This thread..... I'm unsure how I feel reading it. While I recognize my need to get into better shape this does not motivate me to do so. I volunteered for people to treat me like that once. No desire to experience it again. I'd probably have to crawl everywhere for a week if I were to do 120 flutter kicks now. LOL That said... I have to admire the willingness to suffer for what I assume is bragging rights. (please correct me if there is more involved than that) How many of these have any of you guys done?
I did ONE. And then shadowed one for an article. There are guys on here that have done several. I think I remember reading about someone (not on the forum) who just completed his 100th. That makes no sense to me right there. At a certain point, you're just throwing money down the drain once you've proved you can do it over and over. But, yeah, you earn a patch
The GR Challenge is an incredible business model. Imagine 20 people paying you $100 for 14 hours of you torturing them. $2,000. Pay your one cadre $300 for the day's work, $200 hotel/food and his flight for $500. You're making 50% margin. You have no overhead. You provide nothing but a $1 patch. Unlike a race, you don't get a shirt, a bib, food, a medal, goodies, time chips, etc.... Now, multiply that by dozens of these each weekend around the country, and it's a pretty good business.
I have finished a few. Different people like different things. Some like to get insulted while eating, some like to get insulted by exercise reps. It is about being pushed to a limit mentally, but driving on. What is weird is that I train, alone, for weeks before an event. 120 reps is not a big deal after you have done 100's/1000's training.
I have honestly never paid more than $50. I know people who pay that for a month at the gym. That $50 motivates me to three months of daily workouts.
I was using $100 as an average. Which I see now is no longer the average. Even last minute signups now are only $70. I'm pretty certain they used to cost more. They also often have specials where you can go for free if a friend signs up or whatever. Heavy cost $255 if you sign up last minute. I'm also not including the people that sign up and pay and then never show up, which happens almost every single class last I heard. The bottom line is they are making WAY more money on the events than the backpacks. They sell a lot of backpacks but they are expensive to produce and the markup is nowhere near the markup for a challenge. I think they are brilliant from a financial standpoint.
No doubt. Their business model is brilliant. I am too frugal to pay their last minute fees for an event. Some call that being too cheap. The events are a money maker for them.
Hope nobody thinks I'm ragging on them for participating. You're all full grown adults and can do as you please. it's none of my business. I'm just sort of shocked at what I'm learning.
Do you ever find the event gets easier? I know they are all incredibly hard. But do you still feel the same level of challenge (and accomplishment for that matter) as the first ones? I'm curious as I'll never get to that point so I'll never know myself. But I wonder if I did 30 of them, would I still feel during that 30th one the occasional concern that I might not make it through it. Do you still feel like that?
Alright, let's see how much of this I can remember. Our start point was at the Historic Fourth Ward Skate Park in that section of Atlanta, GA. My buddy and I, another Matt, have done most of our events together so this one was no different. We had decided to do another back to back where we do a Tough and then a Light and to do normal events so we would have the regular event patches. Since we've never been to this particular park before we decided to go down early and get the layout. Once we figure out we get to where we're going we scope out the usual stuff such as parking, bathrooms, etc. and go grab a bite from the Victory Sandwich Shop which is pretty tasty and not too expensive. By that time it's 6 or so which means we have about 2 hours to kill before we start getting out stuff together. We get back to the park and claim our parking spot near the bathrooms. By that time there are a few other guys that are participating that have shown up so the other Matt talks to them while I try to take a power nap. That was pretty much a bust so I got up and started getting my stuff together. By 8:30 I think I've done everything I need to do to prep and I see that somebody has the flag and the team weight ready to go. We start gathering everybody up and trying to tell them how we need to be as far as rank and file goes when the Cadre gets there. We have most of that sorted out when a guy kind of non-chalantly wanders up. Some of the others start talking to him, including the shadows, so I assume this is Roony. I'm not really sure if there was a lot of small talk right then or not but it seems like there pretty much wasn't. I think the first things out of his mouth was the statement that we had 60 seconds to get everybody in 3 ranks and in alphabetical order. I think we did it in the neighborhood of 65 or so which meant that we had a 5 second penalty. Roony explained that for every second we were late that equaled 10 reps of some type of exercise to be made up at some point during hte eventt. The next thing he had us do was to dump everything out of our rucks in, I think, 30 seconds. I guess, on this point, I've been kind of babied with the last 3 cadre we've had because all they wanted to do was see that we had what we were supposed to have and they didn't care if we had anything else. Because of that I had packed a few extra non-essentials such as a phone charger, extra carabiners, webbing and other "comfort" items. We did that, dumping and repacking within 60 seconds about three times and of course all of them were too slow. That led to sprints down to the end of the field to touch a light pole and back. On this it didn't take us too long to get people to simply turn 180 and run back the way we came from so we'd be back in front of our own rucks without a mass confusion but nonetheless we had to do it about 4 or 5 times. Roony then turned us to the pushup, flutter kick, overhead arm clap, etc. etc. portion of the "welcome party". One of the points that he was adamant about was on the pushups. He explained that whenever we finished the prescribed amount at any time during the event, say 25, and were told to get up we should call out "One more for the Airborne Ranger in the sky" and then silently do one more pushup for a total count of 26 and then get up. Some folks couldn't figure that one out so we had to start over again. This didn't last too terribly long after that so we moved on to the rest of the exercises and after finishing those we were put back in ranks. At some point Roony went over some logistics and I'm thinking it was after the first PT session. He asked who the medical people were, the cops, the locals and the new people. We ended up with about 10 new folks out of 24 so two of those were immediately appointed as TL and ATL. They had their briefing with Roony and were given our first destination, Piedmont Park, which was about two miles away. A few of us were led to Roony's vehicle where we got out our coupons for the evening, sandbags and Cadre Flash's custom flag pole. If you've never seen Flash's flag pole then you're in for a treat if you get to use it. It's to pieces of steel that come together and are hooked together with a hitch pin. It's, if I recall correctly, a little over 6 feet tall and about 40 to 50 pounds. The sandbags that we got to carry were a 40, two 80's and a 120. Once we retrieved those we got back in formation and the team leaders gave us our task. Move in the standard two column formation with the flag up front, followed by the weights and then everyone and everything else those 2 miles or so to Piedmont with a time hack of what I believe was 45 minutes. Roony talked about one of the most important aspects of leadership being accountability so he showed the bosses how to set up a choke point so that everyone would have to go through single file before getting back into 2's. As we moved we were to be on the lookout for any green vehicles. In this event any green vehicle was a possible IED and we would have to call those out well in advance to avoid any casualties. Once we had our lines going and everything in order we moved across the field at the skate park to the Eastside Beltline Trail which runs over to Piedmont park. At that point we started humping it because most of us knew that 45 minutes with that weight and new folks was going to be pretty close on our time hack. Away we went with those sandbags and that flag pole and Roony just kind of hung out at the back and watched as is halfway expected. We made it to Piedmont park and got in our three ranks after giving the new guys a crash course in how to put the coupons down the way they should be instead of throwing them in a heap. We found out that we missed our hack by 20 minutes so we had to pay for that. At that point we had one of what we later referred to as our "glad you're still here" parties. We got back to doing some more sprints across a field to touch a trash can, turn around and come back. We all tried to stay together the first 2 times or so that we did this but most of us big guys started fading fast on the sprints. At this point we lost our first team member, a lady who appeared to be in her late 40's, who said "the hell with this". It was then that we figured out to send a runner ahead to tag it and then we all turned around and got back to our ranks. Roony pointed out that our time of 1:30 had improved to :50 so he asked how we did that and we explained that it was through teamwork. He seemed to like that explanation so we worked on some movement drills. Roony explained how their squads would move in and set up a triangle shaped position so they could all pull security. We rucked back up and worked on that for a few minutes before we got started on our next movement. I'm not sure what location we moved to next but it was a part of another park, or maybe the same, and we headed towards the double volley ball court. As soon as I saw it I was dreading the sugar cookies but instead we got to bear crawl around it and then do lunges as a group and not letting go of each other around it. We did another "glad you're still here" party and again somebody forgot about the fallen Ranger in the sky so that was an extra set of push ups for us. We got new team leaders and there was some discussion about them being able to negotiate time hacks for their teams. We were told that our next movement would be about 6 miles. By now we had figured out that there were about 4 of us, me being one of them, who would rotate out on the 80 lbs sandbags by ourselves. We had about 6 guys who would rotate out on the 120 as two man teams and some other guys that would rotate the 40 lb bag. That left us with the 2 team leaders, the flag carrier, a navigator and one loud lady who carried the 25 lb team weight while yelling at everybody else to hurry up or we wouldn't make our time hacks and a few of the newbs that were fading fast. Because of all that, we told the TL's to ask for 3 and a half hours if I'm not mistaken. Surprisingly Roony offered us 3 or so and I think you could hear everybody say "take it"!
AAR part 2: We then moved to Emory University to their soccer fields. On the way there the same groups swapped out on the same coupons. One of the new guys, named Chris, had explained to me on an earlier movement that had signed up three nights ago while he was drunk. He couldn't get his money back so he figured he would give it his best. When I was with him on the 80 for a period of time he would do whatever I asked him to do and we would swap the 80 as we needed to. At some point I was pulled off to carry the flag and during that time period I guess Chris shut down and wouldn't help carry anything. All I heard was the TL yelling at him to get on that sandbag and all I could hear him say was that he couldn't. While I didn't necessarily agree to the guy getting cussed out, I do think he needed to pull his weight. I guess I feel that there are different ways to motivate different people and I could tell that wasn't going to be the way to motivate Chris. We made our time hack and we got a brief break to look for bathrooms and a water spigot. We had no luck on any of that so we just kind of pissed where we could and by that time Chris had called it quits. I tried to talk him into staying for about 30 seconds but I could tell that he was shut down so I didn't push it too much. After about 10 minutes or so of watering up and watering out we were told to ruck back up and have another party. This is where we learned about Roony's love for 4 count overhead claps. I think we did about 120 reps of those and then another large amount of some other type of overhead arm exercise. We did some other stuff to include more pushups where they forgot about that Ranger again and mountain climbers and then moved over to a double set of staircases. Roony asked the TL's how long we would need to get our group, now at 22, up and down those steps 20 times. I think it was a set of about 15 steps, a landing and then 15 more steps so I guess about two floors. I don't know what kind of time the TL's asked for but Roony agreed to 45 minutes. Make it up the stairs in that amount of time and you get to dump the 40. I can't remember if we did those steps first or if this is what happened next. Everybody started rucking up when all of the sudden I heard Roony telling everybody to get on "your ******* faces" and start doing pushups. He said that he didn't even want us to count, just start pushing. We go about it and I can hear him eating somebody's ass but can't quite tell what it's about. He comes back over to us and I think that's when he yelled for us to start doing flutter kicks. He explains that somebody, whoever's ass was being eaten, had put the flag on the ground. We swap back and forth between flutters and pushups while the guy who put the flag on the ground continued to do an overhead press with that 40 or so pound flag pole. After we had finished up with those stairs and beat our time hack we got new TL's and Chris got a cab ride. At this point Roony appeared to be pissed off, because of the flag, and he walked off. He got about a hundred yards ahead of us so we got our stuff together and moved before we lost sight of him. Our next movement was to get to a Walgreen's that we had passed so that the ladies could use the bathroom and so everybody could get a snack if they needed it. This is where we lost #3 because she just couldn't keep going. We got a new location to move to and I'm pretty sure this was when we moved to the State Capitol. I know that at some point I have been off on our times or distances but this movement was another 6 or so miles from where we were with a similar time hack. I know I said that we made some of the earlier time hacks but I know we missed one of them by about 2 minutes. Anyway, while moving towards the Capitol I saw Roony duck off into a store. We didn't see him again until we had been stopped at the Capitol for a few minutes. We had made our time hack on that one so I think that is when we got to dump the 120 and the two 80's. I don't remember what we did while we were there but it seems like we weren't there long. By now it was around 0630 and there was quite a bit of traffic out. Roony gave the TL's an option a task at this point. Right then we were 2.4 miles or so from the start point. The task - make it to the start point within an hour and you're done. Don't make it in an hour and you get another movement. All we had at this point was the 25 pound team weight and the gargantuan flag pole. Needless to say we made it back to the start point with a few minutes to spare and we all rotated through the weight and the pole. By now it is around 0730 so it's about time for a "going away" party. By now we have racked up enough infractions to equal 210 reps of something. Roony allowed us to pick two from a, b or c. I think we ultimately went with a and c which turned out to be push ups and flutter kick and we dodge the mountain climbers. He let us break it up into sets of, I think, 25 so when we started counting out number 25 several of us started yelling "1 more". We had done that earlier too but I guess this time the others decided to listen. We finished up with what we owed Roony for our faults during the night and we went on to complete the tunnel of love with the remaining 22 of us. Back in formation and we're done. Patches go around and everybody feels like they're gonna collapse. By now it is right at 0800 so we've done exactly 11 hours. By guesstimating with my Fitbit it looked like we did between 18 and 19 miles. Overall I think it was a good event but there wasn't much that I feel I "learned" from it. Sure I met some new folks and hopefully influenced some of the younger crowd to keep doing them. Roony is a nice enough Cadre and he's a Star Wars fan because we talked a little bit about Rogue One so he's cool enough in my book. I'd like to do some more events with him but then again I'd like to do some more with B2 so that I can feel it was an accomplishment to do better in the next event with him. Roony was fair and wasn't in your face. He didn't get overly upset about gaps in the formation but you paid for them when he saw them. He wasn't worried about having road guards but he did want some noise discipline in the neighborhoods. He didn't seem to care what you had in your rucks but you were gonna dump out and repack every bit of it. Afterwards a group of us, to include Roony, went for breakfast and to rest up a bit between events. With about two hours to go before the Light started a monsoon started. At that point I told the other Matt that we could just skip the Light and GORUCK will have that donation. I'll push through a lot of things but I'm not generally going to go and voluntarily get wet while I'm cold when I don't have to for a patch that probably cost less than $5 to make. Of the 7 or so that I heard through the night that talked about doing the Light too only 1 went back to do it. Probably because he is from MS and had driven all the way over here to do them. Me, I'm just 2 hours away. So, I hope that was a sufficient AAR and explanation of my pussification the following morning. I'm sure I'll sign up for another one or 10 this upcoming year but not right now. Until then.........long live Hugh Coffee!
I don't think any of us should be upset even if you were ragging us for it. I guess I equate it to the idea that everybody has their vice. Mine has gone from 5k's toObstacle Course Mud events to Half Marathons and now to GORUCK events. I'm sure it will change again before too long but I'll probably always have something that I waste good money on.
Damn, I just read enough to know I'm not doing a GoRuck. That lady that quit was the smartest one in the crowd!
