So I bought tickets to this Tour and it was a great show. ~48 hours of awesome times filled with hating my feet and getting a nice sunburn. This was a follow up to my failed attempt at Seattle HCL001 and what pisses me off is that I had it in Seattle. I didn’t show up and quit the Challenge up there but instead just failed to showed up. Lesson one: show up. If I showed up, I would’ve nailed it. Oh well, time to move on but the scar of that failure will always be there.

So the Heavy. It was fun. It was long. It was hot. Definitely should’ve taped my feet up before I left but I thought I’d be fine. Noticed hot spots on the bottom and it only got worse. Standard Heavy event with excellent Cadre as usual but the two things different from Seattle were the temperature (not cold aka good feels) and the intensity level. I don’t know if they had something to prove in Seattle but there were 5 Cadre rotating out on us up there and they were on their A-game. Here in Ft. Worth it was definitely less intense but not any less difficult. They also offered us about 20 chances to quit Heavy up there and I wish they’d do that at other Heavy events. It’s always so tempting for that.

 

We had heat and dehydration to deal with while up there we just had it being cold. Cold was easier to manage because you just keep moving but you can’t really do that down here in Texas. We also lacked the Farewell Party at the end that we had up in Seattle and honestly, I was looking forward to them yelling at us and telling us we weren’t good enough, we weren’t low enough, we weren’t fast enough and we weren’t pushing up high enough. Really, that is what I loved about Seattle the most.

Challenge I don’t really remember because we had lots of cardio and I hate cardio (well, not really, I just don’t do enough of it) and this is where the lack of sleep set in. When we were walking I’d be fine but as soon as we stopped to get another lesson in leadership, I’d fall asleep in-place and wake up trying to not fall on my ass.

Light was really cool. My feet were hurting and I’d only had 1.5 beers in the parking lot but there was no way I was going to not finish. This is where the realization set in that I am an idiot for flying all the way up to Seattle to not only fail but to fail to even show up. Anyway, we went the same route along the Trinity River and into downtown and on our way back we had the most fun I’ve ever had at a GORUCK event. We got to do little man in the woods aka short people jumping jacks and when we messed that up we had to do short people cartwheels and it was literally the highlight of the event. I don’t know if I’ve ever laughed so hard after wanting to throw up.

At the end of the event, it was raining and for some reason there weren’t mass casualties and a time hack so we just kinda strolled back in. Everyone got their Light patches and then the HCL people were promoted to overhead press duty and when one person had to set it down, we all set it down as a team. We did that as a team and it was over! HCL Victory Dance…engage. More of a “thank God this shit is over, I just want to stand here or sit without any weight on my back.”

We heard some really good stories and leadership points. Our friend Matt told us why he did it and how hard it was for him to push through. I know it was raining but it must’ve been dusty or some asshole started chopping onions beside me because my eyes started watering. This is why I do these events – the camaraderie. I could definitely do without the bear crawls and the jogging and carrying awkwardly heavy shit but without that added stress the camaraderie and friendships wouldn’t hold the same meaning. As we were getting patched, we saw a rainbow, then a double rainbow, it stopped raining, the sun came out and then we saw two or three flocks of birds flying in their v-formation and it was an incredibly odd ending to a very fun weekend.

It was an amazing Memorial Day weekend and I have a much better appreciation of that day and what people sacrifice for this country. As a civilian you don’t really understand but to hear it from soldiers themselves it’s very moving and gives you a much better insight to what the day is for (and year should be for).

So I have a couple of Challenges and then I’m retiring. This shit is getting expensive. For my last couple of events I’m going to train. Yeah, right after I put down this beer.

I’m kneeling because it hurts to stand.