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| Philadelphia Museum of Art |
I had no plans for future GORUCK challenge events after my last one in the Summer of 2018 at the GORUCK Heavy in Columbus, OH. Since then, it's just been recreational rucking and a few 50 mile Star Courses. The Tun Tavern Tough, though, caught my attention several months ago when I saw the when/where/who of this event.
- When? Veterans Day weekend AND the Marine Corps Birthday.
- Where? Philadelphia, PA. The birthplace of the Marine Corps and location of Tun Tavern.
- Who? Cadre Cleve was set to lead it. He and Cadre Mocha Mike led my last Heavy event and I have mad respect for him and how he leads an event. Classy dude who doesn't even need to raise his voice yet brings the pain all the same. I can definitely respect that. Humility and hard work are sure to follow his lead.
As a 22+ year veteran and still going, I was really looking forward to this and all the "Hoorah" a sailor can handle over 12+ hours. I expected an all-Marine led event and that's what we got. North of 150 signed up for the event and 110 showed up at the Rocky Steps in Philadelphia. In terms of class size, that's a BIG class and hence why GORUCK sent four cadre.
I left Saturday morning for my 6hr drive to Philly, I found a parking garage about a mile from the start, and grabbed some dinner and a brew a few hours before the 9pm start. The start was lively by 8:30pm with GRTs everywhere (a term for anyone who has completed a GORUCK event).
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| Admin Phase |
What I brought and wore:
GEAR
- OG Rucker
- 30lb GORUCK plate
- 3L Source water bladder
- Nalgene bottle full of water
- One pack of beef jerky in ziplock bag
- 2 GUs
- 1 Rx Bar
- Headlamp
- Dry socks and gloves in dry bag
- $20 cash, ID, debit card
CLOTHING & LUBE
As 9pm arrived, we formed up on the steps and quickly the admin phase began as we came off the steps into 3 ranks. Required items (ID, cash, weight, water) verified via open rucks and the standard roll call to see who actually showed up to the Steps on this cold, 33F evening. In the distance, a clock ticked away on a building for all to see. Watches/phones/Fitbits/etc. aren't permitted during events but this building gave us some sense of the time. Nearly an hour later around 10pm, the Welcome Party began. Common sense dictated that if the event was starting at the infamous Rocky Steps, those steps would become intimately familiar for all of the GRTs who showed up. The very first thing we did was reverse bear crawls up the steps. Bear Crawls are one thing and can quickly torch your shoulders with a ruck on...or not. Trying to go UP stairs BACKWARDS makes it all the more spicy...and quite difficult, actually. Whether it's doable or not, it's just an awkward movement to do. Add in the cadre yelling at everyone, it just adds to the mass chaos that quickly ensued. Thus began about 3 hours of our Welcome Party.
We'd be at the Steps until nearly 1am. In that time, one GRT's phone recorded 2 MILES up and down those steps. 2 miles!!! That's crazy! Plus, we made several sprints up and down those steps while our rucks were in a tangled mess at the bottom so that distance isn't accounted for. Speaking of that mess: After rucking up and down those steps and doing varying physical movements at the top and bottom like lunges, thrusters, flutter kicks, 8 count body builders, etc., the cadre told everyone to pull out their carabiners and link the rucks via the molle on the sides of the rucks. I, and I'm sure others, assumed we'd be doing some movements together, side-by-side, via this link up. We were wrong! Once we had them linked up, we were sent back up the steps and given a chance to sit down in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and listen from one of the cadre talk about the reason for the event, the camaraderie amongst Marines and to stop the whining and learn to work together as a team and accomplish the mission. After our talk, we were sent back down to the foot of the Steps where we found our rucks...in a pile.
The cadre took those linked up rucks and essentially made a spaghetti pie out of them all and we were given SECONDS to unhook and put on. Of course, that didn't happen. So began our sprinting up and down the Steps until those rucks got unhooked. Many, MANY trips made! After, we lined up for more sprinting up the steps, 3 GRTs at a time while the next GRT weighted with ruck pushups. After at least half of the class made it through this line, Cadre Cleve grew tired of the amount of time this was taking and sent the remaining GRTs sprinting up and back with one caveat: the final 4 would be linked together in sets of 2 GRTs for the remainder of the event. Slow? You'd be connected to another GRT to get real friendly for many hours to come! I ran fast so no link up for me.
Time to head out around 1am. This would be the last time in sight of a clock until we returned to the Rocky Steps. Due to the class size, we split in two and the cadre split themselves as well. At the foot of the steps were only a few sandbags brought by GRTs as well as 4 "logs" disguised as Crayons. Red, blue, yellow, and the beast....the green one. A local GRT made these as a play on the endless memes created about Marines and their love of Crayons. We first crossed the street to a parking lot where a truck held a LOT of empty GORUCK sandbags and filler bags. Here comes Classic Cleve, that being lots of weight to move. We quickly moved towards the water across the street where we found a sandy trail and told to quickly fill the filler bags with gravel or sand. There weren't any piles around so we ended up on our hands and knees scraping as much as we could to fill the filler bags. We couldn't skimp, either, as every filler bag was checked for fullness before being loaded into the sandbags. Hard, firm fillers quickly became matched up with other fillers in sandbags and created weights that ranged from 80lb to 140lb. HEAVY. There were plenty to go around, too, combined with those Crayons.
Now began time just rucking through the night along the bike-n-hike trail that bordered the Schuylkill River. In two columns, we kept the weight up front and moved with a purpose. As GRTs got tired under the weight, they'd call for relief and switch out the weight. That was challenging most often as moving sandbags north of 100lbs from one set of shoulders to another is not easy...especially given the height differences. Our team leader and assistant team leader did a great job orchestrating it all and keeping us moving. It was about 2.7 miles from the Rocky Steps to where an innocent dock appeared at the waters' edge. The cadre has us hold up while they investigated and the next thing we heard was "ground the weight!" We were getting wet. We headed on down to the dock and it wasn't your traditional dock where the surface is a few feet above the water. Instead, it was level with the water and was dipping in a little more as all 50 of us, with rucks, came aboard. The order then came to ground our rucks behind us and get our butts on the deck with our feet hovering out OVER the water. Yep...flutter kicks were coming! As we all took a seat near the edge, the dock only dipped more into the freezing water and hence, started getting everyone's backsides wet. As we held our legs out there, many just wouldn't scoot to the edge so the suck just got worse as the flutter kicks didn't begin. Eventually, we began counting out 244 flutter kicks (Marine's 244th birthday) but we were failing as a team so on to singing it was...the Marine Corps hymn that we were supposed to memorize for the event. By this point, I just laid back flat and embraced the cold water on my backside. It was far better than getting in head-to-toe, right?! We wrapped up the hymn and up we went, grabbed our rucks, and back to the weights. Time to move on. Butt, legs, shoes, and back wet...but that was not too bad. We got the sandbags and Crayons up and got moving.
It wasn't even a few hundred yards later and we were held up again. The cadre were walking back down towards the water's edge. It looked like a boat ramp they were looking at. Turns out, our new team leader made a comment back at the dock that he'd rather just get in the water completely vs. just hang over the edge of the dock. Cadre Cleve heard him say that. Thanks, buddy. We were told to ground the weight again. We were going in...one at a time, totally underwater. We were given the option to strip down as far as we wanted and most went down to their underwear. I opted to strip off everything up top but leave my pants and shoes on. Prana pants dry super fast and my feet were doing awesome so I didn't want to disturb them by removing my socks. Wet feet, even though I hate the cold, aren't really an issue. I made my way on down and was passed by shivering and frozen GRTs coming up out of the water. I just got down there about knee deep and dropped down face first in the water, burpee style, then ran my tail off up out of the water hoping to leave as much water as I could behind. We all got dressed and before you knew it, we heard a countdown for getting that weight back up on our backs and begin moving again. There was a time not too far after this where we were given a few minutes to go to the bathroom and take a brief rest. Coming off of that break yielded a sluggish start so after getting the sandbags up, they were coming down again and we were doing PT along the highway. We kept doing that until we could get ALL of the weight up and moving before time was up. If that did anything, it helped warm people up. I, for one, appreciated that. An increasing body temperature would only dry my feet and clothes via the technical gear I had on.
At this point, the sun was beginning to crack the horizon and First Light wasn't too far off and we were heading towards the Rocky Steps to meet up with the other half of the class who was already there. As we got close, we could see the clock again: 6am. So, it's been 9 hours since the start and 3-ish hours to go. Often, Tough events are around 12 hours long but that's nothing more than a guide. It could go short but often goes long. Once back, we grounded our rucks and were sent off on a short walk to fill up our water bladders as many were black (empty). Once back, we formed up as one class and all of the GRTs who served as Marines and/or currently serving were called up front to introduce themselves and tell everyone their job as a Marine and where. One note: ALL of the sandbags disappeared while we were gone filling up our bladders. The only things remaining were the Crayons and the logs that the other team was carrying around all night. Now...time to head to the original location of Tun Tavern where the Marine Corps was founded in 1775...as one huge class. From my estimates today while writing this AAR, it was about 3 1/2 miles. Only 3 1/2 miles?? But wait...
The disappearing of the sandbags was an indicator. Things never get easier during an event, so common sense dictated that soon we'd have something to replace sandbags. Or, we had time to make up and the sandbags would slow us down too much. We headed on out towards Tun Tavern and eventually through the historic district. Places like Independence Hall were along our route where the Declaration of Independence was signed. As we made our way, we had a rule given to us during the admin phase about crossing the street. Essentially, there would be punishment if we didn't get the entire class through an intersection before the walk signal said STOP. Well, with 100+ GRTs, it happened and more than once. With that came "casualties." AKA: GRTs "killed" or "wounded" and now had to be carried. For one person, it takes 3 GRTs. Plus, someone needs to carry their ruck as well. I believe we had 4 or 5 casualties and one was put in a litter that took 6 GRTs to carry. This stretch could've been worse. The casualties could've kept on being added like they were when I went to the Detroit Tough in the Summer of 2018. Now that was bad.
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| Heading out towards Tun Tavern |
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| That's me in the blue rucking in front of Independence Hall |
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| One of our casualties...and ironically, the team lead who wanted to get in the water! |
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| Not many photos of me under weight but I assure you, I carried a LOT of those sandbags overnight. This was me in the early steps towards Tun Tavern. |
Eventually, we arrived at the original sight of Tun Tavern which is located on the east side of Philly along the Delaware River. Looking over the Delaware was New Jersey. As we arrived, we grounded the logs and gathered around for one of the cadre to speak to us.
He went on to tell us a tradition that is always carried out at Marine Corps Balls. They take a sword and cut the cake and with a piece of cake, call up the youngest and oldest Marine present. The tradition says that the oldest takes a bite and then hands it to the youngest, like passing the torch from the older generation to the younger. Generations apart...both Marines. Since no cake was present, they picked up a donut from Dunkin' and used that. The oldest Marine present was someone not even involved with our event but rather just visiting Tun Tavern. The cadre called him forward and one of the GRTs was the youngest. They cut the "cake" and carried out the tradition. Pretty cool moment! Right after this, another cadre took over and quickly let us know that the Marines believe in tradition and one of those is hazing. So....it was time to Endex and earn our patches. He referred back to those missing sandbags. They were in the truck bed of a truck parked on the street just around the corner. He sent us all out there to get them and bring them on in and then formed us all up in two long ranks of GRTs.
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| That's me on my back in the middle leading flutter kicks. |
Given the 244 years of the Marines, the cadre came up with 4 exercises we would have to do...together as a team. 61 reps of each that would then equal 244. Given how stretched out we were and how we needed to stay together as a class, I volunteered to lead the movements from my far end. We needed to do this right and do it right the FIRST time. The movements were:
- Ruck Thrusters
- 4 Count Flutter Kicks (ruck locked out overhead)
- 4 Count Ruck Lunges (rucks on front)
- Overhead presses (with logs and sandbags)
After, we're done! Right?! Not exactly. We gathered around again and together, sung the Marine Corps Hymn. This time, some of my fellow GRTs had the words printed out so it was far better than along the river overnight. Still grossly out of tune but still awesome. After we finished, we lined up as two ranks again facing each other and out came the patches. Each of the cadre took a quarter of the GRTs and shook their hand, patch in hand, and gave a big 'ol bro hug. After, the rest of the cadre made their rounds doing the same. Once done...just one more ritual...our class photo. It was quite the squeeze but we got it done in one take. 105 of 110 GRTs completed the inaugural Tun Tavern Tough and in 13 hours flat.
To date, I have done two Heavy events (my first event was the June 2016 Heavy in Detroit), 3 Toughs, 2 Lights, 2 Scavengers, and 2 50-Mile Star Courses. I'm not the GRT that seeks out event after event after event like I did in my running days when I had multiple marathons and ultra-marathons on my calendar. I'm way more selective. When I show up to one of these events, I REALLY want to become a ghost in terms of a name or anything. I just want to be part of the TEAM. I want to pull my fair share of the weight, plus some. I want to lead by my actions. I don't want my service on display or even pointed out. I want to just blend in and help the TEAM accomplish the mission. This event really drew out our best GRTs. There weren't a bunch of complainers all night and people avoiding the weight. This class REALLY came together from the outset and worked hard. Sure, we needed pushed and told to shut up quite a bit in the beginning but we operated well, in my opinion. That made it very worthwhile for me and enriching. Further, I loved witnessing the camaraderie of the 4 Marine cadre who led the event. Joking with each other, reminiscing about old times...and never demeaning towards the class. Yes, they held us to the standard, pushed us, and got us comfortable being uncomfortable...but they did it right. Classy. Professional. Human. Combine that with participating in some of the Marine Corps birthday celebrations was just icing on the cake....er...donut. I loved it. I really, truly did. After Endex, I made my 1.3 mile trek back to my car and stopped for a few photos along the way before heading back west to Ohio. After all, I had to get home for Veterans Day on Monday.
Thanks, GORUCK, and to Cadres Cleve, Matty, Dustin and Andy. Happy Birthday and Semper Fi!
Thanks for reading!
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| My one money shot! Ha! |
On my way back to the car...
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| Independence Hall |
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| Philadelphia City Hall |
