[MoFo]

OK, I started this thread. I did the Kansas City GoRuck Challenge back in early August. It was a ball buster and kicked my ass. But it was awesome in the way that only having your balls busted can be awesome. I had McCall flashbacks all night long, over the 17 miles and 12.5 hours that was our GRC.

Allot of SF buddies have marveled at this and asked why the hell I would want to do something like this.....AGAIN?! Hard to answer that. Partly, I wanted to know if I still could. I did it. Ironically, physical fitness was not the problem. The prob was that I approached the GRC like I was still 30 years old. The worst result of that was I mismanaged my hydration and got way dehydrated. Dumbass. Know better. Water alone will not work, not over 12 hours of constant PT, and especially not if you are over 40, and esp. if you are 50, which I am. Everyone else had tabs and cubes and gels that were packed with electrolytes and various other goodies. Be advised. We started Friday night, finished Sat morn at 0930 and I did not piss until Sunday. I also did not prep well, in terms of hydrating the day of the GRC. I was busy and let that slip. Dumbass. Knew better.

BUT, I will say that all us old soldiers have some advantages, like shoulders and backs for which the ruck is no stranger, and familiarity with how to ruck march, in terms of rhythm, swinging the hips, etc. Some of the kids in my class struggled with just marching en route. Especially the women, of which made up about a 1/5 of the class.

Our class cadre made me Mr. Popular for about 5 minutes at one point during the night. We came to a bridge. The rules for bridges was that we had to pay a price, some sort of sadistic exercise, in order to cross, like a buddy carry. It was into the night and we all were whipped. We had just done some running and everyone was gasping and panting and the cadre said that for this bridge we're gonna have a trivia quiz and if anyone can answer it we'll just cross. Then he asked "Who was the founder of Special Forces?" Everyone freaked. I laughed and grabbed a breath and then barked out "Col. Aaron Banks!" He said, "That is correct. Cross the bridge." No one else of course had a clue of the answer and people were slapping me and thanking me. One girl kept saying "Thank you for knowing that. Thank you. Thank you."

I cramped up real bad in the last mile. Was basically OK until then. But my calves would not allow me to run that last mile. March/walk, yes. But no more running. We marched it on in. When I finally did piss it was so dark gold that I considered bottling it and taking it to a jewelry store or pawn shop to see if I could get a good price for it.