My journey to GORUCK began over a year ago, in the summer of 2011...though I didn't know it at the time. This guy I'd started dating was telling me about some upcoming events he was registered/training for, and while I was impressed with his training regimen for an upcoming sprint triathlon, I had to question his sanity a bit when he described the GORUCK challenge. I questioned it even more when he showed up at my house to run with me, wearing a backpack with a weighted plate in it--I was in disbelief that anyone could run a few miles with 25+ lbs on their back and not keel over and die, but figured that if that's what it took to slow him down enough to run at my speed, all the better for me, as I preferred running with company to running alone.
After he completed his first challenge in September 2011, covered in bruises, scrapes, and other "souvenirs" from his overnight adventure, he expressed doubt that he'd ever do something of that nature again, and I was happy to mentally welcome him back to the land of the sane. Within a matter of hours, though, he started using words like "next time;" I informed him I thought he was crazy, and while I was happy to run with him and do 5ks, this GORUCK business would always be "his thing." I remember telling him in no uncertain terms--"I draw the line at GORUCK...that will always be all you."
Famous last words.
One night I decided to try running with bricks, just to see what it felt like. I managed to complete two miles with two bricks in his GR1, and the feeling that hit me when I finished was accomplishment and not the "that was crazy" I had expected. When he did his second challenge, I tagged along as photographer...and at that point, I was sold. It was too hard for me, I knew, but after getting to know the participants and seeing their camaraderie during the challenge, I could understand why a person would want to sign up for this.
Not long after, I was offered a registration deal too good to pass up, and a combination of wanting to prove myself and wanting to have that team experience I'd seen led me to officially register for a challenge. I knew I wouldn't be able to drive myself back from Austin (where my boyfriend's two challenges had been) after being up all night lugging heavy things around the city, so I signed up for the local San Antonio challenge to be held in October. While this prolonged the waiting and feeling of impending doom, it also gave me a longer amount of time to train and get myself ready. I felt confident I'd be able to get strong enough in time. Besides, I reassured myself, their website promised it was "all mental," anyway.
Now that my first challenge is behind me, all I can say about that is..."all mental" my BUTT. You definitely have to be in the right mindset to get through it, and your brain can keep you going long after your body tells you it can't do this anymore, but you aren't going to be doing flutterkicks and bear crawls with your brain or hauling concrete around town with your powers of telekinesis.
I don't want to go into too much detail about my experience, since an integral part of the challenge is facing the unknown, but some highlights of my 12-hour adventure include:
- Sticker patches in the grass where we completed our initial few hours of PT...and low-crawling across said sticker-laden grass. Without the use of our arms.
- Performing "the inchworm"--pushups done as a line, one person's feet on the shoulders of the person behind them, causing our heads to be in some "interesting" locations--while a guy behind me called out that normally he took a girl out to dinner first...
- Being deemed a "casualty" after my mental pleas with myself to please not puke and please keep walking caused me to stop noticing the growing distance between myself and the person in front of me...and discovering that having to be carried for blocks is actually worse than having to walk for those blocks.
- Rotating through a line of people lugging 60-lb boxes, indian run style (the two people in the back of our lines running, on command, up to the front to take over holding the first box).
- The PURE HEAVEN of getting to sit and slurp on a pack of usually-vile-but-for-some-reason-now-the-best-tasting-ever gu, when we finally got our first food break...and having the cadre notice how very blissful my expression was at finally getting to consume something other than my water.
- Hauling a likely-50-lbs-but-who-really-knows sandbag for blocks when I hadn't thought myself capable of carrying it more than 6 inches. Everything in me said I couldn't do it, and begged to pass off at least some of my bag's contents to a stronger member of the team...but after looking and seeing that everyone was struggling with either the same, or more, weight than I had, I knew I couldn't put that on someone else and somehow, one step at a time, I hung onto my own bag.
- Taking turns carrying a cinderblock, an extra rucksack, and some unwieldy sandbag-like water holder over the course of several miles...all with a smile as big as the amount of effort it took to keep going.
- Losing our shoe privileges and hustling the last 3 or so miles barefoot, through Alamo Plaza, with onlookers asking if we were protesting something (they were told yes, shoes).
- Returning to our start point, battered and bruised, only to face a little more PT before finally...
- Receiving the patch that deemed us GORUCK tough. I made it through...I FINISHED.
And sure enough, my brain has already switched gears from the "Oh EFF NO, I am never doing anything like this EVER again" it was thinking four or so hours in, to "dude, next time I need to be stronger so I can carry more weight and get off the ground during those pushups."
...Yep, "next time." Not soon, mind you--the vividness of just how much it sucked to still be feeling four bricks on my back after 10 hours with them on is going to need to fade a bit more before I can commit to anything--but considering after going through this, I still had it in me to tag along for the ENTIRE next night's challenge as well (as an observer, not a participant!) I think it's a pretty safe bet to say I'll likely find myself doing this again at some point within the next year. Hopefully with my boyfriend (who couldn't do this one with me as he is currently overseas), and even more hopefully with more arm strength--but then again, it's pretty much all mental.
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