Embrace the Suck

by Stephen Madden

  I was used to this, and I knew I’d feel better afterward. And as disgusting and disconcerting as it may have been to a stranger, and as off-putting, to me it was just another day at this particular office.

  So, yeah. “I’m okay. I got this.”

  The rest of the morning unfolded in a series of exercises and lectures, all designed to reinforce the main tenet of SEALFIT: You can do more than you think you can, and you can do way more than you think you can if you work as a team, with each individual giving his or her maximum effort while playing to your individual strengths, as long as the team has a plan going into the task. Rather than seeing this whole thing as a competition between individuals, we should, Divine said, figure out a way to use each other’s strengths while minimizing our weaknesses. We read aloud the SEAL creed, and we read “Invictus,” the hoary old staple of high school yearbooks that, in this setting, seemed less like a source of inspirational quotes and more of a mission statement: “I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.” Whether I succeeded or failed was entirely up to me. No voice in my head could tell me what to do or hold me back if I didn’t want it to. Run or quit, the choice was mine. With each successive exercise, and each successive lecture, the SEALFIT guys were reinforcing the message that teams succeeded because of individual effort, and individuals succeeded because the team succeeded. But true success only came when every single person on the team worked as hard and as smart as they could—they put out—because they knew their teammates were doing the same. Strong members would help weaker members, because they knew that sooner or later the roles would be reversed somehow.

  Divine told us that SEALs need to be able to do three things at the same time, and do them well: shoot their weapons effectively, move, and communicate with other team members. We didn’t have weapons, but we did move a lot, and communication—not often a strong point among men, and certainly not in what, despite all their exhortations to teamwork, remained a competitive environment—wasn’t a strong point.

  The best example of this came midmorning. A CrossFit gym is a repository of a staggering amount of stuff: pairs of dumbbells of all weights and sizes, medicine balls, AbMats, jump ropes, barbells, weight plates, yoga mats, stretching bands, giant tires, sledgehammers, sandbags, racks to put all this stuff on. Divine divided us up into two teams and told us to move all the stuff at one end of the gym to the other as fast as we could, and to keep an inventory of everything we moved.

  Sounds easy, but it’s not. The first impulse of almost everyone on the team was to grab a piece of the gear and run it to the other end of the gym. But wait: Would it be faster to make a bucket chain? Who was keeping track of all this stuff? Could we just leave the weights on the racks and roll them down, making one very sweaty trip instead of ten less sweaty trips? The trick, Divine said: before you do anything, make a plan and designate responsibilities, and work together. Somehow, I ended up as the scribe, keeping track of everything and noting counts on a whiteboard, playing to my strengths while minimizing the effect of my weaknesses on the team.

  The same lessons were reinforced when each team was assigned a giant log. Hurricane Sandy had recently blown through the area and had decimated the local forests, so Rutan had found two beautiful logs, each weighing about five hundred pounds. They had been shaved of their bark and sanded smooth. One was christened Inspiration, the other Perspiration. Each team had to work together to lift the log from the ground to right shoulder height, then overhead, then to the left shoulder, then down, then back over the top. We also sat on the ground, held the log at chest level, and did sit-ups as a group. If we didn’t work as one, if we didn’t communicate, we didn’t complete the lift. It took a while, but we eventually got the hang of it and started to feel like a team. As proof, Divine had us hold the log up on one end and support it as a unit while one of our teammates climbed the log and sat on top. There was no way I thought this would be possible. But it was. There was our guy, on top of Old Inspiration, laughing down at us. I was starting to get the sense that we really were all capable of more than we thought.

  Lunch was put out for us, and I chose wisely, a few carrots, an energy bar, half a turkey sandwich, and about a gallon of water. We ate in hurried bites and were told to change from our sweaty clothes into warmer, drier clothes: we were headed outside.

  “The good news,” said the older instructor, who we now knew was named Bruce, “is that it’s one p.m. You’ve made it this far. The bad news is that it’s only one p.m.”

  At that point, we donned cheap little rucksacks filled with 10 percent of our body weight in sand. We were then handed PVC pipes filled with another fourteen pounds of sand. “This is how much your weapon would weigh were you to be issued one in Afghanistan,” he said. We headed out the door, in a line behind Bruce, and we started to walk. Fast. Then we started to run. Bruce led us along the side of the road in the industrial park. Then down into a drainage ditch. Around trees. Back to the road. Across the road. Up and down. The most disconcerting thing was having no idea of where we were going, or how long this was going to last. It just … it just was. This was what I was doing today. As much as it sucked to try to keep up with Bruce, who moved effortlessly, I was okay with it. There was a lot of yelling about staying together and working as a unit, about taking a turn carrying the huge rope we had brought. It was raining. It sucked. But so what? I was giving in to it and embracing the suck.

  Eventually, we got to a park where we took turns hiding and hunting each other down. Basically, you had to burrow under the wet leaves and lie there until somebody stumbled over you. The basic lesson: don’t think that if you cover yourself with wet leaves you’ll be hidden from view. Work together. Have someone else cover you so you’re well and truly hidden. Be a team.

  Lying under the wet leaves was surprisingly warm, though, and gave me a half hour or so to relax and recover, and to think. This isn’t so bad. I can get through the rest of this. I can take anything for a few more hours, right? I wish I had a Snickers bar right now. Fuck that Paleo shit. I wonder what Anne and the kids are doing. How are all my friends at home? And this one, from near the stem of my brain: There’s no way the Hatfields could do this. No way. This was all me.

  Then it was on to a tug-of-war, and a team exercise to get everyone up into a massive tree using the rope. The highlight of this exercise was when one of the two South African guys in the group fell from about fifteen feet up, hit the ground with an impressive sigh as the air left his lungs, and got back up to eventually rejoin the group. Talk about never quitting a workout. Hard-fucking-core.

  I started to fade on the run back to the box. A younger, much fitter teammate named Paul—first name? last name? I still don’t know—kept his hand on my back and pushed me the whole way. It was a huge boost. The contact, the support, the energy, the acknowledgment that I wasn’t doing as well as the rest but was still putting out. This was being a good teammate, a good guy. This was looking out for people.

  Finally, finally, we returned to the box and changed again, this time into shorts and Tshirts, then gathered around the whiteboard, which this time featured a photograph of a sailor in dress uniform, and a workout, whom we all recognized as Murph. This, we were told, was the central part of the 20X experience, because Murph epitomized what being a good teammate was all about. And our three instructors had all known Murph.

  Instructor Brad read aloud the citation that accompanied Murph’s Medal of Honor as we stood around, tired and sore, knowing what was coming: a mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats, and another mile run. All on top of the hours that had gone before. The citation wasn’t exactly the St. Crispin’s Day Speech, but it had the same effect on us. It described how Murph, as part of a four-man team sent to a mountain village to capture a local Taliban leader, had exposed himself to enemy fire in order to catch a clear radio signal back to headquarters to request additional support when they had lost the element of surprise. “Murph knew that by doing that he could get hit,
but he did it anyway,” Brad said, before saying, “and yeah, he got hit, and he died.”

  Divine spoke up. “We take this workout very, very seriously,” he said. “It’s a way for us, for you, to honor Murph’s sacrifice. All that we ask of you here is everything that you have. Just like Murph.”

  We donned our sand-filled rucks and started. This mile felt different from the sufferfest of the morning, though. I wasn’t any faster, but I wasn’t in uncharted territory. I had done Murph before, and knew I had about seventy minutes of putting out ahead of me. So I ran. I ran and I didn’t stop. I wasn’t the last guy back into the box. The mile took just more than ten minutes.

  I partitioned the workout, as most people do, into ten sets: 10 pull-ups, 20 push-ups, 30 squats. The pull-ups were agony, and within a few sets, I was really struggling. Instructor Brad, the guy with the David Byrne glasses, was back at my side. Fuck, I thought. Here it comes. More shit.

  “Come on, Madden, you got this,” he said, leaning in, his voice devoid of the sharp edges that had defined it before. “You can do it. Use this box. Step up and grab the bar.”

  Something had turned, in both me and the instructors. I had tried all day, applied myself, put out, didn’t complain. I knew I was no standout—in fact, I was probably one of the weakest guys here—but I tried as hard as I could. And that was what they wanted. It’s what I wanted from myself. I don’t know this for a fact, but my sense was that rather than beat us down, now that they saw that we were serious, they were building us up. I paused and looked around the room. It seemed to be happening everywhere.

  “Here, use this band,” Brad said, slipping a giant rubber band—like the ones I used at the Annex—over the bar, which became a giant slingshot to help me get my chin up and over. Total cheating. To make up for this, I did hand-release push-ups. Basically, when you lower yourself to the ground, you lift your hands up. There’s no way to cheat. When Bruce and Brad told me I was making it harder on myself, I said it was to make up for the boost on the pull-ups. They didn’t say anything.

  I had made it a goal to do each group of thirty squats unbroken: not stopping once I had started a set. The squats felt easy. Was I warmed up? Was I channeling Murph? I don’t know, but I knew I wasn’t DFL this time. The squats were unbroken. When I finished the second mile, I had completed Murph heavy in 1:06. Some twenty minutes behind the fastest guys, but five minutes faster than I ever had before.

  It was dark by the time they rolled up the garage door at the back of the gym and told us to assemble at the edge of the parking lot, above a rock-strewn gully. I didn’t know what time it was, but to judge by the darkness, I figured we had maybe an hour to go. Maybe two at the most. Piece of cake. Chip away. Something big and bad had to be coming. But, I told myself again, I got this.

  Divine had us stand at attention while he explained that we were all to go down into the gully to find a rock that represents our will to live. We were told to bring our chosen rock back up to the parking lot.

  So we stumbled down over the rocks, which ranged in size from pieces of gravel to boulders. I was looking for the biggest fucking rock I could find. Because by now I know that I’m not going to quit, whatever it is, and I’m not going to be broken and that if things get bad, I can lean on the other guys.

  I found one, a monster, but whether it was the size of the rock or the sum total of the day’s exertions, I couldn’t get it up the slope. Weird. Back at CrossFit, I can throw around a 125-pound sack of sand. I stared at the rock, as if my gaze would make it levitate. It didn’t.

  “Come on, Madden,” says Instructor Brad from above.

  “I’m moving this rock that represents my will to survive,” I say. Under his breath, in a conspiratorial hush, he tells me, “Find a smaller one, you asshole. You have to carry it for a mile.”

  So that’s the grand finale.

  I found a smaller one, about seventy-five pounds, I guess. My will to live remained huge, but more portable. Then the order came: We are to pick up the rock and start walking. If one of us drops his or her rock, we all start over. Don’t drop the fucking rock.

  No problem. What’s a mile?

  But first, we took turns immersing ourselves, one at a time, head and all, in a barrel of ice-cold water. We helped each other climb up and in, duck under, and breathe out until bubbles show. Helping each other kept our minds off the shivering. Instructor Bruce stood behind the barrel to make sure we were all the way under, and under for a good long time.

  Why? Because why not? What’s one more thing? Plus, of all the stuff we did that day, being under the water, and cold, and wet, played to my strengths. I noticed I wasn’t shivering as much as the skinny guys. All that fat finally coming in handy. When some of the shivering got out of control for some of the guys, the instructors had us stand in a huddle, the stomachs and chests of the bigger guys braced against the backs of the smaller ones. The heat transferred as if conducted by wire. I was at the very back, my girth finally helping my teammates. I noticed my chest was pressing against Paul’s back. His shivering stopped.

  “You’re better off together than you are alone!” one of the instructors yelled. “Remember that.”

  We carried the rocks in laps around the building. We stayed together, urging each other on. There was a lot of groaning, and screaming, and shifting of the rock from shoulder to shoulder and from waist to back as we all sought a comfortable place to rest our burdens. We stumbled through the darkness, the glare of the sodium lights bathing us in pink. Wet, chafing, suddenly no longer cold. Sweating again.

  We finished. And we lined up.

  “You can put the rocks down,” Divine said. He told us to take a knee next to our rocks. Divine walked slowly to the end of the line opposite me and said, “I want you all to think of an answer to this question: what’s the most important thing you’ve learned in the past year?”

  I thanked God I was at the other end of the line. I knew I should be listening to my teammates, learning from their answers, and one small part of my brain did, hearing them talk about never stopping, never quitting, but I couldn’t think of anything to say but at least now I’ll have some time to think as he works his way down the line. What’s my answer? What was the most important thing I learned in the last year? Was it something from the last fourteen hours? The last twelve months? About hard work and fighting and being smart and not quitting and staying true to your word, to promises made, even if they were unsaid? To myself, to my family? My mind raced, but my mental tires spun in the mud of my fatigue. I have no answer, I think.

  “Madden?” Divine is in front of me. “What’s the most important thing you learned this year?”

  I wish I could say it was a carefully, consciously constructed thought. I wish I could say my brain played, in a flash, a two-hour movie of my kids, my wife, my family, my coworkers, my brothers and sisters and anybody who ever helped me and whom I ever helped. All the people I love, and who love me. I wish I could say my fine, educated mind delivered the thought. But the truth is, I just blurted it out.

  “Love is the answer, sir.”

  Divine scares me, staring at me through the murk of a February night. He must think I’m putting him on or being a wise guy. Who talks to a Navy SEAL about love? He’s gonna make me take another lap with the rock. And you know what? That’s okay. At this point, I know I can do it. I can take anything he wants to dish out. I’d rather not, but I can if I have to. I’m fine with it. Because at this point, I know my answer is right. Love is the answer. If I didn’t love my family, why would I have done this? And if I didn’t love myself, how could I have done this.

  He’s still looking at me. “Outstanding, Madden. Outstanding.”

  I was utterly depleted by the 20X. I drove the ninety miles home, surprisingly alert after what I had been through, while I cataloged the different places and ways I was sore. When I got home, I pounded a shot of good tequila and chased it with a beer and a handful of ibuprofen to quell the swelling I knew was coming. I
had a fitful night’s sleep; anytime I rolled over, my body screamed at the effort and soreness and woke me from the shallow trough of slumber I had managed to crawl in to. It took almost a week for my body to recover sufficiently to start WODing again.

  But if I was utterly depleted, I was also utterly at peace, the peace that passes all understanding. For a week after the 20X, I felt as if I were floating, as if I had attained some sort of neutral buoyancy in the river of my life that was allowing me to feel, for the first and only time, that I really was okay, and that I could accept things and people, particularly myself, as they were. I really was capable of anything. I could deal with the bosses. College? We’ll get you through, kids. Don’t worry. Nothing bothered me. I laughed easily. I slept like a rock. An easy assessment would have been something like, “I’ve been through the shit, man, and there’s nothing here—in this house, in this office, on this crowded train—that can compare to what I’ve done and that I can’t handle.”

  But that wasn’t it. It was a little bit, but it wasn’t truly it. Looking back now, with the clarity of retrospect, I can see what the source of the peace was. After almost fifty years of trying to figure out what the point of all this was, I had stumbled across an answer that was right in front of me the whole time, or had it pulled out of me: love really is the answer.

  There was another benefit. One morning at the Annex about ten days after the 20X, we were practicing a move called a Turkish get-up. Basically, you hold a weight up over your head with a single straight arm. You then lower yourself to the ground, lying flat out with the weight extended in the air above your head. Then you get back up. The heavier or more awkward the weight, the harder it is to get up. This morning I decided to try the weight with a long 45-pound Olympic bar rather than the less awkward and more conventional kettle bell. I had never been able to do a Turkish get-up with a bar. But this morning I resolved to do five with each arm. My entire body said no with each rep. It said to put the bar down and get a kettle bell.