GORUCK Triple Heavy 002 AAR – Part 1 of 4

Before we begin, I’m going to make the presumption that you are already familiar with GORUCK and its team endurance events that promote teamwork and push beyond your perceived limits.

Hello, and welcome to the After Action Review (AAR) for the second GORUCK Triple Heavy (HHH002), arguably the most insane team endurance event in the world. Back in 2015, my good friend, Doug Otte, had this crazy idea to organize a custom GORUCK event that was three consecutive GORUCK Heavies (a Heavy is GORUCK’s 24-hour team endurance challenge). Yes, you read that correctly–not including breaks, the event was scheduled to run for 72 hours!



The first Triple Heavy occurred in New York City in 2015, which I have written about in this article. The quick summary for that event was seven of us became the first team to complete two consecutive GORUCK Heavies, but were unable to start the third due to low participation numbers. Nearly a year after the first Triple Heavy, twenty-four determined individuals would come together and attempt the second Triple Heavy with the goal of becoming the first team to finish the whole event.

HHH002 took place in San Diego from Thursday, September 29th to Sunday, October 2nd, 2016. This would be my second attempt at the Triple Heavy.

This AAR is divided into the following parts.

72 hours? Why are you doing this…again?

I had three reasons for doing the Triple Heavy again. The first is actually the same reason why I do any kind of endurance event–to find my limits and see if I’m able to surpass them. It started with Tough Mudder in 2012, and that internal desire to push myself wasn’t satiated after I finished, so I signed up for more difficult challenges. It’s how I got into doing GORUCK events in 2013 and haven’t stopped. I’ve learned that the path to true growth is to constantly challenge yourself and get out of your comfort zone, and the Triple Heavy was one of the biggest challenges to overcome.

The second reason was to resolve the feeling of unfinished business after the first Triple Heavy. Our team was warned right before the third Heavy that if we did not have enough people to start, it would be cancelled. The team’s ability to continue the event hinged on my decision to participate. My feet were thrashed and I suffered a bad thumb injury during the second Heavy, so I ultimately decided that I couldn’t suffer another twenty-four hours in my current state. I will never regret my decision to stop, but the cancellation of that third Heavy left the team with a feeling that this wasn’t over. I truly believed that finishing a Triple Heavy was absolutely possible, so I trained hard afterwards to get myself in a strong physical and mental state where I can help my team accomplish this goal.

The third reason is the most important. The key to finishing these hard endurance events is having a strong ‘why’ for doing the event, as that ‘why’ will dissuade you from quitting when things start to suck real bad and you ask yourself why are you doing this. My ‘why’ for finishing the Triple Heavy was to inspire people by proving that not all things that seem impossible actually are. I hoped that completing this event would motivate people to confront their goals that they perceived to be impossible and feel that they have the ability to achieve them. The impact of finishing a Triple Heavy went beyond prestige and accolades–it could potentially help a lot of people. I was determined to do whatever it took to accomplish this goal.

Mental Prep

It doesn’t matter how physically strong and fast you are–if you have not conditioned your mind to face the rigors of endurance events, you will find any excuse to quit. There are four tenets of mental toughness that I used to prepare my mind for the Triple Heavy; visualization, self-affirmations, micro-goal setting, and arousal control. I covered these tenets in my Kokoro article, so I won’t repeat their explanations in this AAR.

To supplement these mental toughness techniques, I also hung this up on my wall to train my mind:

Writing that goal down was crucial because it was no longer an idea in my mind–it existed in the real world and I had to confront it every day. That note made it easier to commit to the grind of working out every day to get stronger (with yoga on rest days), and it conditioned my mind to actually believe that the goal was possible. By the time the event started, I had convinced myself that I would finish HHH002.

What worked: In terms of mental prep, there wasn’t anything I would change. I had a clear why for doing the Triple Heavy, I wrote my goal down so that I could confront it daily, and I followed the four tenets of mental toughness to get my mind to a state where I absolutely believed I could finish the Triple Heavy.

Training for the HHH

The training for this event was pretty aggressive. After the first Triple Heavy, I recovered for about a month before I started training in November 2015. I was scheduled to do Sealfit Kokoro, a 50 hour crucible based on Navy Seals training, in late February, so my training was focused on passing its standards and getting strong enough to finish it (I discussed the prep for that event in my Kokoro article). After finishing Kokoro, I took the following month off to recover. I resumed my training in late March by following several plans from Mountain Tactical Institute. I would start with a plan like Hector or Valor as a base, and modify it with more rucking sessions.

For example, on Monday nights, I did a heavy ruck session with a ruck and sandbag. These were designed to increase my capacity and tolerance to carry really heavy stuff for long distances. I would start with two rounds of 1 mile, and each week I would either increase the distance or the weight. By the end of my training, I was doing three rounds of 1 mile ruck with a 60 pound ruck and a 60 pound sandbag.

Thursday nights were a straight-forward 4-mile ruck with elevation. Cadre Glenn “Flash” Wells, one of the three cadre running the event, warned us that we would be rucking up mountains during one of the Heavies, so I added elevation rucks to prepare for that scenario.

Saturdays were my long rucks, and I would implement my favorite training progression of starting with 8 miles and increasing the distance by two miles each weekend until I hit 20 miles. I did this cycle twice, the first with a 30 pound ruck and the second with a 45 pound ruck. The goal was to get used to rucking a lot of miles, since we were looking at rucking about 100 miles for the entire event. I still remember the advice a Green Beret veteran gave me when I asked him in 2015 how should I train for the first Triple Heavy, “Miles, miles, and miles.”

My friend, Troy Angrignon, helped me organize my HHH training plan by placing it in a Google spreadsheet. It provided an excellent long-term view on how to form my training blocks and recovery periods throughout the year. We also chatted every two weeks to review the plan, and made appropriate tweaks as the event got closer. He even helped organize a mini HHH training session which served as a good gut check on how prepared I was for the event. I can’t thank him enough for the training prep he provided.

I also did several GORUCK events prior to the Triple Heavy (Family Reunion in New Orleans, custom Red Dawn in Denver, the Triple Light in San Francisco), but they were more for the experience. They provided nice milestone breaks from the training, and it allowed me to connect with some of my team members who were also doing the Triple Heavy.

Last-minute concern

My training was going fine and I was getting close to starting my two-week taper before HHH002 when a major issue came up. As I was starting a run, a shooting pain went up my leg that stopped me on my tracks when I took a hard step on my right foot. Even a simple jog caused pain, so I listened to my body and decided to start my taper early.

I was getting really worried about the foot injury (which only flared up when I ran, not when I rucked) until I read Stony Smith’s GORUCK Selection AAR (Selection, by the way, is GORUCK’s 48-hour endurance event, and is nothing like its other team endurance events). Stony talked about a back injury he sustained during his Selection training. It eventually got better, but it wasn’t at 100% prior to Selection. Nonetheless, Stony said “Doesn’t matter” and went through his event anyway. It was that attitude that inspired me to take a similar tact with my injury. It didn’t matter that I had this minor set-back prior to the Triple Heavy. I was going to finish it anyway.

Looking back, I suspect what happened was that I didn’t stretch enough. The issue with my foot probably stemmed from my tightness on my lower back, hamstrings, IT band, and calves. All those muscles are interconnected, and not promoting enough flexibility to those groups would eventually catch up to me.

Supply Drops

About a few months before the Triple Heavy started, Cadre Flash gave the Triple Heavy participants a mission, create six supply drops that each weigh fifty pounds and contain only food and water. We were warned that we would be away from civilization for the majority of the event, which meant no access to convenience stores to resupply our food or water. The drops would be our source of calories and water for the 72-hour event, and organizing them served as an early team-building exercise before the event even started. We were allotted two drops per Heavy, but they had to be earned and there was no guarantee which drop we received.

Here’s what I packed for each supply drop:

Condition One bars – Chocolate coconut flavor

Pemmican or Pro Bar

Tailwind Electrolyte powder in vacuum sealed bags

Homemade burrito in vacuum sealed bag

Peanut-butter and jelly sandwich in vacuum sealed bag

What worked: We didn’t overpack and went beyond the 50 pound limit for each supply drop. We’d figured there will be more food for the remaining participants as people drop from the event. Consuming real food (as opposed to goos and gels) is important during a GORUCK Heavy, so I used a vacuum sealer to keep my peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches and burritos fresh during the event.

What didn’t work: I set up nearly six identical bags for each supply drop so that it wouldn’t matter which supply drop was retrieved, but I didn’t account for getting tired of eating the same thing. I enjoyed consuming the Condition One bars up until the third Heavy, where I ate so many of them that even the thought of eating another one was rough. I also couldn’t stand eating my homemade burrito by the third Heavy (although being in a sealed bag for nearly three days probably didn’t help). If I had to do this over, I would have varied the contents of each supply drop bag, and packed the homemade burritos for just the early supply drops (although there was no guarantee that we could have requested a specific supply drop ).

Gear

Here’s what I packed for the Triple Heavy:

Worn during event

GR1 (26L) with grommets, hip belt, and bottom handle

30# steel plate with cut-up pool noodles for padding

Brooks Beast ’14 sneakers with orange Superfeet soles

Triple Aught Design Recon AC pants

GORUCK Tac Hat

Mechanix Gloves

Injiji toe socks & Darn Tough merino wool socks

2XU Compression shorts

The two layers of socks (Injiji toe socks as the base layer) with lubrication (either Trail Toes or silicon gel) on my feet has been my tried-and-true method to prevent foot blisters since I started doing GORUCK events in 2013. It was effective for the first Triple Heavy, so I had no reason to change it for the second. I chose sneakers over boots because I’ve always had issues with boots not properly fitting my 11.5 4E size feet. I trained with sneakers in the months leading up to HHH002, so it made sense to use them for the event.

In ruck

Two more sets of the aforementioned socks

Columbia windbreaker shell

Nylon runners

Water-proof silicon gel (for feet lubrication that won’t wash away in the water)

20L dry bag

Tailwind Electrolyte powder in two small sealed bags

Succeed S-Caps Electrolyte pills

Condition One bars

I knew that it was going to be hot in San Diego, so my hydration strategy was to alternate between the electrolyte powder and the pills. The pills would serve as a backup plan if I couldn’t get access to more electrolyte powder from the supply drops.

The only change I would have made was to use a dry bag with an air valve. The valve squeezes out any excess air trapped in the bag, which saves space in the ruck . My HHH teammate, Patricia Alcivar, used one for this event and made me wish I had one as well.

The Ruck-off

We all decided to meet at a brewhouse for a “final supper” the night before HHH002. At the parking lot, we prepared and weighed our supply drops. Then it was time to eat!

It was nice to catch up with old friends and meet new people. We also talked with the support crew who would be supporting us during the three-day event.

I made the mistake of having a big meal after eating a Chipotle burrito a few hours prior, and paid for it by having a little trouble sleeping the night before. I thankfully still got about six or seven hours of sleep, but it taught me that I shouldn’t try to consume all the calories, even if I had a 72-hour endurance event the next day.

In the following morning, a bunch of us ate at the hotel restaurant for breakfast before taking our taxis to the start point, which was at a mall parking lot. The moment we have been waiting and training for was finally upon us. There was a nervous energy building among the participants as the start time got closer. We all had our reasons for attempting the Triple Heavy, and it was about to put our convictions through the ultimate test.

Finishing the impossible was going to start.

Next: The first Heavy of HHH002