Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Ruck run

The unspeakable horror finally came to pass - spring break came to an end, and, having failed to marry rich, I was forced to return to work this week. Lame.

Our first day back was Tuesday though, so I did get that nice little boost of thinking it was Monday, and then realizing it was already Tuesday about 43 times throughout the day.

Plus, my new Tuesday night tradition of meeting Lily at her work for a brick workout gave me something to look forward to. Even though I took a complete rest day on Saturday (and basically an entire rest week from all of life's other demands), my legs still felt really tired and sluggish, so in my mind this was more of a recovery brick.

15 miles of biking, followed by 30 minutes of running, both at a pretty easy pace. Which was good, because the next morning the fun really began.

I've been talking nonstop about the triathlon, but I've neglected to mention another event that's coming up, mainly because it's too terrifying to think about. That would be GORUCK, which I mentioned briefly when I signed up. The idea is you show up at 10pm at a secret location (they haven't even told us yet!) with a backpack full of bricks, and the cadre, aka the man in charge, puts you through 8-10 hours of overnight torture. You cover 15-20 miles, but that's not even the hard part. The reason everything is a range is because they just make it up as they go along. No watches, phones, nothing, you are just at their mercy overnight. It's next weekend. And that's why I haven't talked about it.

Jackie is a GORUCK veteran, so she was nice enough to come over Wednesday morning with a backpack for me to fill up with hand weights and take me on a "ruck run". We wore the heavy packs, and stopped every half mile to do all sorts of other fun exercises. Bear crawls, crab crawls, pushups, lunges, just to name a few. All with the pack either on your back, or on your chest. I can only imagine what my neighbors thought.

Running with all that extra weight is hard. We averaged an 11:36 pace, and were totally out of breath the whole time. I guess we could have gone faster, but we were trying to practice to pace ourselves for 10 hours of running like that.

All in all, I was ready to die after a little over an hour of this type of activity, so, GORUCK will be interesting. My hands still hurt from doing pushups on the rocky street.

When we came back, Jackie said it was really important to practice buddy carries, which GORUCK participants are required to do. In her last one, they were only able to do piggyback rides, so she really wanted to do fireman's carries, the official method (carrying each other over our shoulders). It took some trial and error, but we did it!

The only proper response was to run upstairs, interrupt Eric in the shower, and demand he take pictures of us. He's really living every man's dream.

Don't judge me, with all the tri training, I just leave my bike by the door at all times. 

The process

I'm up!

Now my turn
She's up!
Now we just have to do it with something like an extra 60 pounds when we both have the packs on. I really didn't think I would be able to lift someone up like that at all though, and when we were outside we were both able to walk around holding each other. So there's that.


Do you think I will survive GORUCK without crying? I doubt it, I can barely survive a day at work without crying.

What's the craziest race you've ever signed up for or workout you've ever done?

13 comments:

  1. ok, you have me so intrigued by these Goruck races! Ironically, I tend to do better in them than regular runs because there is other stuff to break up the running :) I guess my craziest race was the Tough Mudder but it truly wasn't that hard, so I think my hardest workout is this free 3-hr workout that a guy here does at Red Rocks 3x per week. He has you carry each other like that and run the stairs of the stadium, jump over the planter boxes, etc. Basically, I literally can't walk every time I go it!

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  2. I'm crying just thinking about this race. Are you allowed to bring a camera because I really want to see pictures of this. If not, I'll need you to post reenactment pictures.

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  3. You know I like to run long distances. And I can even understand Ironman events. I can see doing one (if I ever learn to bike).

    This, I just don't understand. I would cry and likely die out there.

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  4. yea - those pics turned out sooo great and totally captured how excited we were when we finally figured out how to get each other up on our shoulders!!!!!

    the hardest thing I've ever done was the last goruck challenge i did :-)...but I signed up for another one the next day if that tells you anything about how great of an experience it is. And I know you will not cry - you are strong and fit and mentally tough....i think you are really going to suprise yourself....just like how suprised you were when you toted me around the block on your shoulders like it was nothing :-)

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  5. Can you take video during this? I really want to see a video like you did for Rosaryville.

    I can't help but feel like I would rock a GORUCK run because I do so much running training pushing 50lbs and I run up and down the stairs carrying a 30lb weight all the time. Next year, next year.

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  6. I'm so glad I don't have to do this. For rugby practice we used to have someone on our shoulders like that and do squats. Of course, I just kind of bobbed my head around because it was too hard for me.

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  7. I SO want to do a GORUCK now. That sounds awesome. I bet it will be fun even though it sounds like hell also.

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  8. I definitely need post-race reenactment photos if you can't take pictures!

    For me - the not-knowing-what-might-happen, is what would drive me to tears. Can't wait to hear about it!

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  9. I thought I was crazy for refereeing basketball. Signing up for a GORUCK is several orders of magnitude more crazy.

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  10. Um, so it is official- you are a whole new kind of crazy now :) I am impressed with your human lifting skills though. Maybe get a video camera you that you can wear on a noodlehugger for this run, just like how mountain bikers and snowboarders wear them on their helmets. Then you can share it with the blog world.

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  11. This sounds like it could be very painful! Hopefully there will be no crying though.

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  12. now i want to do this ruck run ruckus. Also, there's some NJ ride in sept but im hoping i will be able to run sufficient to do hartford or an equivalent half by then. But don't worry, I am not only slow/incapable of biking but also at running.

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Thanks for commenting! Comments make me probably more happy than they should.