Intestinal Fortitude

“Intestinal Fortitude”

That’s what the mission hardened Navy SEAL used to say back in my Navy days.  I was a BUDS (Basic Underwater Demolition School/SEAL) training dropout yet I learned a lot of valuable lessons that continue to pay off.  While ORT training is about 1/80^th as difficult as what SEALs do, the basic message of performing under adverse circumstances is one which is communicated during our races and missions.

Last Saturday we decided to crank it up a notch and will continue to do so.  Following our warm up jog which consisted of jogging and plyometrics, we implemented a race survival conditioning circuit.  The 1^st phase consisted of running down the bank, swimming across stream into an eddy, swimming back across and climbing into a boat, running back up the bank, and then performing push ups, flutter kicks, split squats, crunches, and then doing this two more times without a break.

After a quick water break the 2nd phase of training focused on crew communication. An R5 and R4 crew had to either seal launch or swim out to their boat while another member bagged the paddle-less crew in from the shore.  Bagger duties were switched as the rest of the crew carried the boat back to the top of the course for another lap without a break.

The boys had a few minutes to catch their breath as we split up into R2 crews.  We then did a 5 boat mass start head to head race from the put in on the Upper Wind to about 1 mile below Climax.  After some, well maybe a lot of bumping, yelling, pushing, tree boofing, and drafting my boat finally settled into second place behind Dr. Frankenstein and Professor.  They maintained their lead by styling nice lines right up to Rams Horn where for some reason they went right and got rodeoed out in the meat allowing us to pass on the left.  Now that’s whitewater  racin!

Ox and No Karl graciously bumped them out of the hole (we weren’t going to stop!).  These two crews battled for the next mile and a half with Ox’s boat edging them by literally one second at the finish!

For the R4 stage of training we rolled up the Aire Pumas and used them as dead weight in the middle of our Aire D Series boats which were then each loaded with two R4 crews.  This “race” consisted of trying to move one’s arms and shoulders as lactic acid wreaked havoc on their ability to stay focused.

After rolling the boats we ran up the take out hill to the to the parking area and peeled off our gear.  Drysuits?  Not.  Cant wait until next time!  What kind of course can we come up with next…wonder if we can find someone with a helicopter?