Lessons learned in expecting nothing but preparing for anything from team SPEARHEAD’s own Nick “Optimus” Schrein.
Every second that we were punished for bad communication, for lack of flag discipline, for anything and everything, we deserved it. We were still being bad at communication up until the very end of the event. At one point, a mysterious force snagged me front the back of the group and held me back to see if the team would notice. When they didn’t, I was told to lay down and off the team went. It was a lovely time, I’m sorry the rest of my team missed it as they (apparently) bear crawled all of the way back to me, only to have to carry me back to the gear.
People were zonked out from the PT fiasco at Independence Park, and team cohesion was something that was difficult for us from the moment we started to get gassed.
The first five hours of the Challenge were unrelenting. Granted, it wasn’t as bad as say, the standing threat at ABSOC that “if the flag hits the ground, this Challenge turns into Selection and none of you will finish,” but it hurt. As the person who was tasked with figuring out how to get the water running on a fountain to get everyone squared away on water as everyone else did PT, I felt horrible. I hated that I wasn’t doing that work and that my failures to get the water flowing sooner resulted in more work for the team. Luckily an individual had one of the source fountain filler attachments and pretty much saved us. Even Jesse was impressed when he came over and saw how it worked.
I think things started to fall apart a bit at the end when we were given our final time hack. A group of us were carrying people to the final location, and we had to essentially run. Somehow we actually kept losing the team. But we all got into the park and then gutted out more buddy carries and pushups. We failed to complete the last inchworm pushup and as I lay there with my face in the grass waiting for us to start again, Jesse lightly kicks me in the arm and asks me if I’m alive. I look up and just answer “Yup, just chilling.” When he told me to stand up and held out his hand, I was dumbstruck. Definitely not the ending to the event that I expected and it was awesome.
To the people who pushed through injuries (broken hand and at least two sprained ankles) you all are awesome and I’m glad you stuck with it. I hope to get to do more events with these people, since they are great GRTs and it was an honor to do the event with them.
Read the full story about Nick’s GORUCK Challenge experience on his blog here: http://www.nickschrein.com/blog/2014/7/28/goruck-challenge-charlotte-july-25.
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About the GORUCK Challenge from the GORUCK website:
GORUCK CHALLENGE – 8-10 HOURS, 15-20 MILES – AVERAGE PASS RATE: 94%
The GORUCK Challenge is a team event, never a race. Think of it as a slice of Special Operations training where – from start to finish — a Special Operations Cadre challenges, teaches, and inspires your small team to do more than you ever thought possible. Leadership is taught and teamwork is demanded on missions spanning the best of your city. The hardest part? Signing up.
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2 Comments
Good stuff. After the RL&B I certainly want to do a challenge. Gotta get my own ruck though, so it will be next year. I learned so much at the Light, but I know I failed many times and didn’t always pay attention to my team the way I should. Live and learn and grow.
It took me a couple GORUCK Challenges to be happy with my performance. Every time you fail in different ways and learn different lessons – no matter how many events you do or what type they are.