2023 Bragg HTB

 

Disclaimer: these events are per my memory of the event. I can't guarantee they are 100% accurate. 

It was Monday morning. We woke up in our fancy $60/night hotel after about 9 hours of solid sleep.

Q. How do you feel after finishing the Bragg HTB?

A. Like I got lip injections

To find out how we got here, let's start at the beginning of this Bragg journey. In September 2020, I was in the best shape of my life as I competed in GORUCK Team Assessment. 

I needed something to do next. I always do after a big event. The Bragg Double Heavy was just announced and seemed like the next logical step.

My buddy Cullen and I registered and made the trip down, only for me to drop (literally) about 12 hours in after a bad step in the water trench on the pipeline trail, causing my already unstable knee to fully dislocate. 

If you don't know me by now, my nickname is Dislocaitlin. I have a congentially deformed knee. I had a reconstruction surgery in 2000, but it failed. I now follow-up with a world renowned sports surgeon who specializes in knees, who says, "I technically know how to repair the structural issues, but the odds of it being successful aren't high." 

I'd rather just stick with what I have now then risk having another unsuccessful surgery.

It used to go out on me as a kid all the time. The stronger I got, the less it fully dislocates. Maybe a couple times a year. 

So anyways, I stayed and shadowed the event. I watched Cullen finish, but then drop the 2nd Heavy due to the cold. We made plans for our 2022 redemption on the drive home. 

A major theme of the HH was people dropping due to the cold. I knew this was something I did not want to happen to me when I returned. 

I spent months researching, investing in, and testing cold weather gear. You can see my findings here.

My training stayed consistent throughout the year. That is, until my dogs got into a fight over a piece of basil and completely severed my tendon on my middle finger at the beginning of August. 

I was given a 5 month recovery time until I would be cleared for full activity. Bragg was in January. I knew that while I'd be cleared for full activity by then, there's no way I'd be in "Bragg" shape. I stayed home while Cullen signed up last minute and got his bolts. 

In February, I had to have a 2nd surgery to release scar tissue to allow my distal joint to bend. My surgeon was surprised I didn't heal properly, because although this was a very intricate surgery, I am a physical therapist and am the "perfect patient."

It might have had something to do with participating in the NYC 9/11 HTB in a splint 6-weeks post op, but the surgeon doesn't need to know that. Having that experience was completely worth it. 😌 

This finger surgery only required a 2-week recovery time, enough for the incision to heal. Full activity was not only allowed, but encouraged to increase ROM.

I was getting back on track. It took a long time to regain the strength I lost, literally everywhere. It's hard to lift heavy on any part of your body when you can't hold the weight. 

I did a round of HDT in the spring of 2022 and got tremendous results. 

After that, I went back to my own made-up workouts. 

The schedule was released and I signed up for the Bragg HTB, now in March! This means it will be warm and all my research was unneeded... 

Not going to lie, I wanted the challenge of the cold. 

Cullen signed up, as well as Kirk. The event fell on Kirk's 64th birthday, St. Patrick's Day. We made a pact to not tell any of the cadre that it was his birthday. We know what happens. 

I took a couple weeks off training after the 50 Mile Star Course in Jacksonville in early November. My Achilles' have, unfortunately, been bothering me since my first HTL in 2018, and got exacerbated after the 9/11 Double Tough in DC and the 50 miler, so my strategy was to focus more on short, heavy miles and lots of PT. 

Thankfully, as always, plenty of people from Steel City Ruck Club came out in the middle of winter, no matter what the weather, and trained with me. 

The clock was ticking down. One week of tapering and then time ran out. 

About a week prior to the event, Cullen had to drop out, but we did gain Bryan, who signed up a while ago, but was making it a game time decision depending on how he felt. 

Our trio headed down Thursday around 1100 and got in around 2130. It was a smooth trip, except for Bryan running over a cat two minutes from our hotel. RIP Kitty. We blamed the David Goggins audio book for getting him too fired up. 

We went to bed, tired from our road trip. The next morning we met up with some GRTs at the Airborne and Special Operations Museum and then went to lunch. It's always good to meet up with your teammates prior to an event. 

Advice was shared and stories were told. We were as ready as we were going to be. 

We went back to the hotel to do last minute gear checks and "nap".

Gear. You can train for years, but if you don’t have the right gear, I promise, you will struggle. Yes, it is possible to finish with shitty gear if you're an animal, but you will be incredibly miserable.

So, we are all packed up and ready to go. We drive the 10 minutes to the start point at the Special Forces Association Compound.

We get there around 1630. We mingle and greet new faces. I find some people who recognize me. It's strange to think I've been in the game long enough to be recognized. Some people mention that they read my cold/wet gear post. We start sharing advice and expectations.

There is a 24 year old. It is his first event ever. I see him prepping his ruck. He doesn't have a hip belt. I have my OG Hunter Orange Rucker in my Jeep. It has a hip belt on it. I take it off and give it to him. He will need it. He thanks me and also tells me that he has also read some of the stuff I've written. 

We head to the field and are told to make a big circle, alphabetical by last name. The Heavy is about to begin! 

We take roll call, one 8-count bodybuilder for every person who registered and didn't show up. This turns into one Frogman pushup, which ended up being a hilarious tension breaker. IYKYK. 

We do a brief gear check, which only includes weight plate, headlamp, hydration, and ID. 

We circle in and Cadre Dan gives us a history of the Bragg Heavy. This is the 10 year anniversary, after all. He talks about the infamous Double Heavy and I get excited. While deep down I know this won't be AS epic, I know it will still be an incredible experience. 

Now we start the event.

Cadre DS takes the reigns first. He asks if anyone has done the BFF test before. The Baseline Functional Fitness test, which is the new GORUCK PT test for Selection and The GORUCK Games. Some people raise their hands. I do not.

To summarize, it is 2 minutes of hand release pushups, 200m suitcase carry, 2 minute sandbag burpees with OH toss, and a 100# 1 mile ruck/shuffle.

We pair up for the HRPUs first, then suitcase carry, then sandbag burpees, and finally the 100# 1 mile ruck.

Apparently during the Farmers carry if you weren't fast enough to grab a sandbag, you were "weak for not fighting for a bag", so to fix that, "you had to get strong with Cadre Cleve", who made you do 25 4ct mountain climbers then 25 4ct flutterkicks, then back to mountain climbers, and then flutter kicks, then mountain climbers on repeat until everyone was done with the Farmers Carry.

I'm glad I got a sandbag first...

It's dark by the time we finish.

We are in formation, standing around and then I see Cadre Cleve walking around asking people if they know what time it is. 

I look closer. 

He is shuffling a deck of cards. 

I know exactly what time it is. 

If you haven't done a Cadre Cleve event before, you may not know, but he is know for his Deck of Cards workout...the Deck of Death.

Basically a deck of cards workout is a customizable workout where you pick an exercise for each suit. You shuffle the deck and pick a card up one at a time and complete the number of reps for the card. Face cards are 10 and aces are 15. 

I've been doing the DOC workout during my weekly coupon rucks for months. I switch up the exercises, but the week before I left, I ended with Cleve's favorite choices.... ❤️ 8-count bodybuilders ♠️ 8-count brickyard manmakers ♦️ ruck swings ♣️ 4-count flutterkicks 🃏 800m ruck. Complete in under an hour. As a team, in unison, or you start at zero.

I accepted our fate quickly. There was no way we were finishing in under an hour. We had so many zeros. It's ok. It's part of the game. 

We didn't finish the deck before Cadre Dan came out and told us to head towards the logs. We split up and grab the huge telephone poles and bring them to where we are directed. 

We place them down and split into four groups. Two groups are on the logs. One group is on the "Train with Sand" medicine balls and Jerry cans and my group is on sandbags.

We resume DOC, now adding bonus PT in after each card. Cleve is directing my group. Cadre Chuy's group did something immensely wrong because we are looking over and they are NOT doing what we are doing. They are going off plan and doing some log PT. We decided not to do whatever they did to deserve that. 

This continues for a bit. 

We are then told to pick up the logs and line them all up in a row, bracing them with the sandbags on either side.

DS gathers us in and starts lecturing us on balls....I mean B.A.L.L.S.

Balance 

Accountability 

Love

Leadership 

Sacrifice 

We are now going to work on the B- Balance. 

Without our rucks, we are told to line up and take our turn balancing our way across the 3 long logs. 

I'm not known for my balance and agility, so this should be fun. 

I start to lose my balance about 3/4 of the way across. Despite my overexaggerated arm movements, I was unable to keep my balance and I fell off. Ten 8-count bodybuilders for me. 

Hey, they aren't so bad without a ruck on.

Back to the end of the line. I make it this time!

Back to the end of the line one more time. DS comes up to me and starts talking to me about the pipeline trail and if I remember the route from 2021. I say "maybe?". Then he asks me if I fell yet. I said, "on my first try." As soon as I'm done talking, I lose my balance and fall off again. More 8-counts.

Before my 4th turn, DS pulls us together and tells us to make a lap around the inside of the compound and meet him at the playground. 

It's starting to drizzle. Some people pull out their rain gear. I try to suck it up for a little longer. 

DS gives us our next instructions. We are going to practice some grappling techniques. Specifically, if someone lunges out for your legs, how to subdue them. 

We pair up. I'm with Jonathan Metze, who could easily murder me if he wanted to. Fortunately, he is a very nice guy and was patient with my lack of formal skills.

We expand on our skills by learning the guillotine choke. 

I am now ready to put bad guys to sleep.

At this point, it's pouring. I put on an extra layer, my Patagonia Houdini Jacket, a super thin and light layer that still gives you decent protection from the elements. 

Cleve comes back around and tells us it's time to stop playing grab ass. 

The next task is to do the infamous pipeline to powerline trail. This is the trail that my knee went out on in 2021. I recall trenches and divets and take a deep breath. I knew it was coming at some point.

We start to head out. Headlamps are on. Rain is coming down. Cleve tells us to make sure we are dirty when we get back. Some take that more literally than others. I make sure there is visible dirt on my face and body. I don't mess with instructions from Cleve. 

We have a 60 minute time hack. We make it, despite a tiny wrong turn down a steep ravine. 

Cleve has us circle up and gives us an inspection with his flashlight. Fortunately, enough of us look like we put some effort into getting dirty, so we move on to the next task. 

Deck of Death. 

Wait, didn't we just do this? 

No, we did not, because we didn't finish.

The deck is full again, rules and PT are the same. 

We move faster this time. Cleve isn't as strict with his no-reps for not being in sync. 

About halfway though, a car alarm starts going off. It ended up being the guy next to me. He turn his alarm off and then dropped the event moments later. 

I'm not sure what happened. Maybe he got scared after Cleve warned him of the wrath of Cadre Chuy if he woke him up.

A couple cards later, the new guy next to me, who has a lovely Irish accent, asked me if I happened to have a spare ruck in my vehicle. His strap was about to fall off. I told him I did and it was all his if he needed it. He thanked me and told me he would let me know if it got to that point. Fortunately, he never asked for it, which means his ruck held up.

Deck of cards was finally dwindling down. Somehow, we had like seven heart face cards...weird how that happened...

Up next: back through the pipeline/power line trail. This time lead by Cleve. This time EVERYONE will be dirty. It's also raining again off and on. My Arcteryx Zeta LT is on at this point.

We grab the coupons, as well, and make our way down the trail. I find a guy to pair up with and we swap a 60# sandbag back and forth.

We are at the beginning, so we get all the surprises first. We find a trench full of water and Cleve tells us to low crawl while dragging our sandbags. Me and my partner each grab an end of the bag and drag it with us as we crawl through the mud and water. 

We get up once we are out of the water. We continue to ruck along the trail like we did before.

We don't make the turn to make the short loop. Cleve tells us to continue to follow the power lines. We feel like we are off-roading, but Cleve is confident in his directions. We get to a really marshy area. I step down on my right leg and it disappears. I don't mean to my calf or even my knee. I mean mid-thigh. I can't pull it out. 

I hear Cleve laughing. I am too, but I'm still stuck. Jaala and Cleve each take a hand and yank. It takes multiple attempts, but I finally get my leg free. 

"Hey guys, don't step there."

We ruck a bit further and play the waiting game. About 80 more people need to make it through that mess and it took some time. 

Jaala and I go pee in the high grass. This is the only time I didn't use an actual toilet all weekend, so that is something worth documenting. 

We finally make it back to the compound. We are soaked. It has been raining the whole time. We find that a bunch of people dropped after that evolution. Cold and wet get people every time. There is a HUGE difference between being wet from rain and being wet from submerging in your gear. Trust me when I say that 50° is cold when your body and all your layers are soaked. 

Fortunately, I still had my insulated Patagonia Nano Jacket dry in my ruck. I took off my rain jacket and Houdini and put that on. 

We were told to grab some chow and circle around the picnic table with the AR-15.

DS met us there and did a field strip demonstration. He reviewed it and let a couple people practice. Then we got our next assignment. 

While a member of your team field strips the AR-15 and puts it back together, the rest of your team have to toss med balls over your head down a certain spot and back. It's a race. 

My team was dominating the med ball tosses without my brute strength, so I went back under the pavillion in an attempt to get a try at the AR-15. Unfortunately, the activity ended before I could get hands-on, but I did get to observe a little more, which will prove to come in handy.

It's right before daybreak, Cadre Dan and Cadre Chuy come back and get us into 4 ranks. They assign a platoon leader and 4 squad leaders. Since I'm on the end, I'm a squad leader. We get to know our platoon leader, Britt, and we get our assignments. 

We are heading back down the pipeline trail and pausing right before the powerline trail. We have no coupons, things are going smooth. It's getting lighter out. 

We reach an area where we are instructed to stay in our squads, but to stay close to each other. We are soaked through and it's in the low 50s. It's story time with Cadre Chuy. 

We huddle in next to each other and listen to his speech about diversity, core values, and leadership. Intent, understanding, trust. I would summarize what he taught us, but I have no doubt it would not come out nearly as eloquent. 

He does say that those of us who return for the Tough are going to be able to determine their top 3 core values. Something to look forward to...

The wind starts blowing. People start to shiver. I'm distracted by little Junebug, Chuy's pup, going from person to person looking for pets and snacks. 

Story time is over. We get into a penguin huddle for warmth. Cadre Dan sees that we are cold, so he brings us into a slightly more open area for some PT. 

Dan is recovering from a foot surgery, so he told us he is doing all of the upper body PT. We do a couple rounds of OH claps, upright rows, OH press, and some Frankenstein high marches called Engines.

We finish the loop and line up in rank again, while the platoon leader gets instructions. We are heading out to our service project. Everyone is to be topped off on water, use the restroom, etc. Coupons are distributed as equally as possible between the squads. My squad is also given the epic "shmainshmaw" that we got well-aquainted with during Whiskey Rebellion. 

We line up and head out for our longest ruck. There are a couple of dangerous road crossings, but we get to our destination unscathed. 

I started with the shmainshmaw, but I got bored, so Joe Baker took it from me, which let me get on heavier bags and Jerry Cans. 

Once we arrive at the SFA Chapter 1-18, we are brought into a meeting room with memorabilia everywhere. We are told we are allowed to sit, but not on the chairs because then our next service project would be cleaning the chairs. 

They give us a history on the Chapter and how they are clearing up the area to get ready to build. That's where we come in. 

We listen to some of the cadre and the "Graybeards" talk. There's a lot of wisdom in the room. One of the things they talk about was the hospitality in Vietnam. They were given some weird things to eat, but out of politeness, they always accepted the generosity. *remember this*.

We get up off the floor and get back in ranks to be given our assignments. One group is filling up sandbags. One group is moving logs that are being cut by the cadre and Graybeards. The other two groups, including mine, are clearing logs and brush from a very large area.

Once most of the larger logs are cleared we start raking the smaller stuff into the large piles. Their plan is to burn it. They already have some good bonfires going where people are warming up and drying their jackets and gloves. 

I take a brief moment to change my socks and take off my wool legging baselayer, but otherwise, I keep myself busy for the duration of the time we are there. 

We pause for a break. Cadre Chuy tells us we are doing great and is rewarding us by giving us donuts. All of a sudden little Donette packages are flying from the sky. We open them, take a donut, and pass it along. Some people don't take one. Donuts aren't my thing, but it's rare your cadre will provide you with food mid-event. I eat the donut. 

We have one final task before we go back. We have to help clear a mile long trail of any large sticks/roots. Half of the platoon starts in one direction and half in the other. This is not heavy work, but there's a hell of a lot of air squats to pick up all these sticks.

We meet up with the other half of the platoon and head back to our gear.

Things have been pretty tame for a while. Don't get me wrong, physical labor was occurring, but stress levels were low.

Welcome back Cadre DS and Cadre Cleve! 

I sense anger. They are coming in hot.

"I heard you guys got donuts?? Who didn't take a donut?"

We wonder which answer is the wrong answer. It's DS, and he's the epitome of health, so maybe he is mad so many people ate donuts. But no, he criticized those that didn't take the generous offer from the cadre. You don't turn down generosity, just like the Green Berets didn't turn down the generosity of the Vietnamese.

We are in trouble. 

Spoiler alert: we'd be in trouble for something no matter what. It was time to liven up this Heavy again.

We were told to bear crawl to the sandbags and then grab two sandbags and take them to a different location, stacking them up as we found them. Once we did this, guess what we did? We moved them to a different location. 

Then we did low crawls in the sand. People weren't low enough, so we switched to ruck-on-front back crawls. Then we were told to go stand in the smoke of the bonfire. No coughing. Then we did some PT, including walking team lunges arm-in-arm.

I might be missing something. It's kind of a haze, but you get the idea. 

We finally line back up and head out back to the SFA Compound. The way back seems to be so much longer. Me and two guys rotate on a 100# simple sandbag. These just aren't as comfortable as the regular sandbags...and I obviously do these things to be comfortable. What kind of bullshit is this? 

We see our normal formation area and walk past it. I don't give up the sandbag. It's an unspoken rule that if you are close to the ENDEX area, you keep your coupon. 

We head over to the logs and are told to brace them with the sandbags like we did earlier in the event. 

Time to test our balance again.

You have to keep going until you make it across. I'm determined to do it on my first try. Slow and steady and I make it! 

I check my HR on my watch. 137. I guess that stressed me out.

I stand in the back of the line while I watch other people go. Some people fall off and have to start over, but little by little people start to make it to the end.

We end this exercise and are told to pick up the sandbags and line them up on the hardtop. We need to get in a line and then we have to snake the line back to pair up with someone across from us. We are instructed to hand all of the bags down the line. If they drop, there will be consequences. We get a good system in place and everything goes smoothly. Until we get to our last coupon, Cadre Dan.

You can tell he puts a lot of trust in our strength when he lets us hand him off down a row of people that have been working for 24 hours. He makes it to the end safely and declares this the end of the 2023 Bragg Heavy.

We line up and listen to their speeches. Cleve asks us if we were challenged physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. We are in agreeance.

They walk down the ranks, Cadre Dan with the patch and the others following with handshake and hugs. 

90 started. 75 finished. Chuy compliments us that this is one of the most well-prepared classes he has ever seen. *blush*

The Heavy is over, but the journey has just begun. There are still two events left to make this a full success.

We have three hours to head back to the hotel, get our gear ready, eat, shower, and try to get some rest before the Tough. I actually managed to get a little under an hour of sleep, which is unusual for me. Typically I get no sleep during HTB/L weekends. My brain doesn't shut off. 

Right before we leave, I make the decision to not retape my feet. The ground wasn't bad at all considering 90% of our activities were spent on the compound.

We get back to the start point around 2125. Right before the start time. I told people we should probably start getting in ranks. Too late, DS told us to get in plank and get back in our alphabetical circle. Some people didn't understand the instructions and started to stand up to get in the circle. 

Nope, stay in plank and plank walk your way around until you're in alphabetical order. If anyone's knees go down we are doing a hundred lunges. I accepted at that very moment that we would be doing 100 lunges.

We are then told to dump our rucks. This sounds familiar, I've done it a couple times before. Fortunately, it was nothing like a Team Assessment ruck dump. We went through the gear list items and we were given 30 seconds to get it all back in.

We take roll call, again, doing one 8-count bodybuilder for everyone who doesn't show up. Except when Cleve found out one of the GORUCK sponsored athletes is a no-show. Angry Cleve comes out yelling that he doesn't care how fast we can run or how many Instagram followers we have. When we say we are going to do something, we show up and do it. The bodybuilders seem like they are never going to stop, but finally he moves on to the next name after we finish our 15th. 

Roll call is complete. I think we have 69 or 70 total.

Next on the list, those 100 lunges. They didn't forget, dammit. We start doing them solo, some people's knees aren't touching the ground. To fix that, we link up in a big circle and start doing them together. Cadre Cleave zeroed us multiple times, but fortunately our total did only equal 100 before they stopped the exercise.

Time for our first major task. Cadre DS instructs us to take our shoes and socks off. We tie our shoes together and sling them over our shoulders. 

Let's take a hike. Our rucks are staying behind.

We start to head out to the pipeline trail. I'm thrilled I decided not to tape my feet. We do the entire 2 miles of rocks, mud, pine needles, sticks, pine cones, water, sand, cacti, etc. Every now and then I step on something painful, but as a whole it was not as bad as I expected it to be.

We circle back up where we left our rucks. We see Cadre Cleave with a deck of cards. That is never a good thing. He puts us at ease when he says we are playing a different game. Blackjack.

We split the circle in half and each take a turn going up against a person on the other team. Whoever wins gets to pick an exercise out of the following: 21 4-count Sun gods, 4-count yes', or 4-count nos. This is an improvement from bodybuilders and man-makers, but the yes-nos were actually harder than I anticipated.

Every now and then Cleave will add in some extra exercises. You know, for fun.

We take a break about halfway and Cleve tells us our two squads are racing around the compound.

Yay. A race. 

The people on my team that don't know me start taking off shuffling. I quickly yell and tell them that I can't run. We need to stay together as a team and accept our fate of being losers. 

After we are about halfway around, they finally understand we aren't winning. We get in two ranks and try to at least make ourselves look good. 

We circle back up. The winning team gets to pick our punishment. They chose one brickyard manmaker per person on our team. We count off. We have 39. 

This is a bunch of crap, but they, so graciously, join us for half the reps. 

We get through them. I apologize to everyone. We continue our game of Blackjack. 

Once Blackjack is over, we are told we get to race again. This time, the two mile pipeline/poweline loop. 

Our team comes to terms with being losers again. Rick and I are up front as the two slowest people and we do a nice speed walk.

My friend Bryan was the team lead on the other team and he told me afterwards, "not gonna lie, I knew you were on the other team and that we were going to win." Thanks Bryan. (He's right, though)

We finally finished. DS asks why we were so slow. Rick and I raise our hands. DS accepts this and tells us to grab all the "Train with Sand" gear and do a loop around the pond. Fair enough. 

We get it done and then do priorities of work. The other team probably had time to get in a decent nap while they waited for us.

Next task is an EMOM. We have to do a SB overhead toss, two plank pull throughs, and three ruck get-ups each minute. I pair up with Shabrail to share a sandbag since there aren't enough for everyone. 

We move locations because we are killing the grass and resume the workout until it's complete.

Next is a two mile loop, timed. Under 60 minutes with coupons. Make it back in time or there will be consequences.

I appreciate having a watch. I look down. It's exactly 0300. We seem to be keeping decent pace, but none of us can estimage exactly how much further we have to go. I start giving the group time updates. As we get closer, I start subtracting some time to get a sense of urgency. It works because we make it back with one literal minute to spare. 

Mission accomplished. Priorities of work.

We start to get cold. It's going down into the 30s tonight. Cadre Dan arrives and gets us in a circle to warm us up with his upper body workout. 

As soon as Cadre Chuy arrives, he grabs eight people to join him in a warm building. The rest of us get in a smaller circle and are told to grab a med ball. We pass it in a circle. Don't drop it. As soon as it gets to the starting person, we add in another one, and another, and another, until all of the balls are in circulation. 

Before it gets too stressful, the eight people come out and send eight more in to Cadre Chuy. I'm one of the next eight. 

Time to find out my core values. Basically, there's a deck of cards (shudder), but these ones have words on them... gratitude, family, honor, wisdom, teamwork, success, and many, many more.

We are asked to narrow down 15 cards that we find to be the most important. Then narrow down to five, then top three.

It was difficult to do. Many of them overlapped, so it was challenging to choose one over another. 

Time was ticking, so I reached for three that seemed important to me. 

Adventure: to me, this is life. If you don't go out and experience life, why are you here? I hate sitting around the house. I hate not having plans. I am the known event planner, vacations, ruck events, parties, whatever. I want to be doing something and I want it to be memorable. 

Usefulness: I like feeling like I'm contributing. I like helping people. I enjoy giving advice and making other people's lives easier/less stressful. I combined "charity", which was a card choice into this one, because being charitable is being useful to others. 

Perseverance: I try to not let failures get me down for too long. I reflect on what I can change and do better to execute a successful outcome. 

When we left the room, we were told to talk to our teammates about their choices and their goals surrounding their values. 

We head out and send eight new people in. Now they are playing musical balls. Cleve is in charge of the music. If you are caught with a ball when the music stops, you step out of the circle, grab your ruck, and do some squats and lunges. Somehow the music always stops when LDB has a ball...

This activity finally ends and we break up into three groups. A couple people from each group grab a picnic table and move it to a designated spot. We split up the coupons and bring them to the tables. 

Cadre Dan gives us instructions. There's a Bop-It at each table, along with a rubik's cube, and Simon. 

Time for some mental stimulation. Bop-It has a team feature. You take a couple turns and then pass it when instructed. 

The rules are easy. Play Bop-It and every time you don't win, you have to do a compound lap with your weight. If you win, you get to drop a coupon. 

It took a while, but we finally won one. That game is hard to win.

Cadre Dan told us to take a break. 

We did.

The sun is coming up.

The next Cadre Chuy group comes out. Cadre Dan tells us to get in formation and the people that haven't seen Chuy yet need to stand to the side. 

He asks for a head count. We don't have a firm number. Some people are in the bathroom, I think. I don't know, but we done wrong. 

Cadre Dan asked Cadre Cleve to get up from his conversation at the picnic table and set us straight. 

What I'm about to tell you next is by far physically and mentally the most challenging part of the entire weekend. It reminded me of the Team Assessment shark attack. Just sheer chaos of yelling instructions. Overhead squats. Hold. "Oh you can't hold it up? You want to put your ruck down? OK, get on your back. Feet 6 inches. Oh, you want to put your feet on the ground, then get up and put your ruck over your head." Over and over, pushups, hold, 8 counts, roll on your stomach, on your feet, blah blah blah. Chaos!

Someone comes up to me and gives me two Jerry cans and tells me to take a lap around the pond. 

Don't mind if I do.

I come back and the attack is still going on. The hose is out and we do more PT.

Then we drop our rucks and we are running back and forth from the hardtop to our rucks with Cleve counting down. Back and forth, back and forth. We line up the sandbags on the hardtop during the madness.

Finally things settle down. 

We are told to carabine the sandbags together. The Kraken is born. We pick it up and pass it down the long line of people. Some bags are easy. Some bags are not. Don't you dare drop any of them, though. 

There's too many people in the line, so Cadre Dan gave instructions to pick up a medicine ball or Jerry can and do a pond lap. If there's nothing available, then you go to the end of the line to continue the Kraken.

Once the Kraken reaches the end, it goes in the other direction. The medicine balls and jerry cans are being carried, orbiting the Kraken. We move all the way to the gate and pause. 

Cadre Dan tells us to get three groups of three. I jump in a group. He tells us we are playing Bop-It again and we have until the Kraken snakes back around via suitcase carry to beat the game. 

My team of three nails it on our first try. The second team gets it, but well after we do. The third team fails. 

I don't want to brag, but I'm really good at Bop-It.

While we are waiting for the Kraken, a guy on my Bop-It team asked about what sounded like a "domestic incident" while he was in the room with Cadre Chuy. That lucky guy missed the Cleve beatdown! 

The Kraken arrives.

The teams switch out. 

We get on the Kraken and do another lap while three more teams try to beat Bop-It. We get back to the start. I'm not sure if they had success or not because before I know it, we are being instructed to go get picnic tables. 

We try to organize by height. I'm on the smurf squad, but at 5'6", I'm taller than most of them. We figure it out the best we can as we carry the picnic table back to the gate. We are then instructed to place a medicine ball on top and do a loop. We get it done, only to come back and have him tell us to grab two additional sandbags and head back out. 

Once we set the tables back in an organized fashion, we bring the sandbags back and are told to do priorities of work. 

It's about 0900. We find it weird that we are getting a break when the event probably ends in an hour or so. 

Someone brings in Starbucks, and we are allowed to partake in hot coffee and pastries. My senses heighten. We aren't going to be done any time soon.

We are told to get in formation. Cadre Dan comes around to the front carrying our patches. 

He gives a speech about the history of the Bragg events and how they started the testing for the Bragg Heavy with an 18-hour Bragg Tough. 

He throws the patches behind him and says, "we aren't done yet."

Cadre Chuy takes over and tells us to arrange the sandbags, med balls, and kettlebells in a square. We split up into groups and he assigned us certain exercises. We work for 45s and have a 15s break and then rotate. 

HRPUs, lunges, med ball shoulder toss, air squats, KB swings, low plank, SB clean and press, and 4ct flutterkicks. We go through the rotation two times. 

At some point we put the logs back where we found them. I'm not sure when this happened exactly. 

The next assignment is the old school PT test. 2 minutes max pushups, 2 minutes max sit-ups and, my favorite, a 2 mile run. Yay!

During pushups, I'm taken aside by DS. He takes me to the picnic table that has the AR-15 on it. 

He tells me to field strip it and then put it back together and test it. If you need cues, you owe him 8-count bodybuilders.

I get it without cues. VERY, VERY SLOWLY. I didn't get any hands-on training during the Heavy, but I recalled the steps with some minor guesswork.

Fortunately, I got it done. I think DS was slightly frustrated at my lack of speed, but that's ok. He survived. We both did.

I return to the group and they are starting sit-ups. I tag in one of the Heavy participants to go to the AR-15 and I take his partner for sit-ups. I get 63 in 2 minutes. Not bad. 

Next is the 2 mile run. Blah. It is what it is, though. I'll go as fast as I can while keeping my knee protected. Kirk sticks with me. I don't finish last, but damn close to it. That's OK, it's over. 

We get a short break to get water. The sun is beating down.

We then head over to a building for more DS fight training. This time we learn how to defend ourselves if we are being choked. Basically, break their finger then choke them out. 

I can't wait to do it to someone in the real world! 

This goes on for a bit. Some people are getting antsy. It's 1130 and they have flights to catch, kids to pick up, etc. DS directs them back to Dan to grab their patches. They are informally dismissed.

It's getting even hotter out. I still have my leggings on. We ask for priorities of work and I take them off. I feel much better. We continue our training for a bit longer and then we are called in.

We get in formation. It's about 1215 Dan gives us three assignments. Take the trash out, hose off the pavillion, and organize the coupons. We group back up and some shorter speeches are given. Patches are handed out. It's now 1230. I look over to Kirk and Bryan. I tell them I'm going back to the hotel, but we only have 5 minutes to get whatever we need and then we have to bolt.

We make it back to the hotel at 1238. I say we have to leave at 1243.

We look like a NASCAR pit crew. 

I forget my Bragg t-shirt. That's the entire reason I'm here. I run, yes run, back to the room while they hold the elevator. Locking the hotel key inside...we will take care of that later. 

We make it back to the startpoint at 1256. The event starts at 1300.

I immediately tell people to circle up in alphabetical order. We aren't making that mistake again. 

It's 1300 and not everyone is there yet. We run to get Shabrail who is at her car wrapping her hurt knee. Someone fireman carries her into the circle to her spot. 

We take roll call, again, doing one 8-count for everyone who doesn't show. 33 didn't show. I think there's 64 total.

We don't do a formal gear check, but we do find out it's Jack's birthday. He is turning 25. We do 25 brickyard manmakers then 1 more for good luck. This is why we didn't tell them about Kirk's 64th birthday at the Heavy...

We start on 8-count bodybuilders until Cadre Dan comes in to save us. We do 25 4-count flutterkicks instead and then his standard upper body workout.

I get called to the center of the circle to show off my innovative way to perform ruck swings. All you do is turn your ruck sideways, so it's not as wide. Cadre Dan is mindblown. 

We carabine the sandbags together to form our Kraken and carry it back to the picnic tables, along with the Train with Sand gear.

We now get eight people on a table (at the Tough we had six).

We do the same thing with the med ball and then the sandbag loops. It's much easier with eight people. We don't need to set it down. 

We put the tables away where we originally found them.

We get back to our rucks and form two teams. We split the coupons up between teams. A new guy suggests we divvy out the weight based on body weight. Our Team Leader sets him straight, telling him some of the females will crush the heavier weight. He is right. 

I bring along the famous Pittsburgh team weight and pair up with Taylor, who has a 55# Jerry can. It's not too long before the TL takes the Jerry can and replaces it with an 80# sandbag. So now we are switching that back and forth with the team weight as we travel down the pipeline trail. 

We start to follow the photographer and get lost in some marshes. We turn around and start going the correct direction before we get in trouble. 

I find Shabrail limping down the hill. I know that feeling. I grab her arm and give her some extra support. She tells me she fell during the Heavy and injured her knee. Quitting isn't an option for her, so she's sticking it out. 

We get to a rest point on the powerline trail. We put our weights down and get in a circle. Cadre Dan tells us he is a huge fan of Unsolved Mysteries and thinks we should make a crop circle. 

We low crawl through the high grass. I have no doubt it looked like an amazingly intricate work of art that will puzzle anyone looking at it from above. 

Cadre Dan instructs us to grab the coupons and throw them back to the start. I grab a 40# sandbag and take off. I later find an abandoned 45# Jerry can and take turns with some other people tossing that, a 55# Jerry can, and the 40# sandbag.

We get to the water and I continue to toss. I throw it as soon as Taylor bends down to pick up his bag to throw. I splash him good. Cleve starts laughing. I start laughing. Comedic relief is good at the end of an HTB.

Taylor gets me back later. Robin starts to do flutterkicks in the water for fun. Life is good.

We make it back to the compound and are instructed to empty the sandbags and then hose them off.

A group of people without bags were instructed to board up windows of one of the builders in the compound. I'm still confused about that one, but I assume it was just free manual labor and something that needed to get done.

Once the everyone is done with their chores. We get in formation.

I'm waiting for another beatdown. I don't anticipate that it's going to be over.....

But it is!

We heard some speeches, including one from a guy who fired Chuy long ago. Nothing but love now.

We get our patches. The HTB finishers get to patch the Basic finishers.

We take photos and give high fives and hugs.

Then we eat! There was a taco truck and beer. It was the best post-event food I've ever had.

We mingle with old and new friends, take pictures, and stuff our faces.

After a bit, we part ways and head back to the hotel. We clean up and head to bed.

I wake up in the middle of the night with an achey knee. I reach over for my ibuprofen and pop two of them. Bryan wakes up to the sound of medication and has some, as well. This is my first time taking a pain reliever all weekend. For me, that's something to take pride in.

The next morning we analyze how we feel. Overall, I feel great, except feeling like I have lip injections... 

My face was puffy and I did develop a cold, but muscle and joint-wise, I feel fine. It was an unexpected ending to an amazing journey.

And there you have it! The 2023 Bragg HTB, my redemption story.