It Gets Easy in About 20 Meters

During the welcome party of my first GRC last summer in Pittsburgh, I told myself I’d never do this again, but after bonding with Class 229 and earning that patch at the end of those 11 grueling hours, I got the itch again. This time, it was Class 657 in Columbus, OH. The GORUCK Challenge is hard to explain to my friends who ask, so I figured I’d write down some vague details. None of us had the same experience that night, but we all made friends, learned some useful lessons, bonded as a team, and came away feeling accomplished.

Pre-GRC

After work I strapped the bricks inside my ruck, filled up my camelbak bladder with water, BCAAs and Pre-workout (excellent idea – I was wired for hours!), grabbed some rucking nutrition (gummi bears and peanut m&m’s) and drove to Columbus. I got there an hour early, which was awkward because there was a huge event going on at our rally point with hundreds of kids around…and I was wearing the shortest shorts imaginable. After my last challenge, I vowed to not get chafing that bad again, and these silkies (aka ranger panties) were just perfect. Embarrassing, but hey, sometimes you gotta break social norms

I Met up with the other 31 crazy people and got introduced to our Cadre. Cadre Logan is a badass…not in the same way that Cadre Dan was, but a true badass just the same. All of the Cadre are Special Forces personnel with multiple combat tours under their belts, and they bring their training and leadership to the table to lead these city tours. With the housekeeping out of the way, he instructed me and the Navy LT to keep quiet and not lead for the leadership exercises throughout the night. Fine by me!

The Challenge Begins

It started with the PT Welcome Party. Holy shit. Doing pushups, flutter kicks and mountain climbers with a 40lb ruck on your back/chest really sucked. The thing I love about the GRC though, is that it teaches you to embrace the suck. Embrace it we did. A LOT. We made our way across the field to a rally point for a few challenges. We had to get someone up a huge tree and do pullups on a very high branch, fireman carry our partners + rucks back and forth across the field, do laps of crab walks and bear crawls with our rucks on (everything is with rucks on), and 16 timed sprints out to a far tree and back. At this point we had one participant drop out due to injury, and a few more who were really close to giving up. Those of us who’ve done these before made it clear that the welcome party is supposed to suck, and that once we get moving, it’d get easier.

I lied.

Once we started marching out into the city, it only got heavier and heavier. Soon after our welcome party, we were instructed to carry a telephone pole and two concrete wheel stops for basically the remainder of the night. The next few hours are a blur…I was on the team that was carrying “Woody,” the almost 500lb telephone pole, and it really sucked. Telephone poles are heavy as shit and they dig into your shoulders, but we had to keep moving. It was during this time that I earned the nicknames “fantastic” (Gotta keep a good attitude!) and “20 meters” (I was overly optimistic about the remaining distance at all times)…but I don’t remember much else. We got punished for breaking some time hacks, but eventually made it to our break point. We dropped Woody and the car stops and marched through the city to make it to a United Dairy Farmers for much needed water.

This was the best part. Coincidentally, the night of our challenge was the same night as a Gay Pride Parade or festival or something. They were super fun. It must’ve been 3 in the morning, and the streets were filled with super drunk people. One guy said “I’m so drunk and English.” I don’t know what that means, but it got a few of us to start talking in accents. I got asked if we were coal miners…so we went with that for anyone else who asked what we were doing, which was everybody. I heard people call us coal miners, backpackers, national guard, ‘army dudes,’ sexy bitches, mountain climbers, and all kinds of things that I’ve forgotten. There was also a very large “I LOVE PENIS” sign on the street which brought many laughs.

After our water break, we quickly made our way back to Woody and the blocks for their final leg of the journey. We carried them through a park, past some hobos, and to a pond. In normal GORUCK Challenge fashion, we locked arms, jumped in the disgusting pond, dunked under, and did a spongebob squarepants routine. Sounds stupid, but you had to be there.

Wet and cold, we made our way to a baseball field for my new favorite game: terrorball. It’s a cross between baseball and wrestling, with no rules besides prohibiting joint manipulation. Think baseball without any ball or bat, and you crawl/crabwalk the bases while people do anything possible to stop you from moving. Yeah, it was a blast.

The sun was starting to rise, meaning we had an hour to get back to the start point. The catch was that a few of us were dead, myself included. I thought I was in for a treat! Getting carried for the next hour without a ruck on? Count me in! Boy was I wrong. I’d much rather carry people than be subject to that again. Two days later and it’s still hard to breathe! We eventually made it back to the start point with the sun just starting to warm us. After a very inspirational speech about teamwork and love for our country and service before self, we were issued our patches and posed for pictures with our newest family.

I’ll never forget this night, and I’ll be back for more.