Yes…I #GORUCKED myself all weekend at GORUCK Heavy 023. Going into this my training plan was to not train (not really) but that’s pretty much how it worked out. I got posterior tibial tendinitis in my left foot earlier this year (March) and pretty much haven’t been able to run since then without feeling pain in my foots since then. Not that my cardio was good but not doing any cardio at all was inexcusable. I lifted weights occasionally and decided that gaining more weight was the ideal solution to training. A couple of weeks ago I was working on landscaping at Habitat for Humanity and my tendon was bothering me just moving around with no weight so I thought about canceling this Heavy.

I didn’t cancel and I’m glad I didn’t but about an hour into 023 my tendon started to bother me. The way it bothers me is that it feels like the tendon is warming up and then just annoying for the rest of the time I’m on my feet. It’s exactly the way a twisted ankle feels a day later. In my head I pictured it ripping/snapping and me writhing around in pain with and creating a cool story about how I got med-dropped from a Challenge because I pushed MYSELF TO THE LIMITS #EXTREME but it was not meant to be. I had to suffer through 23 more hours with some burning sensation in my left foot. Remember, it’s all about the story to me and whether or not it’s flattering to me is not important. I like to put up pictures of my failures and shortcomings more than I do my limit-successes because, well, it’s fun.

Like most other challenges/heavy’s/heavies/heavii I won’t bother with the details because that’s not what’s important. I will tell you that when I meet you and learn your name is “Doc” I will call you “Doc” forever even if your actual name is Richard and it says Richard on your fb page because that’s how I know you. I will look you straight in the eyes and be utterly confused when you tell me your name is Richard and I have to ask “aren’t you Doc?” However, I won’t call you Richard at all because that is not your name (and someone named Rebecca did not get her side of the name game down so I didn’t get a chance to mess up my side of the name game).

Two major items for today’s recap: eggs for days and Bee Yang.

Item one: At the start of this event, after roll call and a PT test, Cadre Bert gave everyone an egg and said if we break it, we’d owe him PT for breaking. 40 people in the class. 41 eggs. Candace decided it would be a great idea to shout “give him two eggs” when Cadre was handing out eggs so he tossed the first one at me and it bounced off my hand and onto the grass (not breaking! Good omen…) so I picked it up. He tossed the second one not right at me but I managed to snag it with the grace of a ballet dancer. You should see me and my poetry in motion – I don’t know why I don’t have an NFL contract yet (short, fat, slow and would be concussed with my first hit are probably the first few items in the list). The idea, from what I can recall, is that any meathead can run around and carry heavy shit for the entire day but it takes a a little more work to be able to do that and carry an egg without breaking it.

I was able to survive the whole thing with both eggs intact by cheating on almost every PT session (bear crawling with knees, keeping the egg out of my mouth and cupping the eggs in both hands. When doing overhead presses or side-to-sides with our ruck, I would just put the egg in between my legs on the ground and make sure I didn’t crush them. Keeping eggs out of your mouth also helps. I learned that whatever move you make with a whole egg in your mouth will inevitably fail on you in any sort of movement. I also had help. When I had to carry something heavy with both hands I would be able to hand off my precious, precious eggs to one of my awesome teammates who would protect it (also, I promised them death should the egg suffer an early demise) and hopefully not-treat it like their own, broken eggs (most of them..5/41).

Item two: Bee Yang! (BEE YANG!)

I kind of asked Candace if she could use her powers to get them to end the class early as I had a baby shower to attend and Cadre decides to make an announcement on the fb page to let everyone know. OK, whatever. Then he mentions it at the beginning of the event and to top it off, every time he says “Bee Yang” for the next 24 hours the class has to yell “BEE YANG!”  and the first time it’s cool, it’s funny to hear everyone shout your name. The second time “meh, I see what you’re doing” and the third time it’s like “shut the hell up!” This went on pretty much all 24 hours and still carrying on a bit today on fb.