I will eventually regale you with the full story of my GORUCK Challenge experience. It was, by almost any standard, one of the most difficult things I’ve ever experienced yet also one of the most rewarding and educational.

For now, I’m exhausted, in pain, drained, and almost delirious with tiredness. So, such tales will follow, I promise. Let me just suffice to say that I had amazing teammates and every stitch of it was earned by them as much as myself. And that is, perhaps, the most important lesson that this experience teaches. It’s not about you, it’s about every other member of your team. It’s as much your job to get yourself through as it is to get them through (actually, more so). What gets you through is that they hold this same standard for themselves and you. And this is the very definition of teamwork.