GRYT Endurance Test 2021

GRYT Endurance Test 2021
July 10, 2021

On July 12th, 2017, Patrick Nugent’s life changed forever. While serving as the executive officer of Cherokee Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, then-1st Lieutenant Nugent was leading a night live-fire exercise aboard Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island of Hawaii when a 5.56mm round ricocheted off a nearby rock and hit his lower back, just beneath his body armor, in a freak accident.

The bullet shattered his pelvis, causing serious internal injuries, and then lodged in his right hip, severing his right sciatic nerve near his spinal column. Nugent lost feeling in his legs and collapsed. Two Navy corpsmen attached to Cherokee Company stabilized him and the medical evacuation plan that he himself had designed as the officer-in-charge of the exercise was initiated, bringing him to Oahu for emergency surgery. Doctors feared he would not survive, and if he did, predicted that he would never walk again.

Patrick woke up in the hospital at Pearl Harbor after a medically induced 3 day coma and knew that his world had been changed forever. The Marine Corps flew him to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where his long road to recovery and fight to reimagine a new life for himself was just beginning.

Those who have the privilege of having Patrick Nugent in their lives know a man with an unbreakable spirit and indomitable will. After enduring 15 surgeries that brought partial functionality to his wounded right leg, he recommitted himself to the physical challenges that had always sustained him throughout a lifetime of athletic and military competition. This led him to adaptive sports.

Supported by the staff at Walter Reed and the Adaptive Sports Foundation, who built a customized prosthetic brace for his wounded leg, Patrick began a grueling rehab process that eventually brought him to the 2019 Department of Defense Warrior Games in Tampa, Florida. He won 7 medals in a number of events including powerlifting, track & field, and rowing, qualifying for the international Invictus Games for wounded warriors founded by Prince Harry, a veteran of the British Army.

Now a graduate student pursuing his MBA at Wharton and MPA at the Harvard Kennedy School, Patrick continues to excel and inspire those around him. Every year on or around the date of his injury, he decided that he would conduct a physical and mental challenge he called the “GRYT Endurance Test” to push his limits and continue his recovery. An increasingly large group of his Marine brothers, family, and friends began to compete alongside him. This year, Team Nugent invites you to join us as well.

In 2021, as the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic and summer brings a new season of life, Patrick has designed the most difficult GRYT Endurance Test to date. The event will consist of the following challenges:

-50 Mile Bike
-1,000 Push Ups / 1,000 Squats
-25,000 Meter Row
-7 Mile Hike (35 pound backpack/ruck)

Team Nugent is partnering with the Semper Fi & America’s Fund to raise money in support of their mission to provide urgently needed resources for combat wounded, critically ill, and catastrophically injured members of the armed forces of the United States and their families. Patrick benefitted greatly from the support of this very special organization through the Integrative Wellness program, which helped build the custom prosthetics that enable him to fly again.

Please note that while Patrick and many of his Marine brothers will be attempting the full challenge as prescribed (“Rx”), others will be scaling to suit their current physical abilities. We encourage you to be safe and make smart decisions about what your body can handle. However, in the spirit of Patrick and his relentless resilience, we ask that you set the bar higher than you think you are capable of doing and design a program that pushes you beyond your comfort zone and into the realms of the infinite possibility that lie beyond pain and suffering and the preconceived notions of your own potential.

We hope that you will channel the Gung Ho ho spirit that has driven Marines from Tun Tavern to Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima to Sangin, and from Walter Reed to Wharton, and in the words of Captain Patrick Donald Nugent USMC: “FIND A WAY TO WIN!”
-Team Nugent

Donations can be made here.