San Francisco Volunteers assisted the SLPD SWAT Challenge

On Thursday, the 14th of July, RRT Team San Francisco provided their support to the San Leandro Police Department (SLPD), in their annual SWAT Challenge.

The SWAT challenge is put on to raise money for the George Mark Children Hospital, which provides housing for terminal ill children and their families.  The challenge involves 4 person teams from all over California competing in an extreme fitness challenge.

RRT started out by helping the night before the event with marking out the 5 mile run to the firing range.  The morning of the event, RRT was on site at 7:00 to help with the set up.   The day started for the SWAT Teams with a serious round of push ups, box jumps, and sit ups, with each team having to complete 200 of each.  And all these had to be completed with each team carrying a ball weighing 20 lbs!!  After these were completed each team had to carry heavy weights back and forth over a 120′ distance, including over obstacles!!  Once this was completed, the teams had to run a 1-mile course carrying an empty 55 gallon drum.  After the mile run, they dropped the drum, continued to run another 5 miles.  After they had finished the 5 mile run, each team rested for a short time, before picking up their 55 gallon drum again and swimming a 800′ stretch in the SF bay, then continuing on for a 5 mile run to the firing range, with their drum!!

The run to the range, and back , was fully manned by RRT volunteers, as this run in the past has been a challenge with teams getting lost.  Once the teams got to the firing range, they had to complete a series of firing challenges, with different distances. Each bullet that missed was a point lost!  Each team member at this point was under serious fatigue, so trying to shoot a bulls eye at 22 yards was challenging!!!!  As soon as each team finished they started the 5-mile run back to the start line.

The day finished up with over $96,000 raised for the George Mark Children Hospital!!