Tag: GoRuck

Always look cool.

Looking Cool GORUCK Style

GORUCK has 3 three rules:

Always look cool. Never get lost. And if you get lost, look cool.

Now those shorts in the picture above clearly cover me for the looking cool part, or so I thought.

When I first heard the three rules I thought they were just meant to be kinda funny, but upon listening to Jason McCarthy, a former Green Beret and the founder of GORUCK, explain them there is deep meaning in always looking cool. How you present yourself makes a difference to how you act and how others act around you.

You are always going to be faced with situations that suck. You can chose to embrace the the suck, or be miserable. As stated previously on this site, you will always get to choose how you react to something. If you are faced with a bad situation or are upset, or frustrated force yourself to keep your cool. Even if its just on the outside.

For example, if you are in the middle of a workout, and you realize you have put on too much weight, or your hand starts to hurt, or you just failed on a snatch, smile. Or laugh. Put on a happy face. I have found it to be wildly motivating to laugh when the thought of “there is no way you can finish this” tries to creep into my head.

I have also found that the people around me are influenced by how I present myself. If I am laughing and smiling, they laugh and smile and push harder. If I’m sad and mopey, that stuff is really contagious.

Looking cool is not just about awesome shorts. Its about broadcasting a positive message that reaches everyone around you no matter what the circumstances. Pain is inevitable, suffering is a choice. Looking cool is choosing not to suffer. Ever. Lift yourself up, lift your team up. Always look cool.

GoRuck Light

GoRuck Log Carry

 

Last Saturday was a perfect Trifecta.  It was my birthday, U of M played and defeated Notre Dame, and it started at 4:45AM when I woke up for GoRuck Light 090 in Detroit.  I have done a couple of these challenges now, Tough Mudder and Merrill Down and Dirty, and now GoRuck.  GoRuck is different.  Very different.

Tough Mudder and Down & Dirty are your ‘standard’ mud run meets obstacle course. You basically run, then climb over or duck under something, then run some more… in Tough Mudder’s case you get zapped or frozen as well.  You will help lift a buddy, cheer someone on, give out a lot of fist bumps and pats on the back.

The difference is that in these obstacle courses you move as a group, while in GoRuck, you move as a team.  The psychological exercise is much more significant than the physical during GoRuck.  I found myself much more focused more on the people and rucks in front of me, beside me, and behind me than I did myself.  Right out of the gate we fell into a formation, and in two lines lunge stepped/bear crawled/crab walked 1.2 miles, keeping close with the person in front of us.  Your pace was not dictated by your ability, but on that of the person in front of you.  If you slowed down, you slowed down up to 30 people behind you, and if you sped up, you just left up to 30 people behind.  You are not moving as an individual, you are moving as a team.

This went on for a little over 6 hours.  Bags never touched the ground, if you needed a break, there were 72 teammates eager to carry your bag for you while you rested up.  If you were rested you volunteered to carry one of the team weights (sandbags).  It may sound cheesy, but it was a little bit of an honor to carry one for our last leg, and I didn’t want to give it up once I got it.

We ran, we crawled, we carried wood, and had a damn good time doing it.

If there is any question about if I really enjoyed my ruck around the D, 48 hours after it ended, I signed up for the GoRuck Challenge in Ann Arbor.  I want my GRT patch!

We had some super nice folks tagging along and taking pictures, here are several of the pictures from GoRuck Light – Detroit!

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