As some of you may be aware, I recently had the opportunity to participate in the Seattle
GORUCK Challenge on April 20th as part of class 520. The challenge is a teamwork event, not a race, led by a US Special Forces veteran. The challenge is advertised as: "8-10 hours, 15-20 miles, good livin'". Coming from an organization that likes to "under promise, over deliver", I knew I was in for a good night, but nothing could have entirely prepared me for the experience:
Despite a brief meet-and-greet a couple of nights prior, the 28 of us started out a little awkwardly chatting about how we'd all ended up there together and what we expected from the experience. The majority of our group had never participated in a GORUCK event before. Some came in pairs or knew others previously, but many of us were complete strangers.
Very quickly Cadre Bert had us in push-up position for the welcome party and the ice was officially broken!
After Seattle Center, we were off to Kerry park for two GORUCK favorites, crab walks and bear crawls.
Throughout the night, we were given time limits to navigate our group to various "postcard" locations making a big loop around town.
To add to the fun, we carried (as a team) two flags, two empty kegs and $500 in quarters (the Team Weight). Later in the morning we included a piece of a telephone pole for several miles.
Daylight brought some renewed energy for our group... and also new inspiration for Cadre Bert as he led us through various team challenges teaching us to work together and communicate.
The corner of E Boston St. and Harvard Ave. E is an awesome viewpoint overlooking Lake Union and downtown Seattle. We stopped here to talk a bit about the marathon bombings and reflect on the events of the week following the tragedy.
Of course, one of our stops was the market. I think this is my favorite picture of the whole trip. We were completely exhausted, but we knew that we were on the home stretch and that we were going to finish with all 28 members of our team. No more nervous smiles wondering how far we had to go, we were starting to feel really good! The tourists taking pictures of us were pretty funny too.
Almost done!
... and when we finished, someone in the group thought it would be funny to ask "Push-up position?". So, of course, Bert felt that it was a great opportunity to finish our trip with a little more PT fun... something of a goodbye party.
At the completion of our challenge, we were all "patched in" to the GORUCK Tough family.
Once we had returned to the Space Needle, we were informed that our challenge had taken us 25.8 miles around Seattle. We decided, as a team, that we would honor the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing by finishing a full 26.2. So, we gathered our bags and team weight and made a roundabout trek to Zeek's Pizza down the road.
I know that there is better pizza to be had elsewhere in the world, but I think Zeek's was the best any of us had ever tasted that day!
I've tried to hit the high points of the challenge and sum it up a bit, but it is pretty hard to explain beyond teamwork and good livin'. Good Livin' is a term used by the GORUCK family mostly in reference to attitude. "Good Livin’ is what you call it when life is actually tough but you love it, your attitude is great, and you smile. And since life can be a tough place from time to time, smiles always matter and attitude is everything."
Several things have really stuck with me since the challenge:
First of all, I'm impressed by what people can do as a team. There were a couple of folks on our team who were ready to quit within the first hour, but the stuck with it because they didn't want to let their team, or themselves, down. Those guys pushed for another 12 hours and did something that they really thought they couldn't.
Secondly, how hard is "it" really... whatever it is? Our team walked 26 miles, each carrying a backpack of bricks along with our two kegs, 25 pounds of quarters and our telephone pole. A lot of things we encountered were hard for a while and even hurt a fair bit, but Bert kept reminding us that there are plenty of people dealing with a lot more pain and we were really doing this for fun. Bert did a great job of bringing some real-world perspective to the challenge.
Finally, this experience reinforced my motivation to keep trying new things. Walking around Seattle with a bunch of (former) strangers and a bag of bricks sounds completely pointless, but it turned out to be anything but that and it really makes me think about what other sorts of things I should be trying while I can.
I want to say a big THANK YOU to Cadre Bert for leading us on the challenge and also to our photographer Chris Tack (tackphoto.com) for following us around all night with a bag of camera gear.
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