I was exhausted by the end of yesterday so I was really happy to have slept for nearly 8 hours last night.

I spent the morning stretching and using my foam roller to get my body loosened up before driving down to Santa Cruz for my GORUCK Light event.

It was a beautiful day along the water. It was my first time in Santa Cruz and it was cool because there was a surf competition going on.

After going through administrative tasks, our Cadre introduced himself. He is an active duty Army Ranger with a specialty in diving and boat assaults. He has served in Afghanistan, Iraq and several other theaters over his time in special forces. 

It was pretty awesome to meet him and get a chance to talk to him throughout the day.

Several of the exercises that he put us through were a result of his water training.

We started our ruck by making our way over to a beach for our “Welcome Party” which is an affectionate way of referring to the need to embrace the suck.

We did burpees, bear crawls, push-ups and flutter kicks in the sand all with our rucksacks on. We then went into the ocean arm-in-arm with each other where we did burpees, push-ups and flutter kicks as waves crashed in on us.

The ocean is quite cold in mid-November especially as you get hit with wave after wave while exercising.

Though it sounds crazy and I was cold at the time, it was a lot of fun.

We rucked to a couple of other locations before stopping at a high school track to conduct 5 rounds of shuttle runs. Luckily, we were able to drop our rucksacks for the shuttle runs. 

After finishing the runs, I was left almost wishing we could get wet again because I was drenched in sweat.

We rucked to another few locations before heading down to the beach again. This time our Cadre had us conduct an exercise that the Army Rangers execute when assaulting from a beach.

We had to dig a hole in the beach to place our team weights and several rucksacks, cover and pack down the hole so that it looked untouched. 

We then started the long ruck back to our starting location while having to carry two “casualties” which are individuals who our Cadre decided were “dead” and therefore had to be carried at all times.

We finished back where we started with our Cadre shaking our hand with the special Veteran’s Day patch that we had earned.

All in all it was a 10+ mile ruck, not including the shuttle runs. 

I’m sure that my ankles, hips, shoulders and back will be sore tomorrow based on how I feel typing this.

It was a lot of fun and something that I will absolutely do again.

Tonight we had pizza, beer and snacks while watching a movie followed by the Warriors game and checking in on UFC 193 - a great way to relax after a long day of rucking.