* From: Miles Trudell
* Event Details
Pre race recon is key to this event. Knowing where you are going and looking at it beforehand is going to make money here. This event is un-forgiveable, so having a plan before it starts defines your success and a good start is crucial. Have a plan for complete pre PCI (pre combat check) before the event…If not, it will cost you…Have bricks labeled with name and phone number, extra straps for carrying, extra team water, the colors, maps of the AO (area of operations) and know your team mates names because you will be tested on them. If you miss… it will be counted against you and you will have to pay…in sweat equity…Bring it on!
* Race Details
The greeting starts at 2100hrs at night. that’s 9pm and after informal greetings, its all bidness…Cadre Danny Boy was the man for this event hosted in Burlington, Vermont. 11 cats signed up…guess how may showed?…5. Now technically, GORUCK can call it off because there are not the minimum number of 7, but we had 3 from Montreal, Canada, one from NY and a NE Spahten from Fairfax, VT (me)…so there was no turning back from this challenge. We knew it would be hell and we smiled at the chance…Cadre Danny boy asks if we want to swap our 25 lb team weight…We say yes…guess what we get?…a 60 lb wreck bag! yay! First was the welcome party…an hour plus of push ups, Bear crawling, man makers, ruck presses, lunges, squats, etc. Teamwork and focus were paramount here. lose focus and the whole team gets penalized for it (start at zero), so stay in the game and do not drop those arms until asked to! after the welcome party Cadre Danny Boy introduces himself to the group. He i
s a united states army Special Forces Soldier and asks all of us to introduce ourselves and what we do… Of course I say: Deputy commander 15th CST, 2 tours in the Stan 03 and 10…03 with the SF (ODA)…After this we are tasked with carrying a maple log 1.5 miles from waterfront park to North Park. We gather straps and go! at this point it is all about teamwork, chemistry and cohesion. We figured out to grab logs along the way to make braces in order to carry the log with 4 pax. the 5th carries the flag and Green Mountain Boy flag that is attached to a slosh tube, like the ones at Shale hill…if you have done the polar bear…you know what i’m talking about. this goes on for 10 hours straight…Get the log from this point to another point in the required time if you do …good…if you break your time hack…you get smoked…it is defication coagulation time fer sure! We made some hacks and missed others because of the system failure of the log and we paid for it with pain an
d sweat…all in all it was a fair trade in my opinion. we ended our challenge with a dip in Lake Champlain (via bear crawls and push-ups) and then a roll in the sand on the beach like SEAL recruits! We ENDEX our event at 0700 and get our GORUCK tough patches. I get a Squad leader Patch from Danny Boy-Which is real special because this is the second event I have done with him and he don’t just give those out. Summary as follows: We did it the HARD way with the min amount of folks (5) and extra team weight (60lbs)…did I mention…no one got a break all night, so we were smoked by morning, but we didn’t quit on each other. We needed everyone’s strength for the duration of the event or we were not going to pass. This was the Real Deal folks… and I have not been pressed like this since the Killington Beast…So that is Good to go in my book. PM me with questions if you want to…Excellent event and i’ll do it again…Next time with more folks though…having just enough is a
gony.
* Rating
Excellent
