The gear list for HH-073 said to arrive by 5:15pm for a 6:00pm start. They key here is the be here by 5:15. We started off with Tony telling us to line up in alphabetical order by first name at about 5:30pm. After we were in line, he said, “Now by last name.” We switched and moved to line up by last name. Our wavers were taken and we were told to go to the firewood near the end of the Spartan Race’s Sprint’s finish line. This was about 5:45pm. The 6:00pm start was a misdirection, as we really started at the line up at 5:30. That set the tone for the Hurricane Heat, expect the unexpected and think outside the box.
The hydration/ruck packs were not allowed to come off our backs unless Tony said so, which only happened once for the 3 and a half hours that we were under his leadership. I’m not going to recap the Hurricane Heat in super detail as I don’t want to ruin any surprises that one may expect during a Hurricane Heat, but with that said, some of the tasks that we had to do was build a Spartan Helmet out of fire wood, rope climb, burpees (110 of them as a group), memorize a song (we failed!), crawl under barbed wire, bear crawl up a hill and carry a fallen tree half a mile without it touching the ground. The tree took us a while to move it and took about 20 people rotating in to carry it in the time allowed to its final resting place.
I learned a few things that evening, the feeling of dread when Tony looks at his watch, I can rely on others and breaking things down to smaller tasks makes the big picture easier to understand and complete.
The Warrior Ethos was etched in our minds and we all lived it that night:
I will always place the mission first.
I will never accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade.
My fellow HH-073 members and I never gave up and worked as a team to successfully complete the Hurricane Heat. AROO my friends, AROOO!
