I was texting a friend about shadowing the GORUCKs this weekend. I didn’t plan on shadowing some of the Heavy but after some people messaged me asking if I was going I figured “why not?” I was also injured (sartorius strain) and couldn’t wouldn’t go to the gym so I figured the best use of my time was to show up in Ft. Worth and bother my friends doing the GORUCK Heavy.
That involves driving 45 minutes to not do PT and instead, watch other people do PT. You would think that it’s boring (it is) but hell, sign me up. Or don’t sign me up because signing up takes effort and you know I’m not all about that. I can not do PT at home. Hell, I’m not doing PT right now. Fuck yeah. No PT best PT. You’re probably not doing PT right now either. We should start a club…noruck.
So I show up at the Heavy start point and nobody is there because they’re in the middle of their 12 mile ruck march which is awesome because I’ll just drink some beer. I don’t have beer. Worst shadow of all time ever. I go grab some beer and wait for them in the park and it’s about 21:00 and I keep seeing people running by, mostly solo but occasionally a pair of joggers. I eventually meet up with the other shadows and we do a few more hours of drinking beer and taking blurry pictures. As we were leaving Thursday night (work the next morning), Chase would go on to perfectly state “man it’s like Murder Central out here. I wouldn’t be out here all alone.”
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Friday after work I head over there to shadow the end of the Heavy and the entirety of the Tough. Which is more of the same but tonight’s schedule includes going to Ol’ South Pancake House to get some sausage gravy + biscuits because it’s delicious and better than watching them get smoked. We get back to park in the park and Fortune was looking down on us today as the class walked by the parking lot so we didn’t have to run around and search for them. This is around 00:30.
As the class is getting smoked, A shadow looks at me and was likely thinking “this guy is lazy, he’ll probably want a ride” and offered me a ride to the next checkpoint and sure as shit I took him up on that. You don’t get this body by walking miles in the dark. So we get to the next checkpoint and we wait. The class shows up and they get smoked for not being team oriented or something. We head 2 miles to the next checkpoint and wait some more. He wanted to nap so he reclined his seat back and I wanted to lay down so I went outside and Clint and JB did too. We walked around looking for some dry spots and didn’t find any so we decided that the sidewalk was as good as any so we got on the ground about 15′ away from each other and Clint goes near/under the bridge and knocks out. This is around 03:15-03:30. I come to around 0530 freezing my ass off. All I’m wearing are short shorts and a hoodie and that’s not enough for sleeping on concrete. It was cold. I take a second to gather my bearings, trying to figure why I’m on the side of the road and look around and I don’t see John. He’s probably peeing. Five minutes later he’s still not back.
Not good.
I yell “JOOOOOOOHN” and don’t hear a reply so I was like “damn, guess he’s lost to the aether.” Clint gets up from UNDER THE BRIDGE and asks “where’s JB?”
Clint thinks he might be down by the river in case he fell in while trying to pee so he takes my headlamp and walks the bank for a couple of minutes. No sign. That’s when I’m like “damn, he really is gone.” Next I’m thinking I’m going to end up on the news because my friend is gone and I’m the last one to see him alive. All we have left is his ruck. How do you explain a missing GRT? He’s a bigger guy so I can’t overpower him but I might be a crafty Asian.
All that goes by the wayside when the shadow shows back up. I ask him he’s seen JB and he’s all “you try calling him?” So I do and this time that bitch picks up.
“Hey!”
“Hello?”
“Where you at?!”
“…I’m…in the trunk.”
“DUDE you do not climb into the back of anyone’s trunk. Ever.”
THIS BITCH
Clint walks over, pulls out his phone to record it, pops open the trunk and sure as shit dude climbs out of the trunk.
Turns out he had gotten cold at night and went back to the car to sleep. He kept flopping around in the backseat and the shadow asks him to get in the trunk.
“There’s a pillow back there.”
“Okay.”
What is this life? Sleeping on the sidewalk, sharing beers with new friends and taking pictures of strangers doing strange things at night.
A damned good one.