This was a rough morning at Gideon. What was looking to be the perfect storm was forming. The time had just lept forward an hour, it was 28 degrees and we were all still hurting from Chong Li’s Whiplash (10 miler at Occoneechee for Slate). High attendance was not in the cards, but 4 Pax laughed at the storm and made it out to Gideon. Slate and YHC started at 0500 with a 2 mile ruck to get the legs moving. We arrived back at the parking lot in time to pickup Les Nessman and Leandreu. YHC had brought a gem from Quickhatch, our very own Trident. The trident is a replica of the one we had to carry memorial day weekend last year for the DC GRC.
The Thang
Warmup
- Squats x10
- Merkins x20
- Fazios x10
- Clappers x10
- Reverse Fazios x10
- Good Mornings x10
First Movement
Three guys grab the trident and hold it over their heads. Fourth man is relief. We did an OK job of swapping but the Trident was weighing us down pretty good as we made our way to the upper parking lot. We ditched the Trident at the top of the hill.
First activity
Today’s theme was efficiency. One complaint YHC had about our training session on Saturday is swaps were taking too long. We need to be able to swap out casualties quickly. So we practiced some fireman carry relays. First man fireman carries the casualty 20 yards and does a back to back swap with the next carrier, thus never putting the casualy down. Second carrier transitions to the third and then we transition all the way back down the line. Repeato until every except YHC was a casualty (YHC promissed noone would have to carry him today). Mr Slate opted to SOLO fireman carry YHC around the loop anyway.
After the fireman carries we went through a couple other variations including the three man carry we employed on Saturday, two man bench carries, and upside down partner carries. Les had a better name for that one but YHC doesn’t remember what it was.
Second Activity
Enough with the partner carries. We double timed to the other side of the parking lot for some bear crawl relays. Space out 20 yards apart, first pax bear crawls as fast as the can until he tags the pax in front of him. Second pax continues the speed crawl while the first runs to the front of the line. We did two continuous laps around the circle for 200 yards total. Great work.. Bear crawls are not that bad when you know you only have to go all in for 20 yards.
Second Movement
It was time to make our way back to the lower parking lot. Pick up the Trident and resume the carry. This time we were much more efficient with our swaps. Instead of taking 15 or 20 seconds to shake your arms out we continuously rotated clockwise so we were constantly swapping positions. IMHO this went much smoother than before, we weren’t as tired and YHC felt like we could go miles like that. It helps to not wait until you are smoked to rotate. the catch is you have to be able to do it without sacrificing pace. We opted for the longer route back that took us over the damn and back down to the parking lot. Probably didn’t hurt that most of it was down hill.
Third Activity (MARY)
- Slow Squats x10
- Freddy Mercuries with ruck overhead x20
- Plank o rama with regular planks, right arm on neighbor’s shoulder and vice versa x5
- Flutter kicks on elbows x20
- Ruck Presses x20
- Ruck Presses with 6 inch leg hold x20 (YHC’s new favorite exercise)
COT
- Great work guys and Tclaps for waking up this morning
- 15-20 Miler this Friday 3.17 starting at HH Gregg at Southpoint (Kanye is Q)
- 3.31 Raleigh Custom Practice Ruck (Les is Q)
- Prayers for Fava Bean
- Les took us out
