After Action Review - St. Patrick's Day Weekend - Dublin 2026 - Christian

Preface

First of all, this AAR covers my experience alone; someone else may see it all from a different perspective, which is absolutely fine. This AAR just reflects my own opinion.

When Kris of the MRC first posted about those events at the end of January, I decided that I’ll sign up. My main „why“ was to meet up with my friend Kyle, whom I haven’t met in person since the 2019 Normandy events, plus I had unfinished business in Dublin, having only completed a Light (now called Basic ) and a 5K back in 2020.

I arrived Thursday noon at the airport, it was cold and raining, and the Shakeout Ruck was on the menu for tonight.

The events

the Shakeout Ruck

We met at Fagan’s Bar & Restaurant (Start/Endex for all events) around 1800 hrs to start with the Shakeout Ruck. Quick roster check, and off we went! This was just a pub-crawl; we went to „The Celt“, where Daniel joined us (he had a late flight in), then off to another pub, and back to Fagan’s. There was no weight requirement; I was going „dry“ since I did not have the time to fill my sandplates yet. Good fun overall, drank some pints and enjoyed the community. Unfortunately, Kyle and his crew didn’t make it; they were all jetlagged. The weather was chilly but dry.

After a final pint, I was more than happy to get back to my Airbnb and hit the sack; I had an awful early start this day.

Friday I was busy with finding a place to get breakfast, and then looking for a place to fill my sandplates. A quick Google survey showed no playgrounds with sand in my area, so I decided to get down to Sandymount beach, the starting point of 2020’s light. Took a couple of pictures down there, filled my plates and then back to my place to get some rest before the upcoming Basic. I decided to ruck to Fagan’s early (4 miles) to meet Kyle and get a pint in.

The Basic

The Basic was a proper GORUCK event, starting with a welcome party: 17 minutes of exercises (our choice, we did pushups, situps, lunges, ruck swings, overhead presses, flutterkicks, rows, and whatnot), 17 reps of each exercise because of St.Patricks day being the 17th of March. This workout was awaiting us again, shall we fail to hit the given time hacks (which we didn’t). Cadre Fagan borrowed 3 empty beer kegs from Fagan’s, plus Daniel brought another one—with us only being six people, we left one keg and started with the three remaining kegs (27 pounds each).

Cadre picked a TL , gave the waypoint and time, and off we went—unfortunately Kyle was having issues with a herniated disc, you could see him struggle—so after a quick chat he decided to fall out, and we carried on only with five people, three kegs, and one flag. The Cadre took good care to lead us to some interesting sites (parks, memorials, and so on)—he swapped TL after each waypoint, we made all time hacks, made it back to Fagan’s in time for a pint.

Saturday was the big day-12 miler in the morning, and the Tough later that evening.

the 12-miler

The 12 miler was scheduled for 1000 hrs, so most of the GRTs showed up by 0900-0930. At the start, I met Jens from Hamburg, who would join Daniel and me to form up an all-German team. We plotted our route on a paper map and used Google Maps in addition for navigation. The route was nice and scenic, with lots of museums, memorials, and of course, the Guinness brewery plus Molly Malone. The weather was nice and sunny, but cold. We really took it easy with the upcoming Tough in mind and made it back well within the time limit, but only scoring fourth out of five. Congrats to Jess, Kyle, and Jason, who made first place! All in all, I think we were around 15 people for the 12-miler.

As usual, most of us had a pint or two at Fagan’s before I went back to my place for some rest. With various sports events being broadcast, the place was crowded anyway.

Back at my place, I had the occurrence of some serious pain right underneath my right ribcage—I do have that from time to time; it happens when I twist in a certain direction. My guess is it’s a nerve getting jammed somewhere, but who knows? It always gives me that sharp, stinging pain during certain movements.

the tough

Anyway, I was there for the events, so off to Fagan’s for one last pint before the Tough…

For the Tough—well, some people may have been disappointed. I just found it let´s say, „interesting“- according to the Cadre, we had seven sign-ups, with three no-shows, we were down to just four: Daniel, Jess, Jason, and me. With no newbies around, it was decided that we take a rather unusual approach for a Tough—we just ruck, to get the miles in—no additional weights, no PT , just plain rucking, nothing more.

Cadre Fagan blamed it on the Bragg events, which took part that weekend as well, but we were not complaining—Jess had sore feet from the previous events, I got my pain… so I think we were good. We rucked the night through, crossing the River Liffey countless times, Molly Malone again, rucking downtown Dublin on a Saturday night before St. Patrick’s is quite a sight to see. The Cadre called it the

Tough Tour.

Anyways, we made it back to Fagan’s by around 0600, got 15+ miles in, got patched, and I think everybody was happy to get to bed.

Conclusion/Thoughts

Overall, a most pleasant weekend-met old friends, made new ones, had lots of fun, and made it through all events.

Couple of things to note: if you bring sandplates, make sure you know a spot where to fill them. Public transportation in Dublin is good, but a little different from Germany—a bus may come, or it may not—just be patient, or learn to switch quickly to another line if you know where you are heading.

The biggest mystery to me will be the traffic lights—at times you were waiting there for ages without any obvious reason.

Cadre Fagan and all the other GRTs were nice and friendly people, no complaints from my end at all.

I think both Daniel and I were the only ones who did all four events—way to go, as usual.

Why we had these low numbers, I don’t know. I was hoping for more people, but you have to get along as it is, I guess.