20TH ANNIVERSARY 9/11 NYC HTB

Dates: September 10-12, 2021

Location: NYC

Weather: mid 60s overnight, high 70s daytime, sunny 

Cadre: Jason, Mocha, Cleve, Sanchez, JC, LDB, Norwich, Machin

Starting class sizes: 122, 213, 163

Professional photo credit goes to Tim Galloway of goodwerks, unless otherwise indicated.

Ever since doing Shanksville 9/11 Tough in 2019, I wanted to head to NYC for the 20th anniversary 9/11 HTL. Most GORUCK events are themed after very impactful military events, but as a civilian, 9/11 is an event theme that truly hits home. Fortunately, I had a couple people who were also interested in making the trip with me. 

Years passed, events happen, COVID happened. In that downtime of the world hibernating from the pandemic, Steel City Ruck Club went outside and worked. When rucking was the only thing to do, I could steadily see our club getting so much stronger. During this time, a huge group of dedicated ruckers also wanted to make 9/11 HTL (now HTB) a goal of theirs. 

"The Family", Eric Blasko and Randall Cunningham (the parents) and Cullen Maag and myself (the children), had already done 2 HTLs together and we made it our goal to focus on helping others get theirs. 

Training was hard, but fun. It has to be. If you can't find enjoyment in the misery, you'll never stick with this dumb hobby. We had events where we rucked 40 miles with PT, an event with 2500 reps of PT and miles with individual heavy sandbags, an event up and down a hill for 8 hours doing various movements, and many more. 

I could see everyone was ready physically. Mentally was a different story. For 10 people, it was completely unfamiliar territory. Confidence levels wavered, but that's the best part of a tight-knit ruck club; you can openly talk about things that concern you without feeling shame or being judged. 

The event was coming up fast. Mid-summer a bunch of us went to OC for the Shark Week Double Basic. It was the most fun I've ever had in my life. So many tears were shed just from extreme, steady laughter. It was amazing. 

I come home and 2 hours later I'm at Urgent Care with puncture wounds, lacerations, and what I suspected to be a torn tendon in my left middle finger after trying to separate my dogs from fighting over a piece of basil.....BASIL. Yes, I know...don't get in between dogs fighting. Great advice until you're alone and both huge dogs are being aggressors with blood splattered in 3 rooms of your house, but I digress. 

 

I suspected correctly, torn tendon. Surgery on August 10....exactly 1 month prior to the Heavy. Per GORUCK policy, this is when I'd have to make the decision to defer and get my money back or ride it out and see if I could participate with an immobilized hand. 

6 weeks before my first HTL, I had surgery on the same hand to repair a broken pinky finger. Bones heal a lot faster than tendons, however. I was cleared for full activity a couple days before the Heavy (although, I doubt my surgeon knew what full activity meant in my world). This time, full activity clearance is 5 months post-op. 

So many new members of our club did the Light that weekend in 2018 to offer support, including Eric Perry, who was doing his very first GORUCK event. He's usually our support person for miserable activities, but he was stepping out of his comfort zone to be there for us at the event. 

I went back and forth A LOT on if I should try to do the NYC HTB or not. I got input from a couple cadre and plenty of fellow GRTs. The overwhelming response was that if I wanted to be there, and if I could still contribute to the team, I should go and they will help me with whatever I needed. 

First, I had to make sure the incision was healed. I'll do a lot of stupid stuff, but risking an infection isn't one of them. Thanks to Medihoney patches, I got it closed up and looking good a couple days before we left. Then I had to build a more secure splint. I bought a SAM splint on Amazon and some athletic tape. I formed it to the palmar surface of my hand and wrapped it. I tested it with some PT. It was secure. I put some Tubigrip on my arm and Coban on my finger to keep swelling down. I felt like it would hold up. 

I did what I could in terms of training in that last month, but was careful to keep swelling down. Mentally, I still wasn't great. I had a huge fear that it came off as selfish for wanting to be there, but with some support, I got over that. 

I turned my focus back on the 10 members who were going for their 1st time bolts. That was my plan with this event from the beginning, so it was time to get out of my self-pity mindset. 

We had a good group chat going. Advice was shared, concerns brought up, contingency plan created in case shit went down. 

Due to being on short-term disability, I also was lucky enough to be able to binge watch a huge amount of 9/11 documentaries. My mindset was getting much better. 

The week leading up to the event, we got the bad news that due to family and work issues, Cullen and Eric had to defer the Tough and Basic so they could be home on Sunday. If you don't know Cullen, he is a Team Assessment finisher and he's passionate AF. He's like everybody's personal hype man. Not having him there was surely a blow to the team's morale. And if you don't know Eric, he is known for casually carrying trees, so, you know.....more 120s for the rest of us. 

We had other issues including Randall's truck needing repaired a day before we left, switching around our rides, and an illness (not COVID, settle down). In the end, we all met at 8am on 9/9/21, split into 4 vehicles and worked our way over to NYC. 

We got there a day early to settle in. Some of us went on a Notorious BIG tour in Brooklyn, with Cullen as our guide. Remember that passion I talked about? It was out in full-force. Cullen was in his element. We had a great time and it felt good to just have fun before the events of the weekend. 

The morning of the event, some of us went down to the memorial and museum. I'm so happy I fit this in, because we didn't get to see them during the GORUCK events. They were closed to families of victims and various memorial services. 

We headed back to the AirBNB, ordered a shit-ton of Chipotle, and got ready to go. Feet taped (right up there with OH squats for most challenging task of the weekend), gear checked, caffeine ingested. We headed down on the subway and arrived around 5pm. 

We turned the corner and there we saw it. Dozens of GRTs hanging out, greeting each other, stretching, laying down...you know, typical pre-event vibe. The hour went by quickly. Time to line up in platoons. 

I'm not going to give a huge summary of the exact details of the event. There were so many platoons and cadre that experiences probably differed so vastly. 

After admin, we were allowed to scatter into groups to be with the people we came with. SCRC was in Platoon 1 the entire weekend. It was kind of planned, kind of unintentional. We just told our folks to meet by Platoon 1 area because a lot of our people are at the beginning of the alphabet, so it seemed like the easiest place to meet. This meant we were stuck with Cadre JC all weekend 😉 

Our platoon was closest to the coupon van, so we had the task of unloading everything. Sandbags, ammo cans, barrels, custom team weights, water jugs, and flags. 

Photo courtesy of Carlos Orduz 

We joined in on the Welcome Party. One of the first tasks....wheelbarrows. Great. JC immediately caught my eye and told me to just jump in helping carry Eric Blasko's legs. I can do that. 

There were a couple other frustrating movements, like a forearm bear crawl and obviously OH lunges, but like every event, you just do what you can. It ends at some point. 

It did end. We formed back up to see our coupons for our platoon. 3 120s, 2 100s, 2 80s, Twin Tower team weight, spearhead team weight, 2 Jerry cans, water bladders, 4 ammo cans, and 4 flags. 31 people. 

We rucked across the Brooklyn Bridge to start things off. The tower lights were beaming in the sky. It was beautiful. 

The pace was fairly quick. We stopped for a photo-op and then hopped in the river for some PT. Fortunately, I only had a splint on, not a cast. The wound was healed, so I didn't have to worry about it getting wet. 

We got out, did some step-ups and then moved out. 

We had a time hack to our next destination, a naval ship, the Intrepid. This is where we would virtually meet up with other 9/11 classes throughout the country and do the 9/11 WOD. 

Photo Courtesy of James Stiffey 

9 rounds of 11 reps of 9 exercises. I was familiar with this one, as we did a variation at Team Assessment last year, which was the week after 9/11. Many of their events, including NYC were canceled due to COVID. 

A GRT got to lead each round. Captain Hook got to lead the last round....and we subbed OH lunges for the step-ups, yay! Jason was behind me, threatening an 80# sandbag if my form didn't improve. I just laughed internally at the thought of me attempting that. I was fairly certain my left thumb was going to fall off, but I made it through. The only exercise I truly couldn't do correctly at all were cleans, due to the rotational movement. I was happy when was over, and I'm positive my feelings were shared. 

Jason McCarthy took over our Platoon to relieve JC. He upped the stress-levels by adding a huge waterlogged log, but our platoon handled it like champs. The log was oddly shaped, so it took a bit of time to get a good rotation of people with appropriate heights to actually contribute effectively. 

With 4 people on the log, this left lots of heavy sandbags for everyone else. I have to say, this is the first event I've done with so many females getting under 120s, solo, paired....doesn't matter...we were all on them. No one was scared of them, and none of the men tried to "protect" us from them or ask us if we were sure we wanted to carry them. It was so refreshing, but I expected nothing less considering half the platoon was SCRC, and many of the others know and share our mindset when it comes to GRT gender equality (everyone carries everything). 

Throughout the Heavy, we visited some memorials, including Riverside Park Fireman's Memorial. We did a ruck-passing race up and down the stairs and then headed off again. I checked in with team members. Eric Perry wasn't doing well. I asked him what was wrong. He said physically he didn't even feel that bad, mentally, he was going to quit soon. The people close to him were on high alert, but a subtle alert. No need to overwhelm him. The sun should come out soon. We knew it was time to head towards Ground Zero. Fortunately before we got back into Manhattan, we got to dump the log. 

We arrived at Ground Zero a bit before the 20th anniversary of the first plane hitting the North Tower. We weren't allowed in by the actual memorials, so we stood outside the gates and listened for the bell. Moments of silence for each plane. 8:46 and 9:03. Looking up into the open air above us was sobering. Imagining what this exact spot looked like 20 years before made my stomach turn. I'm not an emotional person, never have been, but this event got me. 

We picked up and moved to Pumphouse Park, where we shared both our own personal stories and any stories we brought to share of the fallen or survivors. We had two more moments of silence for the Pentagon fallen at 9:37 and Flight 93 at 10:03. Mocha Mike got bagpipers to come and play the Marine Hymn and we shared an amazing 130 person group hug, ending on "LET'S ROLL!", which was shouted by a Flight 93 passenger before storming the cockpit. 

Time to head back out.....on the Staten Island Ferry! On our ruck there, Cadre Cleve tells Steph that she looks like a bag of smashed assholes. He then proceeds to walk face-first into a pole, and Steph says, "now you look like a smashed asshole". Quite the morale booster, thanks Cleve. 

I wasn't sure how close I would get to see the Statue of Liberty given our short amount of time in New York City. It was pretty awesome that we got to pass it while we were doing the Heavy.

Photo courtesy of JC Jordan

We headed to the Staten Island 9/11 Memorial and then we headed up some stairs to do 343 step-ups to honor the 343 firefighters that were killed that day. Due to our large group, we only got about 200 in or so before it was time to leave. We would make up for them later. We headed back on the ferry to Manhattan. 

Photo courtesy of JC Jordan

We rucked for a bit then it was time to finish our step-ups at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I had 143 to go. The other five people on my step only had 100 more to go, but they did an extra 43 with me, because that's what GRTs do. 

We knew ENDEX was near, but we didn't know exactly how close. We were allowed to have phones for picture taking purposes, so we knew what time it was, but we didn't know exactly when it was going to end. 

We headed out to East River Park as a group. There they chose 13 people to read the biographies of the 13 that were in Afghanistan at the Kabul Airport attack. I enjoyed listening to the bios, as I was familiar with the 13 after doing my own research on them the 13 days prior to the HTB. We did 10 reps of an exercise chosen by the reader and then we headed out. 

We were about 3 miles away and it was getting close to 6. Cadre allowed us to dump sandbags, but that meant pick up the pace.....a lot. 

If you know me, I like heavy and sloooooow. I don't run. I can't run. I do some little gimpy shuffle/jog as fast as I can. I was carrying a full water bladder when we started to shuffle, which my friend James quickly took from me, because I literally just can't move fast with weight. If you've gotten this far into reading this and you don't actually know me, I also have a dislocating knee. I just can't run. It's factual, not a lack of desire. My biomechanics simply don't allow it. That's why I ruck, but sometimes in events, you run. 

While I was watching the documentaries leading up to this event, the towers collapsing really struck a cord. You HAD to move fast out of there if you wanted to survive. That was the only option. Watching the people on the streets sprinting away, I thought, "my knee would give out and I'd fall over and get crushed". 

I kept those thoughts in my head while we were rushing towards ENDEX. You can't stop...and don't you dare fucking complain. We are running literally from the sound of Jason McCarthy's voice. What is that? That is nothing. 

We made it to ENDEX. Speeches were given by all the Cadre. I was praying in my head that the glory of finishing the Heavy was enough for our whole crew to be ready to come back for the Tough, but I know for a fact the transition between Heavy to Tough is the most challenging part. 

We split up and Ubered back to the AirBNB. Showered, ate our shit-ton of Chipotle, reorganized gear. It was 9pm. Time to call the Uber..... 

Where is James? 

Oh, there he is, sleeping under the kitchen table. 

"Get up, James" 

"Ughhh" 

"GET UP, JAMES" 

*more weird noises" 

"Get the fuck up, James. You're not missing the Tough." 

James tries to get up. Thigh cramps. We throw him salt tabs and a theragun. 

James gets himself together and we leave in 2 Ubers to get to Randall's Park with a couple minutes to spare. 

9/11 Tough 

I arrived with just enough time to chug half a Bang and pee behind a tree in a wide open field. 

I was in Platoon 3 this time. No other SCRC members here, but that's ok. They all look strong as hell, and when questioned, I found out the majority were only doing the Tough. 

Admin phase begins with our platoon lead, Mocha Mike. Then we immediately start PT. 

Welcome Party- a certain amount of time with each Cadre making each platoon do terrible things 

•Mocha- close your eyes, open them, find me, make a formation. Wheelbarrows.

•Cleve- run and touch that rock, then form a circle. Continue until you figure this out and get it right. Hint: there was no right answer and I guarantee Cleve was laughing his ass off the whole time. 

•Norwich- Burton Heartbreakers, bear crawls, and some ruck drag sweep thing. 

•Jason- introduce yourself and pick an exercise. 

•Sanchez-repeat what I'm saying so your team follows instructions- various exercises 

•Machine- crowd surf 

•JC- Tunnel of Love and low crawl 

•LDB- jog in place, arm circles, face/front/back/roll 

From there, we formed a semi-circle by Platoon. I overheard Cadre trying to even out the platoons, so I figured that SCRC wouldn't be together. I wasn't so much worried about myself as I was for others. Most people had at least one other member in their group, but I was alone and Eric Perry was alone. Prior to leaving for the Tough, he said, "I'll show up, but I'm going to drop". I knew if he showed up and was with SCRC, there would be none of that, so I felt confident our crew would stick it out til the end. I had to abduct him. 

I went over to talk to Kristi in Platoon 2. Cadre Sanchez overheard me and Kristi talking and allowed me to go find Eric P, and as long as we could sub two people from Platoon 2 (Kristi's group), then Eric P and I could head over to her platoon. I found Eric, and Kristi found two people who would switch groups. Eric was thrilled to be with us, and I felt better. I do want to give a shoutout to Bobby though, because he was in Eric's original group and I know he was ready to look out for him. 

I talked to Eric about the Welcome Party because I know it was challenging. His eyes lit up......in a good way. He knew it sucked as well, but he pushed through. You can tell people that cadre mess with you just to mess with you, but until you see it, understand it yourself, you'll never accept it. It's a game. They are there to stress you, especially during the Welcome Party. Keep your frustration level low at the sometimes impossible tasks, it all ends at some point. 

They needed 10 more people to go help with sandbags. Off I went. 

When I came back, everyone was doing more PT on the soccer field. 

Just when I joined in, it was over. Time to start the ruck. Just when we thought we didn't get to pick platoons, they told us to line up in 8 rows of 26-27 people. 

We tried to claim #1 out of consistency, but another group held up #1 and over 15 people were in each line, 1-8. 

We had a risky idea to just get 27 people and stand there. It worked. Cadre JC again. 

Ruck, ruck, ruck. All I remember is the uneven mosaic tiles that I was sleep-rucking on. I did not pack enough caffeine. Central Park is to our right. It's way too big. Our coupons were much more tolerable, though. 1 100, an 80, a 60, 2 40s, 2 water bladders, spearhead team weight, and 2 flags. 

We have a short break. My sister gets a foot massage from Cadre LDB because she is a princess. Jk jk. She had an exacerbated injury, but I was still jealous of the rub down. 

We pack our stuff up and get back to rucking. We turn a corner and BAM, it's daylight! I knew the event was going fast, but not THAT fast. 

We turn another corner.....oh it's just the bright lights of Times Square. 

Photo courtesy of JC Jordan

JC tells us to put our stuff down we have some time to relax or walk around. I perch up by a pole and lay on some sandbags. I take my shoes off and rub my feet on the ridges of the pole. Best foot massage ever. 

Photo courtesy of James Stiffey

We are entertained by two wannabe gangsters pretending like they are hard enough to actually fight each other. FYI, the less clothes you have on, the more hardcore you are....I guess that's why so many GRTs wear silkies. 

We warm back up with some PT and head out. 

We head to the Kneeling Fireman 9/11  Memorial for story time with Cadre LDB's platoon. This is the hardest part. Almost daybreak, no sleep, sitting, but listening to important words. You fight off the heavy eyelids and pray you don't fall asleep while someone is talking. 

We stop at Engine 26 or "The Batcave". A new firefighter greets us and gives us a very brief background. He's literally a couple weeks into his job and is too afraid to wake anyone else up. JC gives him a GORUCK Tough patch and we snap a photo. 

Real daylight begins to show and we get more greetings from fine New Yorkers like, "fuck Donald Trump", "Black Lives Matter" and "they have a bomb". Cadre JC steps in a pile of human feces, raising the weary spirits of all the GRTs. 

Conversations perk up again. Our amazing shadow/photographer, Tim Galloway, owner and creator of goodwerks products (the fanny pack I wear), offers me two things I normally despise...bananas and coffee. They never tasted so glorious. Energy was high again. 

Photo courtesy of Carlos Orduz

We headed to Engine 7/ Ladder 1/ Bat 1 and did some Platoon PT and had a plank competition.

 

We ended at the Firehouse with more speeches and our 2nd little 2x3 piece of fabric. 

One more to go. 

We couldn't go back to Astoria between events. It was too far and not worth the stress. Our MVP support person, Amber, brought us a bag of supplies and we hung out at Rockefeller Park until the Basic began. Due to having all my Tough gear and all the stuff Amber brought, my Basic bag was the heaviest my ruck as been all weekend, so that was fun. 

I tried to close my eyes. It didn't work. I can never sleep during events....you know, except during story time of the Tough. 

I changed my clothes under my pocket blanket because I was too lazy to get up to walk to the bathroom. I ate a Cuban panini from some local market. I rewrapped my splint. Ready to finish this. 

We lined up in our platoons again. The sun was beating down. After admin, they called up the HTB crew. 80 of us, 98 of us? I don't know. We counted off twice and got completely different numbers. 

They beat us down. The Shark attack was at the beginning, although we didn't know that at the time. Tunnel of love, plank surrenders, OH squats, etc etc. 

Photo courtesy of JC Jordan 

Once that was over, a couple people felt less than stellar, nauseated, faint. Fortunately we had a small break while coupons were split up to rehydrate and rest. We had 43 people in our platoon this time. The vast majority was our original Heavy crew. 

We move out, back across the Brooklyn Bridge. It's a bit different during the day. Slightly more people. We saw some crotches, super fancy faceshield masks, and plenty of angry bikers. We did our best to stay single file, but we still had some pedestrians join the platoon. 

We got off the bridge and headed towards Ladder 118. The moment I've been waiting for. Fire hose time! You can make me do whatever PT you want. If it's 80s and sunny, spray me down. We were one of the first platoons there, so we had many evolutions of hose PT. I wasn't mad. 

Photo courtesy of Carlos Orduz 

Photo courtesy of Carlos Orduz 

Photo courtesy of Carlos Orduz 

After the group picture was taken and Cleve crowd-surfed through the 163 people, we headed to the Horse Soldier Memorial. 

Video courtesy of Matt Solum

Photo courtesy of Carlos Orduz 

There we stood, feet aching, wondering if this was truly ENDEX, or if we'd have to do one last miserable thing. 

Photo courtesy of Carlos Orduz 

Speech after speech was given. 8 of them. It was over. Each cadre patched their platoon. We did it!

The huge HTB group lined back up and received their bolts. 

10/10 new bolt earners and 12/12 from SCRC. This doesn't include all of our many adopted members and those who stuck with us and helped us succeed. Our club mission was to get everyone to Basic ENDEX, we succeeded. It meant a lot to everyone to not only have finished, but to have helped everyone else as well. I specifically mentioned Eric P earlier, because I have watched his progression first-hand over the last 3 years. He is at 90% of club events and has worked so consistently to be able to earn his bolts, which is exactly what you need....consistent hard work. 

SCRC is a team and a family. We aren't just a group of ruckers that live in the same area. We look out for one another, both mentally and physically. It was great to witness such teamwork. We kept the tension as low as realistically possible at a 48 hour event. We also love and appreciate the bonds that were strengthened between ourselves and other clubs and also meeting all the new faces. Everyone was downright wonderful. 

Travel Squad flew in the Twin Towers Team weight with all of the names of the fallen on it. They gifted it to our club. Next year, it will be in Shanksville. 

To celebrate, we headed to O'Haras for a couple beverages and shared experiences with our fellow GRTs. Hearts were full and feet were swollen. We got to add our club patch to the wall and look through their infamous 9/11 scrapbook.

We ordered pizza and headed back on the subway, crashing with our whole crew at the AirBNB after a couple more beers. 

As far as my hand goes, it's totally fine. I lost some range of motion due to it being immobilized for 2 days, but nothing that can't be fixed. The thing with these events is, you always over-think things prior. Things are 99% worse in your head than they will ever be at the actual event. I needed help with only a few simple tasks like tying my shoes and zipping my overstuffed Basic ruck, but in general, I blended in pretty well with everyone else. 

I'm very thankful to have had people to encourage me to go and for the cadre and GRTs who looked out for me throughout the events. I'll remember this experience for the rest of my life.

🇺🇸

Gear:
•20L V3 Rucker with hip belt, sternum strap, and goodwerks ripcords
•goodwerks Boogie Bag- headlamp, glove, snacks, chapstick, pain meds
•GORUCK Simple Pants, Altra Lone Peak (Heavy) and Paradigm (Tough and Basic), dri-fit shirts, wool socks/bra/underwear
•Gooch Guard in special places, HikeGoo on feet, leukotape and 2nd Skin gel squares where needed

Nutrition
•Tailwind in bladder
•Uncrustables, gummies, jerky, chex mix, pepperoni roll, MRE entree for the Heavy.
•salt tabs with caffeine

Training:
I don't follow a training program. If that's something that works for you, there's plenty out there: HDT, SRT, RuckStrong, Pathfinder, Joe Baker, etc.

Here's what I do:
•Strength training at home, typically with a sandbag. Keep it simple. Focus on muscle groups and full-body complexes.
•Long rucks (over 20 miles). Get your feet used to pounding pavement and foot care figured out.
•Coupon rucks. Find a track. Switch up coupons.
•Hill repeats
•Mobility
•Peloton for cardio