The GORUCK INGRESS Events – Our Experience

Most people probably associate GORUCK with heavy bags, boots, and, in recent months, with CrossFit.

Those more “in the know” are likely familiar with the company’s line of events with some of the most popular being the city rucks (usually involving anywhere from a 5k to a 50k outing) and the Light, Tough, and Heavy challenges.

…then you have the really niche GORUCK events…like the Ingress Stealth Ops and Urban Ops events.

If you check the current (2024) GORUCK event calendar, you’ll only find a few of these events posted (I’ve been told that they are oftentimes added throughout the year, though). None of them are in the U.S.

Google searches for these events yield results that are somewhat cryptic and most descriptions of the events are almost a decade old.

So…what exactly are the GORUCK Ingress events all about? Well, I’ll let my team (Enlightened!) captain from the March 2024 event in Porto give you his one-sentence description:

Well…there you have it!

…but if you want to know more of the nitty gritty of exactly what these events entail (at least the ones in Porto that I was at), get ready. They’re rucking events like you’ve never experienced!

NOTE: This review is covering both the GORUCK Ingress Stealth Ops and the GORUCK Ingress Urban Ops events. These were held on back-to-back days and had a lot of similarities (the main differences were that the Stealth Ops was a little over twice as long and took place in the evening).

The GORUCK Ingress Clear Field Event took place the following day, but this is a “rucks optional” event and I didn’t participate. For the sake of this review, when I refer to anything “GORUCK Ingress” without specifying, I’m referring to the Stealth Ops and Urban Ops events.

Rucking

When you sign up for any GORUCK event, I think it’s assumed that you’re interested, at least to some degree, in strapping some weight on your back and moving at a pretty constant pace for at least a few hours. Truth be told, in the Stealth Ops event, the group did log a little over 5 miles worth of rucking and a little over 500 feet of elevation gain (the cadre confirmed these numbers to us during the “endex” conclusion proceedings).

However, we accumulated this distance in a little over 6 hours, making our pace less than 1 mile per hour!

Granted, we did stop to perform a number of challenges, a few of which were physical in nature (some more than others, as I’ll explain below) so there was additional non-rucking time devoted to working our bodies…

…but not nearly enough to really make me feel like I completed a “rucking workout”. Granted, we did get some moral support from some hecklers on our route.

The reason for this lack of mileage comes down to the long and numerous periods where we were waiting on a challenge to start or end (with seemingly endless discussions taking place between the faction leaders to finalize points or objectives or something) that ultimately manifested in un-official break periods.

Additionally, the non-physical challenges almost always involved a single member from each team participating at a given time while everyone else just kind of hung around. Considering there were ~25 total people, this culminated in 20-45 minutes of waiting around.

In all honesty, I would attest that simply standing around under load during these periods was more taxing for me than walking under load. However, during these periods, a number of participants would simply remove their rucks as there was no established rule that they be kept on during these periods. As such, even this un-official. physical challenge could be gamed.

I think my body felt slightly more fatigued as it normally would over the same distance due to the overall time of simply being “out” in the overly stimulating environment (it was a Friday night in a major European city, after all) and because I’m normally in bed by 8. However, it’s hard to imagine that an event marketed by the rucking company would have so little (or at least so infrequent) actual rucking involved.

Rucking Score: 70

“Dynamic” Rucking

Oh boy…

If you do a little bit of searching online, you’ll likely come across some old (and I mean old…like 2016 old) posts discussing what to expect from the Ingress events in terms of overall physicality. Apparently, back in the day, the Stealth Ops event was on par with the GORUCK Tough!

I found this…to not be the case…

Overall, we had 5 challenges that would be considered to be “physical challenges” (as well as some light warm-up exercises). 2 of these involved arranging each team into what the cadre described as a “human slinky”, removing our rucks, and handing them down the line to each other in a big line until every bag was at the other end. Once this occurred, the last people in line would run to the bags and the rest of the team would follow in a quasi-“Indian Run” (aka “Slinky”) manner.

Nobody really “ran” and moving the bags was more tedious than hard. The McCallisters’ effort was of similar intensity as ours were.

After performing it 5 times during the weekend (we performed it an extra time as an entire group over the ~500-meter long Duoro River Bridge) I can confidently say that I am now qualified to work as an airport baggage handler (and, by extension, as a Boeing lead engineer…if you’re reading this, I DID NOT KILL MYSELF!)

Another challenge involved holding our bags overhead in a static strict press position. At first, it was intended to be a “last man standing” event where the team with the last person to drop their bag would be awarded the event win. However, after 8 minutes, 6 of us were still holding (4 from my team, 2 from the other). The cadre time-capped it and we won the event.

Truth be told, my arms were getting a bit shaky and I don’t think I could have held that much longer. This was probably the most difficult physical activity of the weekend.

Another physical challenge involved creating what the cadre called the “Tunnel of Love”. This was a “rucks off” event, where each team had to get lined up in a static “bear crawl position” while the last member crawled though to the end. It followed the similar Indian Run format and each member probably crawled though 3 or 4 times before it was over.

Again, this one wasn’t overly difficult. The “hardest” part was dealing with the wet, itchy residue on my body for the remainder of the evening!

Another thing to note: whenever a challenge ended, the winning team (which, during Stealth Ops, was always my team) got to select a “punishment” physical challenge for the losing team to perform. These were usually pretty easy and consisted of things like 10 burpees, 20 jumping jacks, or a 15-meter crab walk. Because of this, the other team’s participants got in a little more physical work than my team did…but not much (also, after the 5th challenge or so, we felt bad for the other team and stopped assigning punishments).

All in all, if you do any type of moderate, physical exercise, the “dynamic rucking” portions of the Ingress events are a piece of cake (one of the other guys on my team regularly does GORUCK events and sandbag training; he looked like he could have held his overhead press for 20 minutes!) However, if you want an actual physical challenge, this ain’t the event for you.

Pro-Tip: I opted for Ballistic Trainers, thinking there would be a lot more “functional fitness” elements as they’re not the best for 1. longer rucking episodes 2. navigating downhill pavement/cobblestone roads. This was a bit of a mistake. Knowing what I know now, Rough Runners would have the best GORUCK shoes for the event with the Mackalls being a close second.

Dynamic Rucking Score: 60

Non-rucking/”Mental”

There is a lot going on with the Ingress game.

I’ll admit that I’ve never played such a game on my phone and it would probably take me quite a while to figure out what to do. Apparently, there is an entire lore and backstory involved as well (these aren’t important to the GORUCK events) that adds to its mystique.

During certain challenges, teams compete in what is essentially a memorization contest where they must identify and name a number of constellation or rune-like patterns from the game known as “glyphs”. The cadre would literally hold up his phone with one of these pictures and participants would guess its name…

…doesn’t get more “mentally challenging” than re-hashing names of fictional symbols from memory!

At some points, these “mental challenges” would be combined with a “physical” component, most notably team members would need to run through a park before approaching the cadre to make their guesses. The speed in which they ran had zero bearing on the challenge itself so it was more of an excuse to get people moving (for the ~150-meter run).

During another period, as we rucked to the next location, everyone took out their phones and worked to “capture” in-game portals as we walked. From what I could discern, this was pretty much standard game play so I don’t know if this would be officially considered to be a non-rucking/”mental” aspect.

This was the extent of the “mental” challenge. From my standpoint, these challenges were as mentally taxing and rewarded one’s “mental abilities” as much as performing well on a Rorschach Test….after regularly reviewing the test, memorizing the pictures, discussing the test with the one administering and grading the test, and then taking the test.

Non-rucking/”Mental” Score: 65

Teamwork

GORUCK events are big on teamwork and the Ingress events market themselves as being team-focused events. The caveat with the Ingress events is that instead of participating as one big team, participants usually compete against each other on their own, distinct teams (“Enlightened” (yay!) vs. “Resistance” (boo!)).

I honestly prefer the more competitive component (although there wasn’t nearly as much shit talking as there should have been!)

However, I would contend that the “teamwork” involved was rather nominal in nature.

During the “human slinky” exercises, there was constant interaction with teammates as the bags were passed. However, the repetitive nature of the exercise didn’t really depend on intricate team planning or execution. You just knew to pass the bag once you got it and to wait a second if the next guy hadn’t yet passed his bag. No coordination necessary.

The overhead press and picture-memorization activities were purely individual exercises. The “Tunnel of Love” required a slightly higher degree of coordination, but, like the slinky exercise, was entirely intuitive.

During periods where there could have been teamwork and problem-solving elements, many participants opted to simply appeal to the cadre for insight or direction as opposed to working situations out amongst themselves (ex. how to deal with the fact that teams had an uneven number of participants). This was disappointing although, after about the first 20 minutes of the event, very predictable.

On a related note, the entire “strength in numbers and diversity” trope from the main event page couldn’t really be further from the truth. Sure, as a more fit and athletic guy than the other participants, I helped with the physical challenges. However, as a non-Ingress player, I was a complete liability for my team. Ideally, successful teams would be solely comprised of fit people who have strong memorization skills (and who actually care to memorize obscure images) and a desire to win. No other attributes would be necessary for success.

Teamwork Score: 75

Fun

As someone who isn’t really into cell phone games and/or, for lack of a better term, live-action role playing, the GORUCK Ingress events aren’t exactly in my wheelhouse.

On the other edge of the token, I do enjoy more physically-demanding activities and, as you may have already been able to discern, these events…don’t exactly fall into this category.

So…I probably didn’t think this was too fun…

Right?

Despite the Ingress event not looking like something I would be interested in “on paper”, I actually had more fun than would be expected.

What made the event as fun as it was were the interactions with many of the other participants as well as with the cadre.

Cadre Pog did an excellent job of balancing Ingress, game management and facilitation with the demanding, tough, GORUCK cadre characteristics (it’s pretty obvious that the latter of these is more of his natural persona). He graciously entertained my questions and smartass comments during the event (and for a bit later in the weekend).

Most of my teammates were pretty cool. Our team leader was really accommodating and helped me get up to speed with the game play. Even during portions that I couldn’t technically participate in, he found ways to keep me involved. These guys were having a lot of fun with it and wanted everyone to enjoy themselves, as well.

Additionally, I had never been to Porto and enjoyed getting to see a lot of the inner city during the event. It’s honestly not my favorite city; if you’re interested in Ingress, you have the opportunity to play in Europe’s most beautiful city in June!

Ultimately, being in a better city will lead to a better experience. If you’ve been on a cruise that has left from, like, Miami and on one that has left from Galveston…you’ll understand.

With that being said, I don’t think I would have had as much fun on the other team. Some of the “higher ranking” members seemed to be taking things way too seriously, were getting a bit too angry, and were really upset that I wasn’t doing the Ingress game portions of the event (this even after I showed them that I couldn’t access the game).

Ultimately, you’d probably have a lot of fun if you’re a fan of the Ingress game or similar games, but if you’re in it for the rucking, the amount of fun you will have is almost entirely dependent on if your cadre is cool, if your teammates are cool, and if the city you’re in is cool.

Fun Score: 80* (VERY dependent on cadre, team members, and city)

Training/Prep Required

Of course, you could try to handle a GORUCK Heavy event cold, having never performed a push-up, touched a sandbag, or slipped a heavy backpack on in years. However, your rate of success is directly correlated with (and yes, this relationship is causal) the amount of preparation you have done prior to the event.

This could be said for just about any physical endeavor…although some require more training than others.

As you might imagine, the GORUCK Ingress events could be classified as “don’t have to do much training…at all” to guarantee success, verging on, “don’t have to do any training” to have a very good chance of passing.

With that being said, more training, both in the physical and game-related aspects, not only make the numerous challenges easier to manage, but also make the overall experience more enjoyable. It’s fun to be able to smirk at the other team’s members as they all drop their overhead presses…and it’s not so fun to be unable to earn points for the team because you’ve never played Ingress.

If you plan on participating in this event, I would suggest becoming comfortable with rucking with a light-to-moderate weight (~20 pounds) at a “comfortable” pace for up to an hour at a time. Additionally, familiarizing yourself with basic rucking exercises (ex. ruck burpees, presses, swings, lunges) and being able to perform small (~10 reps) sets will ensure that none of the physical elements shock your system/”redline” you too early.

In the weeks prior to the event, my wife and I (as well as one of our training partners) incorporated more sandbag work into our training regimen since I expected that we’d be throwing the bags around a lot. As it is, even 3 minutes of this 40-minute workout was way overkill for the type of fitness level necessary for the Ingress events

I would also suggest at least having a basic understanding of the Ingress game and having it downloaded to your phone if possible.

Ultimately, if you’re really in it just to get a new, shiny patch to show off and don’t really want to have to train to earn it, this is the event for you!

Of course, I’m in more of the “train hard, overcome obstacles, relish in the challenge” mindset when it comes to these types of events so GORUCK Ingress loses a lot of points here.

Physical Training/Prep Required Score: 60

Price

I paid $99 to participate in the ~6-hour Ingress Stealth Ops event and another $45 for the Ingress Urban Ops event. If you compare this to other GORUCK event prices, it is definitely more expensive than more “traditional” events (ex. GORUCK Light, 12-miler), although it is not as expensive as many of the more “speciality” events (ex. Basic Pistol, Basic Shooter).

Comparing the cost to CrossFit competition prices (which are, admittedly, kind of all over the place), the price of admission was a little high. When compared to Hyrox participant tickets, the price was slightly lower than what you’d see in most countries.

Ultimately, there is a premium to be paid, especially when comparing the price to most other GORUCK events or to your local 5k fun run, but in no way did it break the bank.

Price Score: 80

Sign-up/Logistics

As much hate as the Sandlot app has gotten over the last few years, I think it does enough to be perfectly functional for the purpose of signing up for a GORUCK event. In recent months, GORUCK has also improved its “Events” section of its webpage, making searching for events a breeze.

Travelling with a ruck plate can be slightly challenging (even though my bag was under weight and well within normal proportions, I had to take it to “Oversized Luggage” at the Treviso Airport), but I experienced no significant challenges getting myself and gear to the event.

It was easy to find the start location of the event (I had visited it the day before to familiarize myself with the area) and when I was too lazy to walk home after the event, it was easy (and cheap!) to catch an Uber late at night.

Of the equipment stated on the event’s page, all of the items (except one!) were easy enough to come by, although with so much light and activity in the city, the headlamp and even the reflectors weren’t actually necessary. Of course, I didn’t worry about a “faction” flag and was so well-hydrated before the event that I didn’t take a sip of water.

NOTE: There is some debate regarding the extent to which 2-liters of water is “required”. Some argue that this adds to the weight and overall challenge, but…what if the second I started the event, I chugged my entire camelback to relieve the weight?

The only logistical problem was that freaking app! Because you can’t really share with your teammates, you really have to have Ingress to fully participate. To be “good” at these portions, you actually need to have been playing it a lot in the weeks, months(?), and years(!) before the event in order to be familiar with the glyphs.

My advice? Don’t set your phone’s settings to Montenegro if you want to play!

Sign-up/Logistics Score:90

Who are GORUCK Ingress Events really for?

The GORUCK Ingress events are for a niche-type of rucker…who is this rucker, exactly?

Ingress Players

If you’re a fan of the Ingress game, participating in this event is probably somewhere between being a rite of passage to being the pre-game show for the Super Bowl (which would be the Anamoly event on Saturday afternoon).

Earning points for your faction and helping it to win the weekend’s main event, while getting to experience game elements in a completely different and interactive format, really seems like a big deal.

Ruckers who Prefer more Competitive Elements

The vast majority of GORUCK events involve participants working together to complete all of the challenges the cadre throws at them. There are periods where participants break into small groups and compete with one another, but these are by no means the main aspects.

The GORUCK Ingress events are all about teams competing against one each other with tangible game-related rewards on the line. However, shit talking, which is, in my world at least, a cornerstone of competitive undertakings, is pretty minimal FWIW.

You see those 7 fingers in the picture above? Yeah..we won 7 to zero on Friday night…fight me!

Not for Rucking “Purists”

Decent ruckers can cover 5 miles in less than an hour and even those walking at a very casual pace can cover that distance in two. When you consider that we didn’t even cover a mile an hour…well..if you really like rucking in its most pure and basic form, the lack of actual rucking going on in the Ingress events will likely leave you pretty disappointed.

GORUCK Ingress Tips

If you’re thinking about attending a GORUCK Ingress event, I have a few quick tips that will hopefully make your experience a bit more enjoyable:

Make a Trip of It

I know a lot of people don’t have the flexibility that I do, but, if you are considering attending the GORUCK Ingress events (or any GORUCK events, really) I would strongly suggest making an actual trip of it. Like…a vacation segmented by long periods of walking around in heavy backpacks.

I actually arrived in Porto two days early and got to explore a bit of the city on my own for a few days. I was even able to complete Open workout 24.3 at a local CrossFit (I always enjoy checking out local gyms when I’m on the road).

Connect with others Ahead of Time

This is something I didn’t do too well. I wrote a short message in the GORUCK Europe Facebook group, but did nothing else to try to coordinate with other participants prior to the event.

I wish I would have done more because I would have been more prepared for the events to come after even a short conversation with more experienced participants. It also would have been nice to learn from others about the meetups that took place associated with the event which I had no knowledge of.

Accept…Things…

I was a bit taken aback at how serious some participants took the Ingress game and how skeptical they were of me, not being a player. Knowing this ahead of time would have better prepared me for some…interesting encounters throughout the weekend.

There were a few occasions where these confrontations were verging on downright hostility and I was close to the point of very firmly dismissing the accusations and ending conversations. I never quite reached this point and simply accepted these situations for what they were and went along with the event.

To be fair, I don’t really have these types of confrontations in my daily life and my attempt to respect cultural differences (in regards to both the sheer number of different nationalities represented at the event as well as the “culture of Ingress”) caused me to be a lot more passive than I normally would have been when accosted with rather silly and plain weird accusations.

Frequently Asked Questions

The GORUCK Ingress events are certainly different. If you’re on the fence, here are a few FAQs and their respective answers that might help to clear things up:

GORUCK Ingress…Official GORUCK Events for Someone…but not for me

I would say that if you really like rucking/GORUCK and have limited options for participating in an event close to where you live that you should go ahead and sign up for one of the Ingress events.

…but I’m not going to because I really don’t suggest this.

As someone who prioritizes fitness challenges, the physical elements of the Ingress Stealth Ops and Ingress Urban Ops didn’t quite equal what a typical warm-up looks like for me. If you associate GORUCK with intensity of any kind, I’d give it a hard pass.

With that being said, Ingress does have an incredibly large world following and for those interested in the game, weekends like this are quarterly(?) highlights. For those who like to get outside and interacting with others while also participating in one of their favorite games, getting out to one of the GORUCK Ingress events is a non brainer.