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GORUCK Light Class 082

Posted on September 5, 2013 by Ambassador Jessica

Light does note equal easy, but it does equal fun! In August, I did my first GORUCK Light. They say it will last 4 to 5 hours and cover about 7 to 10 miles. Similar rules to the GORUCK Challenge, except team weight is only 15 pounds and you need 2 bricks for under 150 pounds, 4 bricks for over 150 pounds. I went with 4 bricks on the Light, but mostly because I have stack of bricks already wrapped. 9595807960_7478a92ffa_b

I signed up for the Dayton, OH Light about a month and a half ahead of time and asked if any of my GRT (GORUCK Tough) friends wanted to join. Within a few hours of me putting out the call, we had a pretty good size group going. We ended up with 22 in our Light Class including a few Selection finishers and a lot of GRTs. We had a good number of new people as well so it was a well-rounded group. Our Cadre for the event was Lou and Silver Dollar (yes, his real name). This event happened around Bellbrook, Ohio which is a beautiful small town outside of Dayton. The Little Miami River runs through it and tons of farmland surrounds it.

9591865139_966fefce85_bThis event was awesome. We started off by moving with a large pelican case full of “nuclear rods” aka beer in ice. We kept our pelican case throughout the event. We moved throughout the farm lands to our first destination a soccer field near town. My husband Daniel and I were chosen as the first team leaders (mostly because Lou knew our name I think…) and we moved the team out. We ended up crossing the river and singing songs to amuse Lou and Silver. If we told a good joke or sang well as a group, we could get out of PT. We were terrible singers and didn’t know any good jokes for the first half of the event…that was according to the cadre. After crossing a river, lunging around a park, and carrying a log for a bit, we end up at the soccer fields.

At the soccer fields, we entered Lou’s circle of trust. More jokes, more laughs, and more PT. We did pushups, low crawls, and kept laughing. More jokes and funny things said between the team. Our next movement had us going into Bellbrook to find the Muffin Man. The Muffin Man works at a delicious place called the Blueberry Café in downtown Bellbrook. We sang him a song to get our next mission parameters and muffins. Cadre let us know we had to go to a drive through to get beer as a goodwill gift for our next mission (aka after party). For those of you not from the Midwest, we have drive-throughs where you can buy beer and alcohol. As we were determining exactly what we needed, Cadre 9592919269_a9ed75890a_binformed us that the Muffin Man loved our song so much he had a tray of muffins waiting for us. I’m not exactly sure what they were, but they were the best tasting muffins I’ve ever had.

So we left the Muffin Man and his delicious food to move onto the next point in our day. We were headed back to the start point carrying an even fuller pelican case of “nuclear rods” aka beer in ice, our rucks (no straps), and even gained Silver Dollar’s ruck. More laughs, some quick movements, and we were at the end. The two gentlemen who finished Selection decided to become causalities near the end so we started carrying people to the end point. I ended up carrying one of my GORUCK idols to the finish point.

9595818886_8da0b63515_bI loved the Light. It was a fun workout with friends for me. We ended up doing a little over 7 miles in about 6 hours. Most of the event was spent laughing and joking around with friends. This was special Light that was being done while the Dayton Selection was supposed to happening (Dayton Selection had no finishers) so there was a huge after party. The after party was mostly Cadre Lou kicking our butt at cornhole (another Midwest thing) and a pig roast. So they say that Lights aren’t easy and they are fun. I’d have to agree with that assessmentfinish