Before the event even started, I accepted a challenge that for a Jew such as myself was quite unusual.  Collecting Eggs in the theme of Easter, a holiday I never have nor intend to ever celebrate.  But I took the challenge in stride and while hopping like a rabbit, I attempted to do the task given.  Since I was working with a team of 14 others that I assume had a bit more experience than I, they found the eggs long before I did.

 

Once again before the actual event started, we opened said eggs to learn of our fortunes (and misfortunes) and after being educated on the right method of bunny hopping via push-ups, we opened our eggs and got a bit tired from the worse surprises hidden within.

 

Had I not done the T2 prior to this event, I would have wrongfully assumed that when the event listed 4 laps for the workout, that this would be the right number to assume.  Since I had done this other workout, I was already aware of lap 0 and prepared to get wet in the pool.

 

After treading water without arms, and drown proofing myself, I did other exercises that managed to tire me slightly, but this was only the start as lap 0 was just the warm-up.  Lap 1 began by us returning to the pool in a !psych! moment.

 

Once we began lap 1 proper, I steeled myself for the intense workouts that followed.  I admit, some of them such as bear crawl soccer were more fun than painful, but I really have found that I hate low army crawls with every ounce of my being.  Especially when I am weighed down by a 35 pound backpack.  Since the day was long, I cannot quite recall the entire first lap, but don’t worry, there were plenty more.

 

Lap 2 was the one I felt most ready for, although I was told later that this tends to be the heart breaker one.  This one seemed simple enough: Run 6 miles without a ruck.  This seemed like a fantastic thing to me.  Despite the heat since it was now around noon, I was more than ready to run 6 miles.  Sadly, there was more to this workout as the entire team’s average time would affect our fate, and in the end, our amount of time that was too high resulted in learning in the form of 92 burpees.  For those who do not know, a burpee is a push-up plus a jumping-jack.  After that and an individual based card game of fun (and pain) we finished lap 2.  I was feeling good after Lap 2, but the fun was about to end.

 

Lap 3 was next and since I had done T2, I had a good feeling that this was the team building lap.  And I assumed correct.  Before the lap even started, I learned that I had a fantastic and helpful team when I stupidly locked my keys in my car and no less than 4 out of the entire team offered to help me after the event.

 

But back to T3 Lap 3, this was where the pain really began.  We started by linking arms and doing flutter kicks and since our abs were already in immense pain at this point this was no easy feat.  It became worse when we accidentally lost our locked arms by accident and had to do the flutter kicks again.

 

But lap 3 had only begun and it at least seemed like it was the longest lap.  Next we walked in a long line.  The three in the front held logs linked by a chain.  And the three in the front changed throughout the walk.  Eventually we were wandering in the woods and after doing centipede push ups with luckily no ruck, we got even more lost and confused in the woods.  Those of you who know me, realize that I speak a lot.  Beginning at this point, the talking decreased dramatically as my spirit began to break.

 

Finally with a little break at the park and a random adorable dog that came to play with us, we got a little breather, and then some pull-ups, before we sadly lost one of the 15 that began the day with the team.  We were saddened by their departure but I know that they will try this race again and next time they will succeed.  Lap 3 was not over for the rest of us though, and we grabbed the logs and each other’s packs and wandered back into the woods to get lost again.

 

Along the way, we were told to make an igloo out of blocks that were conveniently nearby.  After effort to stack them and watching out for deadly insects including a giant banana spider which we had killed prior, we created the pyramid shaped object- only to take it down and put the pieces back.

 

Still we wandered lost in the woods, and finally panic struck as us one of our members suffered hysteria and shortness of breath.  As a team we helped calm them down and in helping this individual, we all helped ourselves as well.  I began to feel hunger in my thoughts, and silently prayed the lap would end soon.  But I continued to remain silent as I tried to ignore my arms screaming in agony each time I held a log, for I knew any complaint would make my situation worse.  Finally after what seemed an eternity, we made it back to where we started, one final card game and Lap 3 ended.

 

But we were not done as we moved on to Lap 4.  While the laps before this challenged our physical strength and morale, this lap challenged our minds.  We wandered around in a circle to pre-placed stakes in the ground.  Each time we got to one, we were asked trivia questions.  If we got one right, the stake was removed.  It took us many laps to get rid of the stakes and we had to also do punishment workouts like holding push-up position for 2 minutes at a time and whistle drills in a grassy field.  At some point during the day, I had accumulated multiple fire ant stings and unfortunately this attracted the attention of more of the insects.  

 

Finally as it began to get dark, we moved on to the second half of Lap 4 and failed miserably at memorizing 8 digit numbers given to us.  This culminated in the group having to do 55 more burpees.  I personally got to do even more as I had incurred negative points from the card game and didn’t want to find out what would happen if I ended with negative and added an extra 8 more to my workout making a grand total of 63.  

 

Last we were tested on world Geography and failed even more miserably.  Thus while Lap 4 had come to an end, our pain had only just begun.  We did a new Lap 0 at this point which included bear crawls, army low crawls, rolling sideways on the ground, and duck walks.  We even had to quack the whole time.  This was in the dark and we all had headlamps on our foreheads.  After this, we had even more to do

 

Each of us were given a quote from Sun Tzu and told to memorize it as we ran the loop we had become very accustomed to throughout the day. After 4 laps and 23 more burpees, we managed to complete this goal.  In my mind, I was hoping this was the end as I felt like I could not go much further, but I was wrong.  One last challenge remained.

 

For this final challenge, the entire 14 member team linked arms again and did lunges from where we currently stood, all the way back to where we began the entire event.  All in step, we called out the lunges as one team hell bent on becoming Elites all together.  Finally as we turned around to face our Cadre, he asked us one by one why we wanted to be Elites.  One by one we answered.  After pausing and watching us closely to ensure that no one broke the chain, he told us to let go.  We were now elites.  We had completed the entire T3!

 

As I write this blog post, my hands are sore, every muscle in my body aches, but every moment of it is another moment that I will never regret for the rest of my life.  It took the Jews 40 years of being lost to gain any enlightenment and better themselves, and in 14 hours I accomplished a very similar feat.

 

Yesterday I made a man out of myself as I made my Exodus from my figurative Egypt and found my Promised Land.  Like the Jews before me, finding the Land is only a new beginning as is earning the elite patch, a new start for me in inspiring good in the world and becoming an ever better and healthier man.

If you want to know more about this race or see live updates from the event, you can find them here: http://www.regimentrunning.com/