GORUCK Challenge 1000
A look back at a tough endurance event.
Note: I originally wrote this back in 2014 on my old website. My website is going away, but I didn’t want to lose this story, so I’m reposting it here.
On Friday, May 2nd, 2014 at 9:00pm, over 170 people converged on the Presidio Grounds in San Francisco to participate in the 1000th GORUCK Challenge. You can find out more about what the GORUCK Challenge is from their website, but the quick summary is that it is an intense team-building endurance event led by former Special Operations cadre where you traverse at least 15 miles in 12 to 14 hours while wearing a rucksack filled with bricks. If you never done one before, that probably sounds like the worst thing ever, but I hope that my story will make you think otherwise. Since the first Challenge took place in San Francisco, it was only fitting that we celebrated the 1000th class milestone in the same city.
I ended up in Team #4 with thirty-four other people, which would be called “Strong Rangers” for reasons explained a little later.
Usually in the Challenge, you are tasked with getting from Point A to Point B within a certain time limit while wearing your brick-filled rucksack and potentially carrying other heavy objects. Our first destination was East Beach.
GORUCK events have a “welcome party,” which is PT (physical training) for a certain length of time. Our team cadre, Garett, introduced us to bunch of exercises once we reached the beach, such as bear crawls in the water.
Throughout the night, we would have to line up in formation and have each person count off. Unfortunately for us, this somehow wasn’t easy for us.
When our team had trouble counting to 35 (the number of participants in our team) after we lined up in formation, Garett would make us do several push-ups as punishment. He would then make us count off in the push-up position. We had to repeat this until we got it right. We kept screwing this up, which led Garett to call us “strong rangers” for loving to do so many punishment push-ups. When Garrett asked us to pick a team name after the welcome party was done, we initially went with “Smart Rangers”. However, we still couldn’t get the count right when we lined up in formation later in the night, so after a few more punishment push-ups, the name “Strong Rangers” stuck.
After the welcome party, we rucked (move while wearing rucksacks) into the city and managed to find a “coupon” (aka annoying heavy object) that we had to take along. Not sure how long we walked before we encountered a special event to celebrate the 1000th GORUCK Challenge, the GORUCK games.
In the GORUCK games, teams competed against each other in certain events. The first was a ruck relay up and down Lombard Street. For those of you unfamiliar with Lombard Street, here’s what it looks like.
Five brave volunteers from each team would take turns running up this inexplicably winding street with their ruck, then drop the ruck at the top of the street before running back down. After all five racers went, they then take turns running up Lombard Street again, reclaim their ruck on the top of the street, then run back down with their rucksack.
And I was one of the five volunteers for my team. It’s not something that I would want to repeat considering how my knees felt after this was done. Of the three teams that competed in this event (the other two teams met at a different location and had a push-up contest), ours came in second. We tried our hardest, but the winning team had some really impressive runners. Speaking of which…
…the five runners who beat us came from this team, which was led by Jason McCarthy, the man who founded GORUCK. He found some crazy coupons for the team to carry, as this picture can attest.
The teams went their separate ways, but not before we were able to hand off our coupon to the third place team as their “reward” for coming in dead last.
Our team rucked some more, learned a couple of team-building lessons (some the hard way), and eventually reached a park (don’t know which one). Here we met with two other teams to compete in the second of the GORUCK games, a sit-up competition.
To celebrate the 1000th GORUCK class, the three participating teams (don’t know what the other two teams did for their second game) had to collectively do 1000 sit-ups, where everybody on the team had to do at least one. Strong Rangers came up with a good strategy and finished their 1000 sit-ups first against the other teams (one of which was the team that beat us in the previous ruck relay).
We went our separate ways and rucked some more. This time we went down Haight Street, and one of the things you really want to avoid in a Challenge is not follow the cadre’s directions. Otherwise, bad things will happen, mainly “casualties” where a participant is no longer allowed to move and must be buddy-carried. Keep disobeying directions, and those bad things get compounded. Having to buddy carry someone is bad enough. Having to do so while losing strap privileges for your ruck is worse. Nonetheless, our team toughed it out and we made it to our next destination.
Strong Rangers lived up to their name by screwing up our formation count again. We can’t collectively count and really love to do punishment push-ups.
This was a glimpse to one of the most memorable moments of the Challenge, Asian Calisthenics. There’s a great story behind this, but unfortunately, it’s really one of those “you had to be there” deals where it wouldn’t make sense if I tried to explain it. So instead, just look at the good time we had as we were doing two-handed ruck swings. In the background, Asian elevator music was playing to power us through this (again, you had to be there).
Eventually all five teams converged at a track to compete in the final GORUCK game, the 400m ruck relay. For this ruck relay, one person from each team runs 400m around the track with a rucksack (remember that it’s filled with bricks). After the lap is completed, the runner passes the ruck to the next member of the team to run a lap.
Each team needed to run 42 laps around the track, and each member of the team had to run at least one lap. This meant that some team members would have to run twice. I wasn’t sure how I would fare considering how my knees felt after the first ruck relay, but I ran considerably fast, and ended up being one of the ones to do a second lap after everyone had their turn. The GORUCK Challenge definitely provides opportunities to push yourself beyond what you previously thought was possible. Unfortunately, Strong Rangers came in second, but the last laps in this race were definitely memorable.
After the games, the teams went their separate ways to complete the final leg of the Challenge.
It isn’t a GORUCK event unless you have to carry a ridiculously heavy log. There is nothing fun about this. It’s just one of those things that you have to work as a team to carry and suffer until you don’t have to carry it any more.
We rucked some more and faced some tough challenges until, after approximately 14 hours and 14 miles, the Strong Rangers reached the end point. 35 started, and 35 finished strong.
Despite the fact that I was lugging around 40lb worth of stuff in my rucksack, GRC1000 was one of the most enjoyable moments I ever had. I have a smile on my face just by reflecting on and writing about this. The other “Strong Rangers” I met are fantastic people, and the camaraderie, experience, and inside jokes from this event will last a lifetime. And of course, this was special…
… because of Garett, who did a phenomenal job guiding our team to work as one. He made an everlasting impact on my life and I’m really glad to know him.
And that’s my story about GORUCK Challenge 1000. The Challenge can appear rough and intimidating, but you (yes, you!) have the capability to complete one. It will take training, but I assure you, it’s not impossible. You’d be surprised of what you are capable of doing, as a big proponent of succeeding in this type of event is more mental than physical. I guarantee that despite all the pain, you’ll have a great time doing and completing a GORUCK Challenge. For god’s sake, I’m grinning ear to ear in the last photo, and that’s after going 14 hours doing crazy exercises with 40lbs on my back. YOU CAN’T FAKE THAT!
Special thanks to Scott Johnsen, Jeremiah Silven, Pete Rhoades, and Michael Fries’ girlfriend, for providing the pictures from this post. For those who shadowed our class and took pictures, you have my gratitude for capturing this special occasion.
