- People cheering and cowbelling a random dog that happened to trot down the finish chute.
- Getting asked how I was doing as I was passed around mile 40+ and replying “Tip-top!”.
- Realizing that it was totally true.
- Also realizing that morning that this would be five (5) ultramarathons in five (5) months. (For context, up until November 2015, the longest race I’d ever run was a 10-miler, and that was one of my ‘long’ runs.)
- The wolflike howling that filled the valley at about mile 49.9 and stopped the second I threw up a quick Rocky pose at 50.0.
- Not getting any weird looks when asking the lady manning the grub table to, quote, “Nutella up these Oreos”…
- … not even when I went back for seconds. So delicious.
- Reading in the paper the next day about the local 10 Miler and the “seemingly endless straightaway along Main Street, from mile 7.4 to mile 8.1″…
Category: AARs
Burn as many calories as rucking – without a ruck!
JFK 50-Miler Takeaways:
- Saw another GRT, with a challenge-spec carabiner & reflector setup on a 10L Bullet, OG status confirmed by the Count ZFG patch. (I ran with a 10L Bullet myself for the middle portion of the race, switching between that and a Salomon 12 Set at the first and last crew access points.)
- Aid station food was a bit boring. Potato chips, store-brand Oreos, pretzels, bananas, repeat. A bit of variety on top of that base and especially at the sponsored stations (“Miracle at Mile 34”, “Mile 38 Special”, etc.) but part of the awesomeness of ultramarathons is eating all of the horrible junk food (personal accomplishment #2 on the day: ate thirty (30) Oreos!) that is made suddenly and magically delicious after about mile 30. (Pickles & a PB&J & sugar cookies & a banana & a steaming cup of bouillon & peanut M&Ms…) If the spread’s going to be chosen purely for maximum glucose & electrolyte delivery per unit cost, I’d prefer salt tablets and shots of sugar water. I’m like a cow crossed with a hummingbird.
- It ended up being warm enough that VFFs would have been A-Ok. Probably better, in fact. Not much blistering, but I’m on track to lose both big toenails, and a couple of the little guys aren’t looking too good, either.
- If I had a reason to, it would have been totally doable in a suit. Given the wind and sleet at the end, it might even have been more comfortable, on the whole…
- Leg day Friday made the last ten/fifteen miles significantly less comfortable than they could have been.
Challenge: Accepted
I don’t run. At least, I didn’t run, apart from a few 5Ks here and there, the Charlottesville 10-Miler a couple of times because a bunch of people from morning workout were running in it, that sort of thing.
But, and this is important, I do stupid things. Admittedly, less “Of course I can chug that!” stupid and more “12 overnight hours and 20+ miles of cross-country log-carrying tactical-movement with a rucksack full of bricks? With another one the next afternoon? Why not!” stupid.
(In fairness, however, it was only a Challenge-Light, not a Challenge-Challenge or HCL. I may do stupid things, but I am not a moron.)
So I decided to run the Richmond Marathon last year on a whim. And I accepted my brother’s challenge that if I could get out of bed the next morning (loft bed with railings and a ladder, so trickier than just rolling to one side) I’d sign up for the Seashore State Park 50K that December.
Unfortunately, the 50K was full up by the time of the marathon. Darn. Still, with a rucksack full of food, water, and a pre-race outer layer that I was too stubborn and Norwegian-Lutheran to actually discard and so got stuffed in on top of the 3L hydration bladder, I finished.
(I had covered this distance before [more or less, and spread out over between the Challenge-Light…] and I was used to moving with a rucksack, to be fair.
[And I sweat… profusely, so dehydration was a concern for me.])
A while after that, some guy made the internet for running a half-marathon in a suit, and right after that the cofounder of Ministry of Supply ran a much faster half-marathon in one of their just-released Aviator 2 suits.
GORUCK FAD Handgun AAR
Update 2016-05-13: If you’re interested in GORUCK Firearms Gear and missed out on the latest pre-order, my brother’s put together a quick tutorial about upgrading a regular rucksack into a Shooter-style Ruck:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Goruck/comments/4ipyk9/homemade_ruckshooter_ruck_upgrade/
Note – I wrote this up for my own reference from my scrawled notes the week after the FAD, and then I went back and formatted and edited it to put up here years later. If anything ended up misremembered or flat-out wrong, that’s on me.
Introduction:
We started off ranked up and the cadre went over the basics – range rules, cold and hot, what the medevac vehicle was, all of the basics. Lots of jokings, (“We have several Delta medics here, but you’re all civilians, so if you’re injured, they’ll just sit and watch.” [Bert points and laughs.] “And remember, you signed a death waiver.” And, “We’ll throw you in the back of the car and drive you to the nearest hospital. Which is six hours away.”) but it was still all professional and squared away.
Then we all circled up around Tyler as he went over the basics. We all had to recite after him the Four Rules and he also clarified that, while the First Rule is that all guns are loaded, that said – know what condition your gun is in at all times. Then he went over the details of loading, unloading, manipulating, checking, and handling of the gun.
“When you have your gun out of the holster, it makes us nervous. We might say, ‘No, don’t do that’, but inside we’re thinking ‘Holy fuck no, don’t fucking do that!’“
– Cadre Garrett
Someone asked a question about the slide being locked back, and one of the guys in the advanced group said how there’s a notch on the slide that gets caught, and Garrett spoke up – “We’ve got half a dozen cadre here. If he [Tyler] misses anything, we’ll help him out.” Translation – shut the fuck up, guy. Adults are talking. Very calm and no-nonsense.
Throughout, Tyler stressed how shooting was a science. Math, physics, ballistics in between, all of it science. Do A, then B. How stance helps with balance, and how a lot of that is common sense (i.e., put someone on a moving platform and see how they naturally stand).
GORUCK FAD Rifle 002 AAR
Update 2016-05-13: If you’re interested in GORUCK Firearms Gear and missed out on the latest pre-order, my brother’s put together a quick tutorial about upgrading a regular rucksack into a Shooter-style Ruck:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Goruck/comments/4ipyk9/homemade_ruckshooter_ruck_upgrade/
Note – I wrote this up for my own reference from my scrawled notes the week after the FAD. If anything ended up misremembered or flat-out wrong, that’s on me.
No idea how long it’ll be up, but the Facebook page with pictures and such is here.
Introduction:
We started off hanging out in the parking lot for a few minutes as people trickled in – lots of GORUCK gear in evidence, obviously, and mostly young to younger-middle-aged males. An interesting contrast to the mostly older men and women showing up in equal numbers for the handgun class being put on by the range the same morning.
Snow started falling fairly heavily and, as fun as it would have been to see the vortex trails from the full firing line, I’d foregone a base layer of tights and was just in jeans… Fortunately, it let up by the time we came back outside after the briefing.
The Cadre called everyone into the clubhouse and introduced themselves (there had been a brief delay due to three or four traffic stops by State Police on the way over). Cadre Machine was leading the course, with Cadres Jesse and Logan assisting.
Everyone confirmed their name, age, occupation, GORUCK experience, and firearms experience. As you might expect, mostly male, mostly young – thirty plus ten minus five, a preponderance of police / EMT / firefighters / forensics scientists, a few techies, and most had done several GORUCK events.
There were several, though, who hadn’t done any GORUCK events, and several who hadn’t fired a gun before. Only a couple had serious experience with the AR platform (besides the Cadre, of course), though most had some pistol and general firearms experience.
Standard uniform was Arc’teryx jacket and cargo pants, supplemented with sweatshirts and morale patches. Apart from a couple of guys with chest rigs or battle belts and one guy running drop-leg, the tacticool-aid was at a minimum.
Scene set, we drove over to the club’s law enforcement range and got out our kit, set our stuff up underneath the shelter, and then joined Cadre Machine in classroom formation out on the range.
Don Norum 