When a Porto Potty is a step up

When I first heard about the GORUCK challenge, I was completely in awe that such a company could even exist, because who in their right mind would EVER sign up, much less pay their hard earned money for that torture?

And yet, somehow, I was convinced to try it.

The fun started Saturday night when Colleen, Lily and I met at Jackie's house to prepare, which meant duct taping four bricks together to put in our ruck sacks.

If you prefer NOT to have the sharp edges slamming into your back all night, foam padding is essential.

As Colleen and I sat on the floor wrapping bricks in foam padding, I noted that all of my friends were at the bar at that time. How did running with bricks become our choice Saturday night activity again?

On the way to Annapolis, we were basically hysterical with nervous energy and talked nonstop. I drank some coffee with quite a bit of vodka in it, so I was also pretty tipsy. It was fantastic because unlike the other girls, I wasn't nervous in the slightest. 

Until we pulled up. Then the fear hit me like a ton of bricks (pun intended) and there was no going back. 

The challenge started at 10pm, and we arrived about 9:30, which gave us tons of time to observe everyone in their ruck sacks and panic. I was so sick of the anticipation and just dying for this thing to start already. 10pm came, but then we had to stand around, sign death waivers (very comforting), have our bricks inspected, and listen to instructions before we could begin.

FINALLY, we got the show on the road, and almost immediately were completely submerged in thick, gooey mud. As in, we were belly crawling through it. Then through water. Then we completed the cycle again. Welcome to GORUCK!

The challenge covered about 18 miles over the course of 11 hours and 47 minutes. That's a long ass time to be wearing a pack with 20 pounds of bricks and two liters of water, among other things. It's also a long ass time for a blog post, so I'll just share the highlights.

• GORUCK is essentially a team building activity based on military training that takes place overnight. The point is to learn to do things with your fellow "classmates" as a team. OR ELSE.
• After the mud crawling, we jumped into the Annapolis harbor in front of a bunch of drunks hanging out outside the bars. All I could think of was Jack's description of the ice cold water in Titanic when Rose wants to jump. On the bright side, it was the one time we could put our packs down.
• We had to carry each other a lot. The girls were lighter and therefore the ones everyone wanted to carry. This sounds great, but it really wasn't. When it's 50 degrees and you are wearing freezing soaking wet clothes, you want to be moving, not constantly being thrown over the shoulders of a random man only to be flung down and yanked up by another random every two minutes. That being said, the guys carrying us had a much tougher job.
• We carried a telephone pole something like 2 miles over the course of 2+ hours. Those things are heavy. And awkward to carry. And we still had those precious ruck sacks filled with bricks.
• The running was more of a walk/shuffle combination and it was the easiest part. That's a relative term, but it was way better than pushups and bear crawls.
• We marked so many places in Annapolis with our pee that I'm fairly sure we now own that city. At one point Colleen saw a Porto-potty and was the happiest girl in the world. When a porto-potty is such an improvement in your bathroom situation that it's cause for a celebration, you know you are hardcore.
• I was too busy to drink my Crown Royale and remained sober the entire time.

After nearly 12 grueling hours, we were finally done, and I truly never thought we would make it there. Eric had been waiting for our call in the car for nearly 2 hours, and we were so happy to see him we couldn't handle it. I've had his phone number memorized for over six years since we first dated, but somewhere in the early morning I panicked that I should have written it down, because I was so delirious I wasn't sure I knew it anymore.

Four sexy, soaking, muddy, tired GORUCK veterans.

One final picture, and the four of us crammed in to a Starbucks bathroom and completely defiled it when we changed out of our nasty clothes for the trip home.

Much like the trip down, the four of us drove Eric insane with hysterical babble about the challenge. I honestly can't believe I made it through. I thought when the sun came up that we were nearly done, but it just kept going on, and on, and on, and every time it seemed like we were done there was more.

All that to earn one of these coveted patches! 

And tough it was.

 So far, after every new experience - marathon, ultramarathon, triathlon, I've finished knowing I wanted to do it again. Like, before I even stumble over to the free water at the end.

So, the million dollar question: would I do GORUCK again?

HELL NO. 

I'm so glad I did it. It's an amazing feeling to do something you never thought you could, and then sense of accomplishment is incredible. I honestly had fun during parts of the challenge, laughed with my friends, and while it was tough, it was in no way 12 hours of pure misery. I would absolutely recommend it to anyone, the experience was fantastic. I met some great people and bonded even more with good friends. But for me, it will be a one and done. I got what I came for.

This is what my nails looked like after a shower and my ponytail holder that was white when I started.

Three hours later, my feet are still white, shriveled, and scary. That's what running in sand filled soaking wet shoes for 11+  hours will do to you.

Not only did Eric pick us up, but he's taken it upon himself to wait on me hand and disgusting foot today. I got home around noon, and can't believe I'm still awake! For someone who never even pulled an all nighter in college, I'm at 30 hours and counting. The coffee is helping, although I needed both hands to hold the cup up to fill it because my arms were shaking so bad. Tomorrow is going to suck.

Thank you so much for all the well wishes and concerns over my death on twitter. I have no idea how, but I am currently alive.

It's really happening

I did some shopping today.

Bricks are only 45 cents! SCORE!

After a week of blinding panic over GORUCK, I  woke up this morning feeling somewhat calmer and resigned to my fate. Relatively speaking of course. 

Several people I've told about GORUCK have assumed I'd spend all day today sleeping, which is what my fellow crazies are doing. One of my very few flaws is that I really can't nap, or sleep much during daylight even in the morning. Oddly, this excludes going to bed at 8pm in the summertime. I considered staying up really late Friday night and trying to sleep as much as I could today, but I had a feeling that would backfire me into staying up all night and then laying in bed panicking because I couldn't fall asleep all day.

So I got plenty of sleep last week, slept great last night, plan to chug some coffee after dinner, and bought chocolate covered espresso beans for the challenge. Here's hoping it works. 

Besides, I anticipate being a lot of pain tomorrow. After my 50 miler, I had to pick each leg up individually and set it on the floor to get out of bed. It took me so long to walk the ten steps from the bathroom to the couch that by the time I got there I'd have to go again. I'm expecting tomorrow to look like that, except instead of just my lower body being affected, it will be everything. Also, I'll be on no sleep.

Today was spent making it so tomorrow can devoted entirely to sleeping and moaning in pain. I did all my grad work, cleaned the house, did the laundry, packed my lunch for Monday, etc. If I need to, I can sleep from the time I get home tomorrow until Monday morning.

Packing was no simple task either.

This wasn't even everything, I had to add more stuff after the picture. Let's talk about some of the more....surprising items?

• Yoga mat: That wasn't just there because I'm a slob who can't put away her things, it was to cut up and wrap around the bricks so my back doesn't turn into a bloody mess. I tried to find foam padding in Home Depot and had a really fun time explaining to the salesperson what I needed it for. 
• A million ziplock bags: It's supposed to pour the entire night, plus all of the challenges feature being submerged in water, in this case most likely the Annapolis harbor. I'm looking at it as open water swim practice! Anything you don't want soaked needs to be waterproofed. It was recommended that we bring a jacket for after the dunking, so we are all bringing our treasured Hot Chocolate 15K jackets, since we don't really give a crap if they get destroyed.
• Duct tap: to tape the bricks together. Obvi.
• Money: To call a cab in case you just can't hack it. Of course, I'm only doing this because it's required (they won't let you participate without it), because if I truly can't make it, that $ isn't helping me. No phones are allowed (I'm leaving mine at home) and I live more like a $200 cab ride than a $40 cab ride away from Annapolis, not that I'll even have a house key. Basically, we'll defer to Katniss again here - the options are keep up or die.
• Liquor: Previously, all my athletic endeavors have been separate from my drinking life, but once again, GORUCK is a unique experience. Drinking is not only allowed, but encouraged, and everybody is bringing a flask or something with liquor to the challenge. Us girls plan to bring spiked diet coke (that's what the crown is for) and I'm using the almond espresso flavored vodka to spike my coffee on the way down. This is pretty much the only thing giving me any peace of mind. 

Just to give you an idea of where my head it, the 52nd email today (that's not an exaggeration) between the four of us girls doing GORUCK referenced how excited I must be for some epic dessert on Sunday, and I can honestly say I haven't even thought about it. Chew on that. 

Pretty soon I'm headed to Jackie's house, and after dinner her husband will be taking the four of us down to Annapolis. Eric is driving down to pick us up tomorrow morning, and what happens in between will be sure to be interesting. 

Please, when you're lying in bed tonight, cross your fingers and think of me submerged in the harbor or doing pushups in the mud. 

What would Katniss do?

Yesterday, I pledged to be positive about my GORUCK experience, and send only  emails or texts with legitimate questions about things I need to know, and no more along the lines of "OMG I'M FREAKING OUT PLEASE HELP ME". After all, I did sign up mainly by choice (peer pressure was involved only slightly), so at some point I did actually want to spend an entire night running with bricks.

It's time to live by my mantra. "What would Katniss do?" Did she sit down and cry and beg for a snack break when there were fireballs being launched at her? No, so neither will I. I think I'll be asking myself that question quite a bit tomorrow.

When the DVD comes out, I'll never get anything done again.

I got emails with a link for this jacket from two people within half an hour yesterday, which was also exactly two months before my birthday. Coincidence? I think not.

I feel like I go through peaks and valleys with exercise motivation, and this week is definitely a valley. I guess that's why most marathon plans have those step-back weeks included. The past three weeks have been pretty intense with training, so I knew I was due for a week when I just wanted to sit on the couch and eat chocolate cheerios. I think part of it is also that I could do nothing but GORUCK all week and still get in at least 10 hours of tough training, which I already consider a lot for a week.

I'm also feeling really burnt out with driving to workouts. I've been doing a lot of traveling to do rides with the tri club, or meet friends, or whatnot. Obviously it's good because I forces me to push myself so much harder than I would on my own. I would never have rode 20 hilly miles last Sunday, or done a 2 mile masters swim workout, for example. When I rode 50 miles by myself from home, an extra 45 minutes was added to my ride because my route had so many traffic lights.

However, it really adds a lot of time on to an already time consuming training plan. Last night, I had planned to meet the tri club for our usual Thursday night bike/run. I was really in the mood to use the beautiful weather for a run though. When I got home from work, I knocked out 7 miles (9:00 pace) right away instead of meeting the group at 6pm. I was able to run, shower, cook a real dinner, and eat all before I would have even been home from the group workout. I feel a little guilty because I know I need more practice with brick workouts, but it is what it is.

Curry stuffed peppers > cereal for dinner

My favorite compression gear, Aspaeris Pivot Shorts are having a sale starting today, so if you go to their website, use this code for 50% off a pair of shorts! I don't usually talk about products other than food, but I seriously wear these shorts all the time and they feel so good. I've worn them to two races where I was shocked by how fast I was at the end, and I swear they helped. Use this code for the sale: APS4me.

Do you work out with others, and does it make you push yourself more? Absolutely, especially with cycling.

Do you ever drive to workouts? Is it worth it? As long as the workout is longer than the drive, yes. AKA, I'm not driving 30 minutes for a 4 mile run, unless there is froyo after or some other incentive.

This is insanity

I'm so lucky that I just posted yesterday in my random facts post that I never bruise. Today I obtained a bruise as a direct result of preparing for GORUCK, and now you can all be legitimately impressed with how hard my skin was struck to result in discoloration on the same day. The very few times I have bruised, it usually takes like a week, so this may not look like much, but it's there.

Speaking of yesterday's post, most of you were correct in the comments section. The takeaway from that post was DO NOT PLAY PAINTBALL. EVER. NO MATTER WHAT THEY TELL YOU.


Ok, let's fill in the blanks with some context. I've been taking it pretty easy this week in order to taper, so naturally I was feeling a bit like a slacker, which is usually the case during taper week. I did no exercise at all between my Sunday morning killer bike ride and my Tuesday night bike/run brick, and even that was a super easy 18 mile ride followed by a super easy 30 minute run. 


Wednesday morning I was up at 4:30am for our second and final "ruck run" (run with a weighted backpack) to prepare for GORUCK. I felt slightly better than I did during my first ruck run last week, so maybe tapering is the way to go. Or maybe it was just the fact that the three miles with some pushups and other fun activities thrown in was but a fraction of the torture I've paid money to experience on Saturday.


Since I haven't purchased the requisite four bricks or the fancy ruck sack for the occasion yet, I had a bunch of hand weights in Jackie's old college backpack. In case you were wondering, running three miles with hand weights nailing your lower back over and over isn't a good feeling. 


I learned on this run that GORUCK is a super secret event, and, much like Vegas, what happens there, stays there. Apparently, people who have blogged about their experiences have even been thrown out of the GORUCK society. I haven't drank the koolaid yet, so this seems kind of crazy to me, but I'm sure that on Sunday when I'm an official member of the cult group, I'll understand. So I guess I'll only be able to post pictures of me after the challenge looking proud while crying tears of pain, share whether or not I survived, and possibly list which body parts that I can't move.


My friend at work asked me about the picture that I posted on Facebook of Jackie and I practicing buddy carries last week, and I tried to explain GORUCK to her, and she just laughed and laughed and laughed, and then asked me if I actually paid for this (yes) and told me good luck.

I've questioned my sanity before, but I don't know if I've ever questioned it as much as I have this week. 


What have you done lately that caused you to question your sanity?

Nothing to say = random facts

Last week was another 100+ mile week - 128 miles covered, to be exact. Not bad for an almost full work week and a busy week of grad school. It would have been more if I'd actually kept track of the laps while swimming.


In contrast, so far I've covered a whopping zero miles this week. This is a weird week, because I am supposed to be tapering for GORUCK on Saturday, but still training for the triathlon, which is my main goal. This is what happens when you get click happy with race entries. It's not the first time I've run into this problem.


Yesterday was an impromptu its 90 degrees and our home air conditioning is broken and I have no AC at work rest day. When I got home from work the AC was back on (oh, the wonders of apartment dwelling - what would have been a major problem for a home owner, I fixed with a 10 second click of a button) but at that point I was really committed to the rest. In the time I saved, I did complete and submit a grad assignment, clean the house, and fold and put away two loads of laundry. So not a total loss.


I have a bike ride on the agenda for tonight, but since I don't actually have any training to share, here's 3 random facts about me.


1. I can't bruise
Something is wrong with my skin and I can nail myself on the coffee table as hard as anyone else, but never get the battle wound to brag about. It's also annoying because the affected area will feel like a bruise, but never have the discoloration to warn me or other people not to touch it. The one upside to the worst day of my life, the time I played paintball, was that I had giant bruises for months. 


I actually had to take screenshots of these pictures from the original blog post. I couldn't find them on my computer so I'm assuming I deleted them when I tried to delete the entire experience from my memory.

Most embarassing firstworldpains moment of my life - trying to tell someone about how horrible paint ball was for me. Then realizing the person I was telling was a Vietnam Vet.

2. You know how most people have a ton of white socks in a drawer and just grab two as needed? I have to be wearing the two that were originally partners in the package. Usually for some reason a package will have three pairs with some sort of tiny color difference on the toe or something, and I can't handle it if I don't wear the ones with the same color. Quite the opposite of the amount of care I take with the outfit I'm going to wear that people will actually see. Sunday I wore just about every color of the rainbow to Titanic because getting in a bike ride was more important than trying to look presentable.

If you want a picture example of this, just click on any post I've ever published, ever.

3. While it's splashed all over this blog, I hesitate to admit to triathletes that I'm training for a Half Ironman or even flat out lie. You know how runners have all sorts of levels, from beginner to pro? Triathlons, not really as much. At least the ones who are serious enough to join a club. Everyone is a super hardcore athlete, and I feel like if they see how slow and inexperienced I am they'll just secretly (or outright) laugh at me. This isn't a "woe is me everyone comment that I AM a real triathlete and shouldn't be ashamed" - please don't do that. It's just a fact. After the fact, don't worry, it'll be the only thing my Facebook statuses are about for like a month.

What's your random fact of the day?

You jump, I jump

After Saturday's 5 hour brick workout, I had the genius idea to go ahead with my plan to do a ride with the Tri club on Sunday morning. It was only 20 miles, so really no big deal.

After about 3 miles, I hated life. My legs were trashed, and this route was ridiculous. I was only riding with one other guy, since the rest of the group was way ahead, and when we told me he designed the route, he's lucky I didn't jump off my bike and use it to beat him with.

Looking at the elevation map, you can see the problem. Until about mile 19.5, things were rough. I honestly considered walking my bike up a hill, which is a first, and if that guy hadn't been with me, it totally would have happened. 

 To make things even more fun, I dropped my chain going up one of those many, many hills. For those that aren't cyclists, it's not interesting, so let's just say the bike broke and I had to stop riding and fix it. I covered my hands in grease and cut myself so I added a little blood to the mix. 


When I got back, the group leader asked if I'd dropped my chain. She said she guessed it because I had bike grease all over my face.

This was after I tried to wipe it off. 

Truthfully, the only thing that stopped me from walking the entire way back to my car was that I had Titanic 3D tickets and I never would have made the show that way.

You know you are jealous.

I saw Titanic in theaters 7 times when it came out in 1997 (having my mom manage a movie theater comes in handy quite a bit). Most of them were with Casi, so it was pretty fitting that we were going to see it together again 15 years later. Actually, it often seems that the only real differences in our lives between then and now are that now we can make plans without coordinating whose mom will drop off and whose will pick up, and the introduction of alcohol.

Obviously, I loved the movie every bit as much as in 1997, although I have to say, that if twitter had been around then, Rose would have been all over the #firstworldpains hashtag. 

"I saw my whole life as if I'd already lived it...an endless parade of parties..." - wow, that sounds like pure hell. Thank God you dodged that bullet, Rose. Yes, I googled the quote. How do I get on this partying for a living plan?

I don't really get the whole 3D thing, having Rose's hair or the sailor's hats seem to rise out of the screen didn't really seem to add anything, although the glasses did hide my eyes while I was crying. Seeing it on the big screen again was fantastic, though.

Eric is a huge Titanic fan, and literally can recite every line along with the movie, as Emily can attest to. He wasn't able to join us because he had a final due, although Casi noticed that Bride Wars was on TV as she left to head to the theater, and suspected that was the true reason he opted out.

Have you ever made it through Titanic without crying? The little girls with their mom waving goodbye to their dad on the lifeboat gets me every time. I can barely type it without crying.

Do the men in your life like any girly movies? Like is the understatement of the year. Eric LOVES Titanic and Bride Wars. And don't even get him started on Wicked.

How is your life different from 1997?

60.3

I realized that if I added .15 miles at the end of my run I could use that title, so I committed to it early on, and then wanted to die and cursed myself for it repeatedly. You're welcome. 

All my usual training buddies had the audacity to be busy this weekend, so I was forced to train all alone. I was starting to get pretty paranoid about the Half Ironman. I've done some long rides, and they went fine, but I've never felt like "yippee, now I can't wait to run a half marathon!" after any of them. This was most likely related to my major hydration and nutrition fail during every single one of them. With GORUCK next weekend, a bike ride is out. The following weekend I don't know if I'll be recovered, and then I only have one more weekend before the race. So if I wanted to get this sorted out, it was now or never.

That's right, it was time to get my head out of my ass and start doing some serious eating and drinking on the bike. Then I needed to actually do some real running after and see if it worked. 

Problem #1 - I didn't know how to get to my food on the bike. I got this fuel pouch so that I could actually reach my granola bars. I forgot it was pink and got super excited when it arrived.

On Friday night, I realized I never bought any granola bars to try out eating on the bike. Once my PJs are on, I'm in for the night, regardless if it's 4:30pm. Luckily, I had all the ingredients to make my own. I re-purposed our NYE reaping bowl for storage.

I brought four of the squares with me, and they fit perfectly. The pouch was easy to open and close on the bike, and I was able to eat them all without a problem. 

Problem #2: I couldn't hydrate on the bike. I suck at getting the bottle out of the holder, and I also dropped it a million times trying to put it back in last week. I didn't want to wear my camelback because my back already hurts by the end of long rides.

It was time to stop being a whiny little bitch. If I don't hydrate properly in a 70.3 mile race, my back hurting is going to be the least of my problems. I drank my entire 2 liter camelback today and felt good.

My bike shoes were in the car. Don't judge.

Problem #3: Riding alone still stresses me out. Planning a 50 mile route wasn't easy. I wanted to find a route  where I wouldn't be riding through any drug deals, but that was also familiar to me. Biking while trying to avoid potholes and cars is mentally challenging enough without trying to look down at directions and see where to turn. I used my Baltimore biking map, so that at least I could get an idea where I might find paved roads with some sort of shoulder (the shoulder thing didn't actually pan out). I planned a route to Fort McHenry, which seemed really far. It takes like 25 minutes to drive there, but apparently biking there would only be 34 miles round trip.


Finally, I had a route, and I set out on Saturday afternoon. 



My route met all my needs, but I immediately ran into my next problem.


Problem #4: Traffic lights. I live in suburbia, and was heading into the city, so it shouldn't have come as a surprise, but somehow I failed to consider it. I literally was hitting a light every single mile, if not more. I was getting really upset because this constant stopping and waiting wasn't really preparing me for race day. There wasn't really much I could do though, so I forged on.


Overall, the ride was pretty good, even with the never ending traffic. It was pretty cool to realize that I could handle biking in a busy, urban area, and possibly I can use my bike to commute in addition to exercise. I think the tourists were actually more dangerous than the cars. While waiting for a marching band to pass, I got some pictures at Fort McHenry. 

You have to imagine the Star Spangled Banner playing.

Riding near water is scary

 Around mile 40, I was starting to feel completely exhausted and the idea of running after I was done seemed insane. At 50.15 miles, I was home, and I did a quick transition in the apartment. As I was leaving in my running shoes, all I could think was "I'm about to do WHAT?". 


I told myself I could plod along as slowly as I wanted, as long as I covered ten miles, be it running, walking, or crawling. After five miles, I checked my Garmin and did a movie quality dramatic double take when I saw I was running at an 8:50 average pace. I took a Gu and turned around. The way out is a net decline, while the way back is mainly uphill, but I somehow ended up with a 9:06 average pace. I did walk up one hill because of a side stitch. 


This run wasn't easy. I felt like death at the end. After the first 100 meters or so I couldn't complete a coherent though. 


Bright side: I did some math (prior to the run) and figured out I would probably need 12 minute miles to finish the Half Ironman before the cutoff. I honestly had no idea what running would feel like at the end of such a long race, and thought it might involve a lot of walking, so the 12 minute mile thing worried me. I feel much more confident now.


Of course, now I'm wondering how much waiting at the stop lights "saved" my legs and how much this brick really counts. At the end of the day though, I did cover 50 miles on my bike, and it certainly wasn't easy.


This picture doesn't fully show how filthy I was at the end.

Beautiful blurry exhausted self portrait at the end. I read in Runner's World that stretching to Seinfeld reruns is more effective.

The new wide noodle huggers are perfect under a bike helmet. Real or not real? REAL.

Final thoughts:

• When eating on the bike, only take bite sized pieces out. It's impossible to brake holding food. Or, whatever food you grab, shove it all in your mouth.
• This was my first long ride without a bathroom break. I survived. 
• Also my first long ride without any Advil for my back/shoulders/neck. Again, I survived.
• Possibly the four granola bar squares weren't enough, because all I could think about was food for 90% of my run. 
• I left the house at 12:40 and didn't get back until nearly 7pm. Damn you traffic lights. I remember when I used to think training for a 50 mile race was time consuming.

If you're still reading, I applaud your determination.