As many reading this blog know, at the end of 2015 I made the commitment to attend SEALFIT’s Kokoro Camp, a 50-hour non-stop beatdown billed as the hardest training in the civilian world. “Kokoro” is Japanese for “merging the heart and mind”, and Kokoro Camp was developed by retired Navy SEAL Commander Mark Divine to train future SEAL candidates for the physical and mental rigors of BUD/S. Since it began, more and more people like me, who want to train with the best and experience just what their limits are, have signed up to do it too. I attended Kokoro Camp 41, in February of 2016.
By the way, for those outside of the CrossFit Kent Island community, my name is Ryan Wolf, and I am the Head Coach at CrossFit Kent Island. My purpose in life, I have come to realize, is to develop myself as completely as possible through physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual training, and to lead and inspire others to do the same. It was that purpose that led me to leave my consulting career of 8 years and start a CrossFit gym on this small island east of Annapolis, and this purpose that has driven me toward progressively harder challenges, both in organized format like GoRuck Tough Challenges and Kokoro, as well as individual challenges on a regular basis, like 1,000 push-ups for time, or 1 mile of walking lunges.
The source of many of these challenges, and the best training for them, has come from the SEALFIT methodology. For those unfamiliar with SEALFIT, it shares the major goal of CrossFit in that it aims to get you more completely fit by training in the modalities of Strength, Stamina, Work Capacity, and Endurance. The difference between the two is that CrossFit workouts generally train one of those points of fitness each day, whereas a SEALFIT “Operator WOD” will last 2+ hours because you’re training it all. A heavy squat Strength session will turn into a Stamina workout including 200 squats, 100 box jumps and 400M of buddy carries, which is followed by a 15-minute intense AMRAP of wallballs, pull-ups, and burpees, and the whole OPWOD is capped with a 4-mile timed run. Getting through a workout like this requires determination and grit, a “no-quit” attitude, which was just what I would need to get through Kokoro. My training plan for 3 months leading up to Kokoro included 3 SEALFIT WODs per week, with the last month focused mostly on their longer Stamina-based “SOF WOD”, and also 2-3 longer runs and rucks every week. Since Kokoro, after some significant downtime from my depleted and injured state (keep reading!), I have resumed a regimen of 4 SEALFIT WODs each week, in order to keep training in not only the physical but also the mental and emotional spheres, and prepare for my next challenge, a 30-mile trail run in August.
After Kokoro, I wanted to write down my thoughts in a way that would help me remember and digest all the great lessons I learned. I also thought people might be interested in reading just what an event like this is all about – maybe they would want to do it someday too! Or maybe this could inspire them to reach out a little bit further into the uncomfortable zone and take on a different challenge that they see in their lives.
Before I get started, let me say that this is not an all-encompassing summary of what Kokoro Camp is about. There are a couple reasons for this. First of all, there are some memories of Kokoro that have to be earned by going through it, and those are just for my teammates and I. And secondly, Kokoro always changes — probably so that future campers don’t really know what’s coming, but also because each class is different, there are different instructors each time, and lots of other factors. So, caveat in place, the following is my recollection of SEALFIT Kokoro Camp, Class 41.
Check-in
I pulled into the parking lot and immediately got a good view of what would be our “base” for the majority of our time at Kokoro, an RV campground named Vail Lake Resort. “Resort” is an overstatement here, there was space to park your vehicle, a small house with a kitchen and a couple family room-type spaces, and a massive lake. The lake looked nice, if a little lacking in actual water – seems the recent droughts had sapped the lake quite a bit. I don’t know if any of the lake was deep enough to have to actually swim, although we would try soon enough.
Nine of us showed up with our black BDU pants and white t-shirts with our last names stenciled on front and back, and started introductions before actually checking in at 8am. We came from all over the country, and even internationally – California, Illinois, South Dakota, Colorado, Maryland, Canada, and even Hong Kong. Everyone seemed a bit nervous, but we tried to crack jokes and smile as much as possible. The instructors were milling around, getting gear set out for us, and generally looking menacing. At 8am sharp we checked in one at a time, receiving a canvas ruck with 2 empty sandbags, 2 MREs, 2 PowerBars (which I’ve come to hate), 2 water bottles, and a 5-foot length of PVC filled with sand and capped on both ends, which would be our weapons for the event and would go with us everywhere. When we had our gear, we mustered on a tennis court next to the house and waited about 30 minutes until the instructors were ready.
Introduction
The instructors that would start the camp with us introduced themselves and asked us to get to know each other as much as possible. We all should know something interesting about each of our fellow campers, and we got the feeling that we should really know these things or else. We were paired up with a swim buddy, who we would always need to stay with. Going to the porta-potty? Bring your swim buddy. Running from one evolution (training exercise or workout) to another? Stay with your swim buddy. Mine was Tommy Wornham, a CrossFit coach at SEALFIT HQ, a CrossFit Games Regional athlete, and overall bad dude and nice, funny guy. He had a freshly grown mustache, just for Kokoro. Although we would take turns leading different evolutions throughout the weekend, Tommy was the de facto class leader because of his superior performance and vocal leadership. I was lucky to be paired up with him, and learned a lot from him on how to lead from the front, and what true grit and determination looks like. Hooyah, Tommy!
We learned how to communicate with the coaches: “Hooyah” can mean “Yes” or “I understand”, and it’s expected to repeat instructions in a loud, united voice as a class.
Physical Fitness Test (PFT) and Hill Sprints, aka “The Low Point”
To apply for Kokoro Camp, you had to be able to pass minimum standards on their version of a Navy PFT. Max push-ups in 2 minutes, max sit-ups in 2 minutes, max squats in 2 minutes (50 of each are the minimum standard), max strict pull-ups without dropping from the bar (10 is the minimum), and then a 1-mile run in boots and pants in under 9:30. No big deal. Our first evolution would be to complete this PFT. Of course, before we started, we were punished for various infractions – not communicating as a group (push-ups), resting with our hands on our hips (burpees with your hands in your pockets… try that one at home), not knowing something interesting about your swim buddy as judged by the coaches (8-count body builders). Then we got to the PFT!
Before starting each exercise, we had to repeat to the coaches what our best PFT result was on our application. If we did not match those personal bests, it would not be very good – were we lying on our application? Had we not trained hard enough? A lot of pressure right off the bat!
My push-ups, sit-ups, squats and pull-ups all met or exceeded my previously reported bests. The run was a different story. To make the mile run a little more challenging, the middle of the course went straight downhill, and then of course straight up! I and a few others did not make our reported times, and so we did it again. Immediately. Of course, we still didn’t meet our time and we did it again. By this time, I was completely shot. My legs would not work, and I was doubled over trying to suck wind. Since re-running the mile again was out of the question, we formed a line behind the instructors’ pick-up truck as they drove up a trail that led up one of the big hills that lined the lake. We raced up the hill and back down for what seemed like an eternity and was probably just another 10 minutes, but by this time I was already in a dark place mentally. If this was what Kokoro was going to be like for 50 hours, could I make it? Did I train enough to keep up with these guys? Was everyone else feeling like this too? And then we stopped. I choked down a PowerBar as we climbed back down the hill, one of the Kokoro intern coaches walking alongside me, encouraging me, pushing me, and I think probably monitoring me to make sure I wouldn’t pass out. Using Coach Andy’s support and my mental preparation, I tried to bring myself back to a positive state. I started repeating a mantra that Denee had written in a card for me, which was actually pulled from the SEALFIT Kokoro website. “Tough, focused, resilient, impossible to stop. Tough, focused, resilient, impossible to stop.” I focused in on the third word – resilient. I told myself that this was going to be one of my serious low points, but that it was over. Now I had to be resilient, and attack the next evolution with gusto. I would not quit.
Grinder PT
I was the last one to jog back onto the Grinder (tennis court), and some of my classmates were already knocking out push-ups, doing duck walks with their weapons overhead, and getting sprayed with hoses in the face. This looked amazing to me – at least we weren’t running! I jumped in and got with my swim buddy and we got generally harassed by the instructors for who knows how long – maybe an hour. There were tubs full of ice water that we slipped into one or two at a time, which I took as a welcome relief from the heat – it was close to noon now and getting really hot. I have to say I don’t remember much of what happened exactly during this Grinder PT sesh, but it was non-stop action and confusion. Good times!
Building a Base and Mortar Range, aka Sandbags Aren’t Cool
After a quick burrito lunch, where we got to sit down and relax for 15 minutes, we were tasked with building a base down by t
he lake, with camouflage netting and tent poles, as well as filling up some sandbags to fortify the base. We took this time to get to know each other and drink lots of water!
Following that, our next job was to create a mortar range — basically creating piles of sandbags at regular intervals across about half a mile of terrain. That was a long, heavy process, after which one of the instructors checked our work and it was unsatisfactory. Time to get punished again, with lots of burpees, I’m sure. To be honest, at this point I was already tired enough that the details of the events elude me!
We left the sandbags out on the range, and they would come back into play later on…
Into the Water and Mud
In the late afternoon, it was time to get wet! We would run races down the small (but dangerously steep) beach, lay down in a couple feet of water which also had a solid couple feet of mud underneath it, and then struggle onto the beach, sometimes upright if you were lucky and got some traction in the mud, sometimes crawling for a while because it was quicker. We would race back up the beach, huffing and puffing across the line. The winner of the race would get to take the next race off, under a policy called “It Pays to be a Winner”. Usually we were expected to stay together as a class, encouraging and pushing each other but moving as a group. When the instructors would say “It Pays to be a Winner”, it turned into a no-holds-barred sprint. Sometimes everyone except the winner would have to race again, or maybe the winner would watch as the losers would get some extra love from the instructors. Either way, it was a great motivator.
After a long session of getting wet and muddy, with countless sprints through the sand and up and down hills, the coaching staff cooled it down for a bit and we got to experience their collective sense of humor. They asked us to crawl out into an especially muddy bit of lake, and get waist deep in the water. So, about calf-deep in the mud, with a small covering of water – hooyah! We bunched ourselves together, and a different type of “It Pays to be a Winner” game began. They would throw a tennis ball way up in the air, in the middle of our group, and we had to fight to catch the ball. Or sometimes they would peg the ball right at one of us and see if we could catch it with our cold, mud-caked hands. The instructors throwing the ball at us were a former NFL tight end, and a Texas Tech quarterback. They were throwing the ball high, and/or hard! This was the one time that I differentiated myself a little bit, catching three balls before anyone else, so I got to get out of the water and sit down on the beach for a little bit. Hooyah, baseball skills! Gotta start playing catch every day with my boys now, not so they make it to the Majors, but just in case they decide to do Kokoro Camp someday!!
“Coach”, Coyotes, and Chow
By now it was about dinnertime, and we got a chance to get cleaned up and put on some new gear, and then go inside and eat another burrito. This burrito thing would become a theme, as would my body’s reaction to the food. I brought some bronchitis into the event, and the medicine I was taking gave my stomach fits. I don’t think my belly had recovered by the time Kokoro started, and now ever time I ate something, I felt like it needed to come right back out. Crappy Mexican food didn’t help.
After dinner and a quick check of our feet and overall condition, we sat down outside and got to meet Coach Mark Divine, the founder of SEALFIT, for the first time. Coach Divine is not an intimidating presence, although he was an active duty and reserve SEAL for 22 years. He is, however, a commanding presence – he speaks with authority and has an aura of honesty and integrity – two values that he stresses in his Unbeatable Mind mental training program. He makes you feel like what he is saying is the absolute most important thing in the world, and for me at this point, it was.
Coach Divine asked us each to disclose our “why”, meaning our reason for coming to Kokoro Camp, and more importantly, the reason that we would fall back on when things got really rough and the thought of “maybe I should quit” started to creep in. My “why”, I had come to realize, it was the fact that I had committed to this experience and the completion of Kokoro Camp to so many people – my family and friends, my fellow CrossFit Kent Island coaches and athletes – and if I backed out just because it started to get harder than I wanted it to, well that just wasn’t going to be news I wanted to come back home with. The original reason I signed up for Kokoro was more goal-oriented: I love developing people and leading them through tough physical and mental experiences like CrossFit and SEALFIT workouts, and I want to bring a legit SEALFIT program to CrossFit Kent Island. But I knew I couldn’t rely on that reason to keep me there. If that was my “why”, then if I wanted to quit, I just wouldn’t meet that goal of bringing SEALFIT to CFKI. So what? But the intense desire not to let down people that I respect, and to inspire them instead of disappointing them – now THAT kept me in the fight!
As Coach Divine spoke with us about mental toughness and creating a life that really matters, coyotes howled in the background. The sun had fully set now, and the reality of the night was starting to set in. Things were about to get really cold.
A Long, Cold Night
To start the night, there was an instructor shift change, and the new head instructor was a tree of a man, named… Tree. Tree immediately made his role as “bad cop” known by punishing us for not being prepared for something we were not told to be prepared for. Because we didn’t have a piece of equipment ready that we would need for the next evolution, we ran down to the water to get wet and sandy, and then sprinted back up in a “pays to be a winner” race. I was not the winner, so back I went again, about 100 yards to the water, wet and sandy and back up. The punishment worked – going forward we were a lot more focused as a team on getting to the next evolution on time and with all of our necessary gear. The threat of unnecessary PT is a strong motivation!
We spent the first part of the night running down the beach into the cold, muddy lake, getting completely submerged (or else we had to do it again – sometimes we had to do it again just because) and then warming up by a fire that the instructors were huddled around. We got to tell some jokes – if it was a good one they would let us stay by the fire a little while longer, and talk to the instructors a little more about why we were there, and what we wanted to get out of this. Those moments around the fire stick in my mind as others that were not so fun fade away, because we were bonding as a group and realizing the gravity and sheer amazingness of what we had all chosen to do, all for very different and personal reasons.
It was right after one of those discussions when the instructors sent us down to the lake again, that we lost our first teammate. He just didn’t run down to the lake with us, and stayed up with the instructors. When we got back up to the fire, he was walking back up to the main house with one of the instructors. We asked what happened, and Tree said “he just didn’t want to get in that water again.” I’m not sure if they tried to talk him out of it or what, it happened pretty quickly.
At one point in the night, we took a break from the water and got to play super-spies for a little bit. During the day we had learned how to patrol and how to set a perimeter to watch for the enemy. Now we practiced this at night, sneaking up to some of the instructors around the fire, taking a quick peek at some items that were laid out on the tailgate of a truck, and then sneaking back to our hideout to report back on what we saw. They call this a Keep-In-Mind, or KIM game, and it is practiced by SEALs and other ninja-types to build up their memory capacity. We didn’t get very many right, and so we were sent back to try again. This time we got captured by the instructors, and they upped the stakes – get it right or get wet again! We really didn’t want to get wet again. We got wet again. On the way back up from the water, we discussed the items as a group. We thought we had it! We didn’t, and back to the water. After a few more trips, we collectively remembered the items correctly and saved ourselves! The lesson here: get it right the first time!
We got checked out medically – our feet for bad blisters or other overuse issues, and then stashed an MRE and some PowerBars in our rucks for a nighttime hike around the lake. How far around the lake, and with how many detours, was unknown – maybe even to our instructors who it seemed might have gotten lost a few times! In the end, we were probably out there for 5 hours or so, stopping for a couple meal and snack breaks and to get to know the instructors a bit more. We finished the hike with a brutal CrossFit-style workout – burpees, push press with our weapons, and mountain climbers, mixed with sprints up a hill. It was tough, but two things stuck out to me. The first was that we were really pulling for each other, cheering and helping each other out up the hill sprints. I feel like this is where we really started to come together as a team. The second was that the sun was now up, which meant we had survived a full day and night. We just had to do that one more time to make it through Kokoro 41!
Day 2 Begins
No rest for the weary, as the saying goes, and we were back at it again after some chow (probably another burrito…) Those damn sandbags that we had placed at regular intervals away from our firebase couldn’t stay out there, and so the mission at hand seemed relatively simple – go get them and bring them back. But this is Kokoro, which meant that two things would make it more difficult. One, there was a time hack, or deadline that we had to hit. Two, we couldn’t just walk them back, we had to bear crawl them. How do you bear crawl with sandbags? Take a couple steps forward on your hands and feet, drag the heavy-ass sandbag underneath you, and repeat. The closest sandbags were 100 yards away from our base; the furthest were 800 yards. We had two hours. It was not enough time, so when time was up we had to run the rest in and then get right into the next evolution – Log PT!
Log PT is a teamwork event, in that the logs are sections of telephone pole that feel like they have been waterlogged in iron. So, ironlogged? So we had to carry them and workout with them in teams of 4. We learned some basic movements with the log – squatting, pressing overhead, and how to pick the logs up and put them down safely. Then we did some craziness like bench pressing the logs, doing sit-ups, and doing curls by bringing the log from shoulder to waist to shoulder. As a CrossFitter, these exercises were very familiar and though my muscles were burning and we did way more reps than any of us thought possible, the real reason for this was to gel us as a team. Working with a log identified some weaker individuals, and the rest of us were forced to pick up their slack, and figure out how to get the job done with less people or how to use people effectively that couldn’t complete the whole task. What a great way to drill teamwork and leadership under pressure, and once again we came out of that evolution a little bit closer, protecting each other and picking each other up both physically and emotionally.
After all the PT, we did some fun 4-man races around the base, which was about a 1 mile loop. After a while, we switched from carrying logs to carrying each other, the instructors splitting us up into two even teams so that it was competitive. I realized that although I was physically exhausted, I was now running on the energy I was drawing from the rest of my team, and I didn’t want to give up on them and I knew they didn’t want to give up on me. Until…
Murph
The sun was all the way up for sure now, maybe about 2pm. We knew going into Kokoro that “Murph” would be a part of it – we had to submit our best time as part of the application. Murph is the following for time, for the uninitiated: Run 1 mile, 100 Pull-ups, 200 Push-ups, 300 Squats, Run 1 mile. For hard-chargers like us, a 20-lb weight vest is worn throughout the workout. We had to be able to do this under 70 minutes in order to even show up to Kokoro. Now we were going to do it with the same time limit, but under the hot California sun and after more than a day of non-stop exercise. “This should be interesting,” I thought to myself as we drank water and prepared ourselves to start. One guy looked like he was packing up his stuff, and was wearing clean pants and a t-shirt. We all approached him and told him he wasn’t quitting, to put his stuff down and “just get through this one”. We knew that Murph was going to be a huge climax in our Kokoro experience, and felt that if he could just power through this one, it would be smooth sailing from there. He had struggled on the previous night’s hike and in every evolution since, and it seemed like his head wasn’t in the game anymore. There was no convincing him; he was done.
A little bit down, we lined up to start. The instructors, maybe sensing the mood of the group, or maybe it was always the plan, told us to take our rucks off that were loaded with a 20-lb sandbag. We would be doing Murph without the additional weight. Wow, instant good feelings there! We were also instructed to break up the work after the first run into sets of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 squats. Now we’re talking, easy day! Then we were off. A few people darted ahead to get the first mile done quickly. I stayed in the middle of the pack because I knew by this point they were stronger runners, and i would catch them on the PT. I got back from the mile loop still about middle of the pack, and got to work. About 5 rounds to go, and myself and my swim buddy Tommy, a ridiculous athlete and former CrossFit Games competitor, were in the lead. Meaning, he was in the lead and I was like 5 rounds behind him! At this point though, I realized that my CrossFit and SEALFIT OPWOD preparation in the year prior to Kokoro was paying off. Everyone else was tanking, getting “no-rep” called on their pull-ups, and falling way behind. Tommy was out on his run and a few minutes later I was chasing after him. I didn’t really think I was going to catch him, especially with the imminent diarrhea that had taken over my mind at about round 18 of 20. The porta-potty was about halfway through the run course, so I set my sights there and ran, clenched-butt most of the way, right into the john. A few minutes later, I burst out of there (I used sanitizer, don’t worry Mom) and a free mind ran the back half of the course, back up to the tennis courts where our gear was staged and “Murph” began. My time was 1 hour and 4 minutes, and a teammate that I nicknamed Big Hurt ran in behind me at 1 hour and 6 minutes. The remaining 4 did not complete Murph on time. I don’t know if they got extra PT or what, but all I know is that as soon as we got back, we were allowed to strip off all of our clothes and crawl into an ice bath with a Gatorade. Wow, that felt good. Maybe the other guys didn’t get Gatorades? As more people got back and crowded us in the tubs, they started cycling us out, but not before dumping more icy water over our heads. Didn’t see that one coming at first, but I think I handled it pretty well. Coach Derek said “come on Wolf, it’s not as fun for us if you don’t scream”. There were other screamers though, and the instructors had a good time.
A Long Walk
After Murph and the ice bath, we got a chance to change into clean clothes, hydrate and eat some food. One thing that was known to a bunch of us going into Kokoro was that there would be a night hike up Palomar Mountain, and we hadn’t done that yet, so it was looming in the horizon. We were told to pack a couple MREs and a bunch of PowerBars, and two canteens of water into our rucks, along with a 20-lb sandbag. As we were getting our stuff ready, we noticed a few more clean-looking individuals milling around, getting the same gear we were, but generally keeping to themselves and looking a bit lost. It looked like us on Friday morning! At this stage in the game, we weren’t told to talk to them and so we didn’t. Following instructions to a “T” had become second nature! We lined up and waited for orders for probably 20 minutes, and the new guys filed into a line facing us. There were 7 of us at this point, and I think maybe 7 of them. Sensing that we had no idea what was going on, Coach Dave explained that these guys were also doing some SEALFIT training, and were just getting started, and they would be joining us on our next evolution. We were instructed to meet them, let them know about what we had done so far, and generally get to know them. So we did! I asked the guy in front of me his name and what he did for a living. His name was Diaz, and he was an actor. I heard the guy next to him say “and I’m a model and an actor.” I looked down the line, and realized for the first time that these guys were for the most part very handsome, tall dudes. What was going on here? Before we could chat very much, we were loaded into vans – one for our class, one for theirs – and we headed to Palomar Mountain for what would be our longest and most challenging evolution.
After an hour of very erratic driving so that we wouldn’t fall asleep (we had also warned each other not to fall asleep, so that we wouldn’t incur any special beatings when we arrived), we arrived at the foot of the mountain. Maybe because we were joined by the actors, or maybe just to wake us up from the ride, we were immediately thrown into a frenzy of PT for a good 20 minutes. And then we heard “FOLLOW ME!” and Coach John took off up the mountain trail at a sprint. We followed, sprinting in spurts as much as we could and otherwise doing what I would call a “fast hike”. The trail was uphill the whole time, and after 10 minutes we slowed the pace down to allow stragglers to catch up and settled into a pace that was easy enough to talk in short spurts. We kept getting to know our new teammates, and as it turns out, they were actors training up for a new History Channel show called “Six”, about SEAL Team Six’s recent exploits. They had hired the SEALFIT crew to get them into peak physical shape, and also generally how to act the part. The show hadn’t started filming yet, but there were TV cameras all over the place on this hike, and the rumor was we might inadvertently be in the trailer! Lucky situation for us as a class to get to know these guys, and also lucky to have some fresh guys to push us up the mountain. We were really beat up and tired at this point, and the fact that these guys were pushing hard made us step our game up, too.
After a couple hours, the sun went down. Stopping about every hour to hydrate, we climbed and climbed. Probably about midnight after we stopped for an MRE, I realized that I was hallucinating. I would see things that weren’t there, like cars in the middle of the trail blocking our way. I saw massive caves cut into the side of the mountain, and looking closer realized they were small bushes that my eyes were blowing up out of proportion. Tommy was calling out “Snake!” so that people behind him didn’t step on the (imaginary) snakes that he was avoiding as he walked. The instructors, understanding our predicament, gave us some tips on grounding yourself in reality again.
We had been walking for a long time – I’m going to say 6 hours – when we were told, based on a mission scenario where we were trying to evade contact with the enemy, to start back down the mountain. What a relief! We started back down the mountain and everyone’s spirits were high, but it was short-lived. We made enemy contact, and had a “fire-fight” which consisted of 50 burpees. Then, having won the fight (Hooyah!!), we started back up the hill. “What? I thought we were headed back down?”, I thought, letting some negative emotion seep into my head. An hour later, and a similar situation presented itself. The instructors would mix up the scenarios – sometimes we had to recon an area further up the mountain and then report back, sometimes we had to hide in the scrub brush and hang out in a defensive perimeter. One evasive maneuver that sticks out to me because it caused so much post-Kokoro pain was a 100-meter low crawl on the gravel trail. My elbows and knees looked like pork carnitas after that, even though I was wearing a sweatshirt and long pants. I had open cuts and scabs on my elbows for 2 weeks! If there was one 15-minute stretch of Kokoro that I could take back, that was it!
We finally started down the mountain for real, and the mental relief was diminished a little bit by the severe muscle fatigue, and some really achy feet! I didn’t have any bad blisters but my feet were cramping big time. Another post-Kokoro condition that lasted from Mount Palomar was complete numbness of my right big toe for about 1 month. Weird!
After Kokoro was over, the instructors let us in on a coincidence that they just had to share – someone had their iPhone GPS on, and we had rucked 26 miles during the night, a marathon!
The Beach
When we got back to the base of the mountain, we loaded into the vans and took a 20-minute drive to the coast. Tommy, who lives in San Diego, said that we ended up in Carlsbad. All I knew was that we were at the beach! When I originally signed up for Kokoro, I thought that we would be based out of SEALFIT HQ in Encinitas, which is right on the water. As it turns out, the Vail Lake Resort was our home base, and this was the first time we had seen the ocean! It was very early morning, maybe about 3am, so everything was dark but the sound of the waves crashing was deafening as we got out of the van and gathered ourselves for what was to come.
Pretty immediately, we were in the water. We would walk in as a class, arms linked, and turn around to face the beach in about knee-deep water. Then we sat down, and waited for each wave to crash into us, resisting the riptide’s effort of separating us as the water sucked back into the deep Pacific. The water was cold, but colder still was the wind whipping off the water when we got out. The instructors made sure that we warmed up quickly though with tons of PT in the sand, “it pays to be a winner” races down to the next lifeguard stand and back, and buddy carries (and drags) up and down the sand berms. I was much more comfortable in the water! One of us wasn’t though, and he had been a poor performer that the coaching staff wanted to get rid of. They used the surf torture sessions to drive up his already building self-talk that he was going to quit, and one even went as far as yelling out at one point “We are going to continue doing this until ____ quits!” About 3 more cold, strong waves, and he was done. He broke away from my arm, and walked up to the instructors. The next time we saw him was in the van when we were done at the beach. That was awkward.
After a few hours of “ocean confidence” sessions, the sun started to come up. We all knew that we were almost done! One of the coaches showed up with breakfast. Breakfast burritos! They were super dry, and hard to choke down even though we were so hungry. Too bad – we were told to eat them in 5 minutes or we would be eating in the water. 5 minutes went by really quickly, and we started to march into the water, burritos in hand. As we turned around to face the beach, 6 coaches were standing in front of us, each with a cup of Starbucks coffee. What?? As a gesture of kindness, they allowed us to sit down with our coffee and breakfast and just hang out for about 10 minutes. It was incredible, and I’ve never had a better cup of coffee in my life. When we were done with our breakfast, we got our gear together and loaded up the vans for an hour ride back to Vail Lake.
The End
If we knew we were almost done when we got back to Vail Lake on Sunday morning, we also knew it was probably going to be a rough road ahead. We grouped up with Coach Lance, who was standing on the back of a pick-up truck. “Oh no”, I thought to myself, not another long-ass run. My confidence in my running ability, especially after last night’s long ruck, was very low. However, I knew that whatever came up, I would complete it. I was WAY too close to the end to stop now. Coach Lance briefed us on a hero workout we would be completing for Tom Norris, a Navy SEAL who received the Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War (the first conflict for the newly minted SEALs after transitioning from the Underwater Demolition Teams or UDT). Tom Norris was awarded the Medal of Honor for rescuing a downed Air Force pilot behind enemy lines. We would be conducting a rescue mission as well – one of the coaches was playing the downed pilot, and we had to find and rescue him. Half of us would be swimming across the lake to get to his general location and then find him, the other half (including me) would be running around the lake. Damn! I don’t know how many times I’ve said I would rather swim than run, but this was another one. I’m pretty sure the coaches knew I didn’t want to run too. But off we went, and after about 2 miles we were on the other side. We linked up with our swimmers and searched the scrub brush and woods for our pilot. We actually had a really hard time finding him – I think he was too well hidden for 6 sleep-deprived zombies – and so eventually he just came out of the trees and said “here I am, guys!” Pretty funny. So now we had him and we had to exfiltrate him from the area and into a safe zone that we were told about, further around the lake. We jogged in a spread formation, looking out for any bogeys in the area, and found our team of coaches that were ready to take the pilot to safety.
Our mission was over, and we went right into the next one – this would be a bit more personal. We were told to find a rock that represented our will to live. As big as our will to live was, that was the size of the rock we should select. There were a bunch of rocks around us, some more menacing than others. I chose one that was about 50 pounds and not too awkward of a shape. The instructors chose one for Tommy, who was still the strongest performer by far. It was not a light rock, and it was very awkward in shape, like a horseshoe. We had to each hoist that rock and carry it back to our base camp, which now was about 2 miles away. There was no penalty for dropping it, but as they described it – why would you drop your will to live? Hold on to it, and carry it with you for the distance, to prove to yourself that you are mentally and emotionally strong. Physically, we were absolute garbage at that point. So this test was a final one for our mental fortitude, our grit. Hooyah!! I took off at a slow jog with the rock on one shoulder, and then the other, switching about every minute when it really started to burn. One by one, we made it back to base camp and the instructors let us sit the rock down for a second, and then go back and help our teammates who were still working. Tommy was the last one in and as a class, we were pretty fired up. After a long team-oriented experience, we had a chance to prove to ourselves individually that we could do it, that we were still strong after all the beat-downs. I felt so alive, even though I was having a hard time thinking clearly!
We were instructed to pick up our rocks again, and this time, the rocks would represent some emotional baggage that we wanted to get rid of. We were about 50 yards from a little drop-off or cliff, and we threw our rocks about 5 yards at a time toward the cliff. Each time, we would shout something that we wanted to get out of our emotional lives. Someone shouted, “My fear of BUD/S!” Another camper said, more quietly, “my hate for my dad”. Everyone was letting go, and feeling the relief of saying those things out loud that we usually keep inside. As we got closer to the cliff, our final throw would be the climax, the biggest emotional weight to lift off our chests. Of course these are very personal, but I don’t mind sharing that my last one was about letting go of my fear of failure. I have always stopped short of taking on very large challenges, in my personal life and in work. Reflecting on it as we were throwing rocks, I think it was because I did not want people that I loved and respected thinking less of me when I failed. Now, as I was launching my rock into the abyss, I was letting go of this fear, and I can honestly say that this exercise has helped me the most out of any Kokoro evolution. I now feel confident taking on new challenges and roles, as long as they fit with my personal ethos and my purpose in life.
Our rocks out of sight, we gathered around Coach Lance for our next briefing. “You guys have been working really hard, and that last one was really tough. But we still have some work left to do,” said Coach Lance. “There is a shitload of barbecue and beer sitting up at the house.” Pause for dramatic effect. “Kokoro Class 41, you are secured.” Done. We did it! We F&%*$ing did it!!!!
We filtered up to the house and stowed our gear, and with the weight of the weekend sinking in, grabbed a beer, a Gatorade, and some delicious food. We sat out back of the house on the pool deck, and debriefed with the instructors on everything that happened, what we learned, and got some impressions from them on what they learned about us.
I caught a ride back to my hotel in Temecula from one of the instructors, and passed out for several hours, waking up to call my wife and Mom, letting them know I was done and also gradually chowing a pizza from a local joint.
Conclusion
Looking back now, at pictures of our class shouting “HOOYAH!!!” at the camera or us shivering at the beach, I think, “I can’t believe I did that. I can’t believe I stuck it out there for so long when others didn’t.” I feel bad for those that quit, because now they have to deal with that regret, and I hope that they try for it again. But I’m also grateful, especially for the first quitter, because it reminded me of why I wasn’t going to quit – that I didn’t want that remorse of saying I was going to do something and then not doing it. I didn’t want to call my wife and tell her I was coming home early because I couldn’t cut it. To the guys that finished with me, McCrossan (McCrossFit), Tommy, Hurtado (The Big Hurt), Ogren, Greczyn (Gretchen), you are all complete animals and I had a blast with you that one sunny California weekend. To the instructors, too many to mention, I learned so much and will pass on so much of what you shared about perseverance and teamwork. These guys are the best set of coaches ever assembled, as fit as you could ever hope to be, as close to psychologists as you can be without a Ph.d., and the greatest summoners of the “best you can be” that I’ve ever seen. I hated the first two hours and then loved every minute of it after that. Hooyah SEALFIT Kokoro 41!