This Weekend

Tuesday. See the orthopedist about my IT band injury. Get cleared for exercise but not running.

Wednesday. Spend more money than I have ever spent in one purchase at REI on backpacking, camping, and cold-weather adventure gear.

Thursday. Spend a day at the office writing and editing. Drive four hours to Pittsfield, VT with co-worker Bill. Eat peanuts along the way. Sleep in Amee barn.

Friday. Wake up at 4:15AM. Pack up my rucksack: 40 pounds of gear I've never used before and 9,000 Calories of nuts and raisins. Drive to Riverside Farm for Agoge registration. Stand in line with frozen toes until it's my turn to go inside the barn and register for the event. "Once you pass through these doors, it's Agoge-on." Receive a knit cap with my participant number on it: 22. Disclose my medical history and give up my driver's license and car keys. Go outside into the snow and empty my backpack onto a tarp to be checked by event staff. Be told my boots are unsuited to the extreme cold, but pack up gear anyway. Log roll 300 meters and back in the snow. Do 500 jumping jacks. Do burpees 300 meters and back. Line up with 33 other participants and do a human log roll for 300 meters. Unpack 100 feet of 1-inch tubular webbing and proceed to the other side of the barn, where I and a team of 7 others design and construct a vehicle out of two circular tabletops to carry all of our packs and 1 team member. Learn... 

• How to prevent hypothermia and frostbite
• How to build a fire (my firm belief in birch bark is reinforced)
• How to build a shelter that protects against the elements

Hear that two members of the group have been taken to the hospital with black frostbite. Receive an entertaining lecture on orienteering. Spend four hours in the woods wandering around looking for shit (W.A.L.F.S.). Return inside. Receive lecture on sleep systems. Have sleep gear examined. Be cleared for outdoor sleep. Go up the mountain 300 feet to choose campsite for group of 8. Set up camp.

Saturday. Sleep for 2-3 hours. Wake up at 3:30AM. Pack up campsite and put out fire. Walk back down the mountain and get on a bus. Sleep for 1 hour on the bus. Arrive at reservoir. Meet Steve the adventure guy. Divide into groups of four and hike off-trail to an orienteering point. Boil 2/3 liter of water for hot chocolate while memorizing a paragraph about leadership. Spill the water in the snow at the last minute. Do 20 burpees as a penalty for failure. Venture to the edge of the reservoir and move an aluminum canoe loaded with 4 huge backpacks across a frozen lake. Repel down an icy cliff face thinking I'm going to die. Reach the bottom and be absolutely speechless. Take the bus back to Riverside Farm. Stand at attention, barefoot, on an unheated barn floor for two hours. Do one hour of PT and yoga. Complete a teambuilding exercise where six people stand on two eight-foot two-by-fours strapped to their feet with lengths of 1-inch tube webbing and step forward together 300 meters and back. Get mild hypothermia. Spend an hour resting indoors by order of the medics on-site. Realize steel-toed boots were a terrible decision for 30-below weather. Find a spare pair of cold-weather boots in my size resting by the heater. Complete the planks exercise again, but with a different team. Try to blend in as much as possible without letting on that I have no practical skills. Build a fire outdoors and boil water to cook a frozen fish. Get mild hypothermia again. Spend half an hour shivering in the medical ward. Return to group. Carry two 20-pound buckets of ice around to the other side of the barn and run suicides with them for 20 minutes. Take those same buckets and perform a 100-meter bucket brigade, doing 3 burpees every time 10 buckets passed. Run a lap around the entire farm. Return to a warm heated barn. Set up sleeping pad and sleeping bag.

Sunday. Sleep for 2 hours. Awake to a booming "GOOD MORNING. YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES TO PACK UP YOUR SLEEPING SYSTEM." Do yoga. Do 30 burpees, 100 squats, 30 pushups, intermittent planks for 10 minutes, and 30 more burpees. Rest. Circle up into discussion groups. Talk about the weekend. Receive a medal, sweatshirt, and T-shirt. Take group photos. Gather belongings and pack them into friend Bill's car. Eat three breakfast sandwiches at the Pittsfield General Store. Think about eating 10 more. Drive with Bill and Ben Greenfield to Newburyport, then to Boston, then to Brighton. Get out of car. Take stuff. Enter home. Collapse.

---

Cetus Spirandi blogs vicariously through the body of David DeLuca, the founder of Davidism.

Read more about Davidism here. Or here. Or here.