Since becoming recent site Q’s of Woodstock Rucks, M2M and I wanted a change from the normal routine. We reached out to JC and Flash to see if they would like to come out and lead a special beatdown for us. They jumped right on the opportunity! We were able to gather 16 brave souls for the beatdown as we didn’t know what we had in store for us. I know when I asked JC and Flash if we could earn one of their Cadre Patches, that we would have to work for it. Respect is earned, not given!

As the Pax and cadre arrive, we dressed our required 40# sandbags (1 per 2-man team) as well as our rucks in a line prior to the start. M2M and I take instruction from the Cadre to warm up for 15 minutes and report back.

Roger that!

M2M instructed us to don our rucks and head for the top of the stairs at the Amphitheater. We form up at the parking lot by the bookshop and get our warmup started. Copperhead Squats, 4-count merkins, 4-count flutter kicks get us warmed up as well as a quick Ruck through downtown Woodstock.

Once we returned back in front of the cadre, we were instructed to line up youngest to oldest and dress our rucks to the man on the right, we were unfortunately talking too much and not DOING what was instructed! We had to pay the man and were then instructed to get our rucks overhead. While holding our rucks overhead, we were given a quick brief as to why we act quickly. We were then given another chance to dress our rucks and completed the task in 5 seconds. We received a brief introduction from both Cadres as well as brief synopsis of their careers in the military for those that were never graced by doing one of their GORUCK events.

Cadre JC lead the first part of the BD stating, ” If we wanted one of his Cadre patches, we had to earn it by completing his own personal WOD.” The WOD consisted of slick 100 burpees, 1 mile run, 50 burpees, 1 mile run ,and we were under the clock. Our run route was from the Amphitheater to the Fire Station on Arnold Mill Rd and back. We then broke up into 2 man teams to work together for the WOD. Each team worked, motivated, and helped one another. After bringing the Six in ,(Leave no man behind, and leave no man where you find him), we took a brief break to hydrate and get instruction from our next Cadre, Cadre Flash.

Cadre Flash had his own personal WOD. The WOD was called “DOC”, in remembrance of a bad MF corpsman, who was on the same team as Flash for 6 years. This WOD consisted of 99 ammo can thrusts (ruck squat thrusters), 26 merkins, 26 big boy sit-ups, 26 mountain climbers, and 26 Freddie Mercurys. After the WOD we had to link all (8) 40lb sandbags together to carry as a team. We had to perform 3 laps around the outside of the Amphitheater (up the ramp to the top and back down the side stairs to the bottom and repeat). We carried the sandbags at waist level for the first 2 laps and then on our shoulders for the final lap. As a team we shuffled the flats and walked the steps as best we could while getting pressured by Flash to hurry up! A few choice words were thrown in by the Cadre to help motivate us!

Our final evolution was to get all pax, rucks ,and the 8-linked sandbags up the 12ft or so wall of the Amphitheater. We had a few pax build a pyramid support to help get other pax up the wall and 2 supplied 550 cord and rope. Once we had a few pax up the wall, the 550 cord and rope was tied or clipped to the ruck handles to help expedite the gear up the wall. While pulling the 8 sandbag chain up the wall, E-Tools sandbag took a bit of a thrashing and gave birth to mini sandbags. Once we completed the evolution, we had to bring all gear back to the flag quickly and efficiently!

Both Cadre presented their patches to our 16 poor souls at the finish! We all made it smiling and drenched in sweat!

We ended in a COT and Flash led the Prayer. He had a special prayer they would read before going out on every mission. The prayer reads as follows…

Warrior Prayer

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

-Ephesians 6:17

We hope to have Flash and JC out for future WR beatdown in the near future….