AGOGE

Pushing limits - Physical and Mental

GORUCK Challenge loadout

The inspiration for this blog stems partly from the past two months of training I’ve endured for the Goruck Challenge, an overnight (to put it mildly) endurance event designed to break participants both physically and psychologically.

I’ll go into my reasons for signing up in a future post - with the Challenge roughly four days away, it’s occupying most of my waking thoughts to some degree.  I’ll also be posting a description of some of the workouts I’ve done to get fit for the Challenge.

In this post I’m going to brief my loadout for the event.  In my prep for the race I found it difficult to get a straight answer on what past challenge-takers used for winter events.  Hopefully this will come in handy for those who sign up for future cold weather Challenges.

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(Note: I’m not sponsored by any of the following companies, and even if I were I’d tell you if their gear was shitty. I’m a college student and this is the gear I’ve collected over the years. After the Challenge I plan to write a review of the loadout, evaluating how it held up.)

The Goruck Challenge packing list is as follows:

  • A ruck or backpack – more info can be found on the Rucks tab
  • Bricks: Four if you’re under 150 pounds, six if you’re over. Life isn’t fair. Wrap your bricks in something, a t-shirt or whatever, and then cover your future souvenirs with bubble wrap and duct tape
  • Water, lickies and chewies. For water, a hydration bladder is preferred. Except in winter, when they like to freeze up
  • Headlamp – mandatory for all night classes
  • Gloves, a windbreaker (required when temperatures are below 50), and everything else you think you need.

The current weather.com forecast for the event predicts that I’ll be running the event in temperatures between 28° and 40° F with virtually no chance of rain, so going in I know I’ll be cold for most of the night.  Every GRC I’ve heard of involves some exercises in the water, so I know I’ll get wet, but at least there won’t be driving rain in my eyes.

My loadout currently consists of:

  • Ruck - GORUCK GR1 to be picked up at the rally point the night of the Challenge.
  • Four bricks, wrapped in (a) an old towel, (b) duct tape, (c) trash bag for waterproofing, (d) more duct tape.
  • Headlamp - Princeton Tec Remix 2 w/green LED. Lightweight, easier to use than others I’ve tried, but a headlamp is more or less a headlamp. It still looks funny over a ball cap.
  • Gloves - UnderArmor Coldgear running gloves. These are thick, seem very warm, and fit snugly.
  • Base layer - UnderArmor Heatgear compression t-shirt.
  • Midlayer - UnderArmor Coldgear fitted longsleeve crewneck.
  • Bottoms - UnderArmor Coldgear running tights.
  • Windbreaker - North Face shell. A bit heavier than what I’d like, but it’ll do the job.
  • Saucony Kinvara running shoes. I initially planned to use Solomon trail runners, but they don’t feel quite right on my feet at any pace faster than a light jog. The Saucony’s are incredibly light, provide good support, and feel better at faster paces. I also use Superfeet insoles to provide better arch support.
  • SmartWool PhD socks. The best available, period. If you don’t own them, buy at least four pairs immediately if you plan to do anything more athletic than spending 20 minutes on the elliptical twice a week.
  • GR TAC hat.
  • UnderArmor fleece beanie.
  • 1.5 liter bottle of water. I might need more, but I want to keep my pack weight as light as possible.
  • Food: I’m planning to pack about 1500 calories worth of sports bars so that I can keep my energy up. Most of these will be Clif Builder’s Bars; they’re high in protein, taste good and offer a great weight to benefit ratio. I’m also planning to bring some GU gel shots, which I’ve used on RAGNAR Relays in the past and found especially useful thanks to their caffeine kick. Of course, I’ll also have the requisite peanut m&ms.

I weighed this full loadout at the gym today, and it came to 31.1 lbs in my old Oakley backpack (which was soaked thanks to heavy rain on the walk over). Assuming the GR1 is roughly the same weight as the Oakley pack, and adding in my share of our team weight, I estimate my total pack weight will be about 35 lbs soaking wet.

As I’ve already said, after the Challenge I’ll be writing a full review of all of my gear, including my new GR1 and especially focusing on (a) the effect of the weather on my gear and how I’d prepare better in the future and (b) how my footwear held up on the run.