Anyone here ever done a Go Ruck Challenge?

[schapman43]

How did it go?

[Justin]

This event was easily the most physically demanding 12 hours since my college days, and easily in the top 3 of my life.

We started at 9pm on Friday night near a park in Manitou Springs, and finished around 9:30am at Acacia Park in Downtown Colorado Springs. The route we took was pretty circuitous, so we ended up going a total of 15.4 miles. We went up through Garden of the Gods, out through the main entrance, along a road, through a residential area, eventually ending up going under I25 a bit north of Uintah.

The whole thing was led by a cadre member with military experience, he gave us a pretty thorough breakdown of his background, but at this point, I don't recall much of it.

The actual rucking portion of the event wasn't the worst, in fact after awhile, I got to where I was looking forward to carrying just my pack with the weight in it. The way the event was broken down was pretty cool. Since it was in commemoration of the Battle of Mogadishu, at various points the Cadre would stop us, give the time, and a quick breakdown of approximately what happened at that point in the battle. We'd then do a team building event modelled on the event. So, for instance, at one point we were told to go find six rocks that were to represent classified equipment that had to be recovered from the downed helicopter. (Yes, we literally played a game of "Go Find Me a Rock.") We were also told that at any given point, three of the people in our group were to be designated as casualties who had to be carried. So this led to everyone basically trading off between helping with a fireman's or three man carry, toting a rock, carrying the Guidon, carrying the team weight, or being carried as a casualty. Not being the dainty sort, I didn't volunteer to be carried. At certain points we'd stop for a break, drink some water, eat something, and then play some games, by which I mean, engage in competitive calesthenics. For instance, on a normal day I'm not a fan of doing bear crawls, but doing them with a backpack is a whole new level of suck.

After awhile, we traded out our rocks and casualty carries for cinder blocks and a log, so that was new and interesting. On a personal note, the route at one point did coincidentally go within about 2 blocks of my house, and I momentarily considered slipping away and just going to bed.

Probably the most amusing part of the whole thing was as we were getting near the end of the ruck, it turned out there was a marathon event going on in downtown Colorado Springs. I think that between the flag, cinder blocks and and log we made something of an impression on the marathoners and spectators who'd shown up for that event!

Once we got to the final stopping point at Acacia Park, we wrapped up with some more calesthenic activities, the Cadre gave a pretty cool speech about how a group of mostly strangers had become an effective team, and we all were given a commemorative patch and that was pretty much it. He left to retrieve his truck to ferry people back to the start, but one of the people in our group just called an Uber and we caught a ride back to the starting point.

I'd hesitate to call the Go Ruck Tough fun; it was really gruelling mentally and physically taxing, but I'm glad that I did it. I'd like to think I learned a few new things about myself in the process, though.

[ChickNorris]

How did your gear work out for you?

[Irving]

Sounds like completing the challenge was gratifying at the very least. Same question as ChickN. Are they still offering discounts on their gear as part of the challenge completion?

[Justin]

The clothing I wore worked out fine. I picked up some hiking pants on sale at REI a few weeks ago, and wore that, along with two shirts of under armor material, sock liners, and wool socks. My feet got somewhat wet partway through, but never got really cold. Luckily temperatures were in the 40s so my choice of clothing worked out well.

I used my Arcteryx backpack, and, other than being just a bit on the small side, it worked out well. I picked up a ruck plate from Titan Fitness at about half the cost of the one that Go Ruck sells. and, despite not being as nicely finished, it worked fine.

Food wise, if I were to do it again, I think I'd pay more attention to sugar and protein content, and weight more heavily towards protein. I'd also pack something with potassium as well, because I got some wicked leg cramps at about 4am.


Yes, completing the thing was hugely satisfying, and they did mention that we should see a coupon code for a gear discount show up in our email, but so far, I haven't seen it yet.

[CS1983]

Congrats.

I think the “fun” of such things isn’t the fun we typically think of. It’s the resultant realization that you can push yourself, which leads to pushing the boundaries of actually fun things.

[Justin]

I think that's a really good way of putting it.

[Jer]

Congrats.

I think the “fun” of such things isn’t the fun we typically think of. It’s the resultant realization that you can push yourself, which leads to pushing the boundaries of actually fun things.

This is what we find "enjoyable" about Crossfit and I think it's a similar reason people do Go Ruck and other things like that. On paper you often feel like "there's no way in hell I can do that" and then while you're doing it you think "No way in hell can I do this and I'm pretty sure I'm dying" but when it's all over and you realize you not only did it but did better than you thought you would it's a great feeling. It certainly makes you attempt more things you can't do or work on the things you never thought you'd do.

[Irving]

I've heard Steven Rinella try to describe the difference between easy fun and hard fun. East fun is like a roller coaster, where it's fun while you're doing it, but you never think about it again after that. Hard fun is not fun while you're doing it, but you often reminisce about it later and want to do it again, even though you told yourself how stupid you were for trying the whole time you were doing it.

[Jer]

I've heard Steven Rinella try to describe the difference between easy fun and hard fun. East fun is like a roller coaster, where it's fun while you're doing it, but you never think about it again after that. Hard fun is not fun while you're doing it, but you often reminisce about it later and want to do it again, even though you told yourself how stupid you were for trying the whole time you were doing it.

That's a great way of putting it that I never really thought of before and seems to be pretty spot on.