled an ankle along the way, so we took a few minutes to fix that up while a couple of us pulled security.
At about the halfway point of the course after we found a point that was visible through the woods, we were told that this would be the meetup point for all teams and that we could build fires as the other teams came in. We had covered nearly 9 miles in a little under 5 hours.
After an initial wrong exit out of the area, we started this final journey to our fates. For this leg, Roberto was the TL, and he was just the man we needed for this occasion. People were probably apprehensive about what was to come once we got to the camp, but he was giving people advice on mental resilience, and we managed through the rolled ankle situation, with people on either side of the casualty providing stability.
Camp
When we were about half a mile out from camp, Roberto had us take one last restroom and gear prep break, so that we could take care of what we needed to before who knows what would happen to us for who knows how long. Some people had to poop. Good to get that taken care of. I shed layers and drank, expecting to get PTed to death.
A little sooner than I was expecting, we came across the Cadre ambush. We had to get on our knees and were hooded, then taken in the backs of trucks to the camp for the rest of the way. Our rucks were taken from us. I still my map case on me, though, from navigating earlier, and in case an opportunity presented itself for escape. I also had some gear on my person.
We started building a giant train of rucks held up by ropes tied together with different knots. Then, we got re-hooded and led around in circles for a bit before finding ourselves in front of the American flag again once we were told to remove our hoods. I've heard that in the real thing, people get emotional at the end, seeing the flag again at the end of the school. Even though we only got the smallest tiny taste of it, a lot of us felt that, too.
After the event but before the BBQ, we got a good debrief to ask Qs and to help start to process what we had experienced, which was good.
Final Thoughts
I estimate that overall, we covered about 40 miles over 48 hours. Most of it was unweighted apart from our rucks, but the steep and more technical terrain helped to make up for that. Compared to my previous HH experience at Bragg, this was more of a psychological challenge than a physical one, which is an interesting twist. One of the reason I love GORUCK events is the variety.
I wondered how the SERE part of the experience would affect me. I was mainly just fascinated by the novelty of it all and was taking it in. It helps to be good at endurance, to not be phased by the physical aspects of endlessly crawling like a wormpig. It also helps to have good mobility, when it comes to holding the stress positions. As a [mostly former] runner, I'm used to enduring mental grinds for long periods of time and being in my own head, and that's almost like a happy place for me. This event made me think about what my own breaking point would be, if everybody has a breaking point. It was good to have the car ride back to NC to process all of this with SB.
This was such a special experience, one that we'll likely never have a chance to do again. I'm so glad that I got to be a part of it and that Caitlin and the Cadres gave us this opportunity. The whole no-ruck incident also took me for a whirlwind, so I was very thankful that SB was there to make it possible for me to still do the event.
We got to raise money for the National League of Families of American Prisoners & Missing in Southeast Asia, which helps further the investigation, archival research, analysis, and recovery of those who have yet to return following their service to our nation, through a raffle and gear sales, too.
Link to Caitlin's recollection of the event:
https://steelcityruckclub.blogspot.com/2025/11/goruck-sere-double-heavy.html
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