Goruck Challenge

[RosinBag]

I am heading out in about 4 hours for the Goruck Challenge in San Francisco. The event starts at 1:00AM tonight. It is a 12 hour, 20 miles or so ass kicking. When not running, push ups, squats, lunges, sit ups, flutter kicks, log carry, people carry and every other exercise on the planet. The other good news is you do it with a 40 pound ruck. I actually volunteered for this and paid for it.

I have 6 bricks, 70 ounces of water, snacks, ID, headlamp and a $20 dollar bill packed. My ruck weighs 38.8 pounds.



Goruck has the events world wide. Check them out at www.goruck.com

I will report back tomorrow sometime to let you know if the Challenge is as tough as reported.

 

[ScottR_EHJ]

Good luck, hope you recover quick!

 

[Rick Seymour]

I had never heard of this. Looked through almost their entire site. pretty cool. Tell us some stories of your journey please

 

[swat8888]

Sounds horrible...lol

 

[RosinBag]

So here is how the misery went:

Research said that most of these challenges were about 8 to 10 hours long and about 15 to 20 miles, so how bad could they make in that amount of time???? Also, no watches, GPS's or phones allowed.

Started right at 0100, but with paperwork. They have you initial 12 different specific waivers and then sign the document. One of the waivers was a death waiver. After the paperwork, they inspected our rucks to make sure we had our six bricks. Then some short introductions on our trainers, all Special Forces guys with experience from our countries latest wars. With all the pleasantries taken care of we headed out into the middle of a large park where we had gathered. The grass was soaking wet and there seemed to be the well placed piles of dog $hit in the area. 50 participants broken into two classes of 25.

At this point they wanted to make sure we knew how to do their exercises so we practiced a variety of exercises, probably about ten of them. Practiced inch worm push ups which have another persons legs on your shoulders so the entire group had only their hands on the deck. The exercises were push ups, dive bomber push ups, flutter kicks, leg lifts, hello dolly's, burpees, thruster using your ruck, buddy or fireman carries, mountain climbers and a few others.

After this we did a relay race that seemed easy when they explained it. About 60 yards long up and down a hill. Way down, crab walk, way up reverse bear crawl half way and then forward bear crawl the rest of the way. Absolutely brutal with the ruck hitting you in the head on the bear crawls. There was some rest in there because only one went at a time. So far I thought this was all fairly easy with the rest and the pace.

I started to think that this was not so bad as things were going.

We got in formation and went on about a 20 minute jog through the downtown area of San Francisco. During the run the trainer would find what they called "coupons" for us. We ended up with two large PGE traffic cones and this huge bottle of Absolute vodka that became team gear that we carried until the bitter end. We ended up at a park with a large hill. We marched up to the top of the hill and got to take our first break. It was about 3am and I was feeling pretty good so I had a GU and drank some water.

Started down the hill and found what we be the worst obstacle we dealt with. The logs from hell. The first log he had us carry was embedded in the ground and the group of 25 could barely get it free. Once free we somehow managed to carry it about 100 feet before the trainer knew it was manageable. I would have put it in the 2500 to 3000 pound range I am not joking. He found two other logs that were much easier. About a 700 pounder that would fit 6 to 8 people under and about a 1200 pounder that would fit about 12 under. These logs were not straight or without big knots on them and were the worst thing to handle. We spent the next three hours carrying these through the streets of san francisco. We would take them up a hilly street, back down, then back up just for fun. We did get another break about half way where we did lots of exercising and got five minutes of rest. At this point I discovered I my hydration valve had been torn off during the log carries, so I had a little bit of water left I drank up.

Due to our positive attitude, we left the big log behind and only took the little one. Back through the streets we went. When we saw the sun come up I think everyone got a little boost of energy as we figured about 3 more hours and it would be over. At about 7am we got another break at a gas station. I got a bottle of water and chugged it and it was well needed. We were hoping to lose the log but it didn't happen.

We were then told about log PT. It was great, six people on the log max. Lift it off the ground, put it on your shoulder, and over your head to your other shoulder, ten times. Then you got a break and another six went. We rotated through this for about 40 minutes and then back out onto our tour with it.

We made it to a park with baseball field and played some more games. We split the team in half, and using the base paths had some more races. Drag yourself to first base on your elbows and knees, crab crawl to second, bear crawl to third and drag yourself home. If your team was in the lead, half way to home the other team could send one person out to interfere with your person and you could send a defender, which in reality was a reason to watch people fight. Which was a good time. Special Forces always says it pays to be a winner and I was on the winning team, but there are always tricks. As the winning team, we were asked if we wanted to watch the other team get punished or get punished with them, we chose to get punished. Glad we did, it was only about 30 minutes of it, but our reward was no more log.

It was about 10am by now and the base ball field had some mud in the area, our other reward was to camo up with the mud. What ever exposed skin you had you covered it up with mud. Sucked more for us bald headed guys, but thats the price you pay for never getting bead head.

We were close to the ocean and could see portions of the Golden Gate Bridge so we figured another hour and we would be done. We jogged for about 50 minutes and the Golden Gate was close and we thought we would get in the ocean for some final exercise and be done, but that didn't happen. We kept jogging all the way across the bridge, 2.8 miles to a Vista Point, where we met up with the other class and got a break. Bathrooms and water, I drank a lot and had a bag of M&M Peanut, which were the best bag of M&M's I had ever ate. It was well past 11am and we thought this was it, but it wasn't.

Both classes jogged back over the bridge. While on the bridge, the trainers would tap people out and say they were shot, so we 3 man buddy carried them. By the time we got across the bridge, everyone was either being carried, carrying or carrying two rucks. We continued past the bridge down to Crissy Field and the ocean.

We knew the ocean was the end game, but it wasn't quick. We got into a 50 person line interlocking elbows and marched into the ocean up to about mid chest for me, but higher on others. Down on our buts for ocean exercising. Flutter kicks, rolling, push ups, etc. There were several times, water crashed into the clowns mouth.

OUt of the ocean and into the sand to make us all look like sugar cookies with more exercising and throwing sand like dogs digging. We certainly thought this was it. $hit, we continued this pattern in and out of the ocean for about 45 minutes. Then we lined up in formation and it was over.

It was 2pm. So 13 hours of fun and excitement. We lost a couple out of the group sometime during the night, but we didn't have time to say goodbye. We were given a patch only given to those that finished and were released. The first garbage can most of us came to, the bricks were dumped off.

Then the realization was that we were about 6 to 8 miles from our starting point. So we started walking. We only had to walk about an hour or hour and a half before we got a cabbie to let us get in their cab. Got back to my truck just after 3:30pm and home at about 5:30pm. So I left the night before at 10pm, so 19 and 1/2 half hours.

Although it started out slow for my expectations, the last ten hours were very difficult and demanding. I think the physical stuff was 90 to 100% of what I had the last ten hours and mentally it was 200% of what I had. It would be easy to quit since it wasn't life and death, but it is always good to test your mental fortitude.

 

[RosinBag]

I forgot to mention how I feel. I have done a lot of physically demanding things between, work, hunting and other challenges of different types, but none of them have made me feel this beat up. It could be I am older now, but it is bad today. I have scabs on both knees, both elbows and my traps hurt so bad I don't even want to put a t-shirt on because the weight of it hurts. I am sure in a few days I will have recovered, but for now, couch surfing and watching the football games.

 

[Mckinnon]

Wow, way to go Rosin! That beats the hell out of the workout I did.

 

[rhendrix]

No after party?

This sounds ridiculously simnilar to the selection process for Marine Recon, I'm tempted to register.

 

[RosinBag]

Rock there is one in Reno in February 2013......rhendrix, I am not a military guy, but it is all taken out of the military handbooks as all the Cadre are Special Forces guys. They actually have a different challenge called "Selection." It is about 50 hours no sleep and basically five times worse according to stories.

 

[rhendrix]

I'm flirting with the idea of doing this in May here in College Station, did they provide you with a pack or can you bring your own? Figure it'd be a good test of my mental toughness and I might make a few friends along the way.

 

[fillthefreezer]

whoa... thats like workout s&m

 

[RosinBag]

rhendix, you can bring your own pack or make arrangements ahead of time to use one of theirs. There were several people with other packs, Camelbak, Kelty and Saolomon. The Kelty and Salomon both broke, but the Camelbak held together. It is a great test of mental fortitude and it is pretty good test of your physical attributes as well.

 

[DWarcher]

Dang Doug...have you tried to draw your bow?

 

[sanchomaes]

Sounds like a beaten! congratulations on finishing strong

 

[RosinBag]

I have not Dave. I am leaving Friday for three days of predator hunting and I still have the strength to pull my trigger on the .22 hornet.

 

[SDHNTR]

Dude, I kinda knew you were a bad ass, and possibly a little nutty, but this just confirms it! Unreal. Amazing. Good job buddy!

 

[Lawnboi]

Me and a buddy are going to try one of these at the beginning of next year. Sounds like a good event!

 

[2rocky]

I have not Dave. I am leaving Friday for three days of predator hunting and I still have the strength to pull my trigger on the .22 hornet.

Need someone to keep the bears off ya?

 

[RosinBag]

John leaving tomorrow at 9am...I am camping on the main ridge out of covelo. I am pretty sure you know the road. Staying thru Monday and you are more than welcome.

 

[Lawnboi]

Rosinbag, what are the dimensions of those bricks, im wondering if they will all fit into a K E&E