Reddit reviews The Red Circle: My Life in the Navy SEAL Sniper Corps and How I Trained America's Deadliest Marksmen

I've used BUDS as a good goal and motivation for my running (been running for years, just now getting into lifting/bulking). Probably watched every BUDS video on the interweb. A couple notes:

• Sounds obvious, but the minimum standards are a bare minimum. You have to be able to laugh at them if you have any chance of surviving more than a week at BUDS. Take your hardest training day, triple it, add a 5 mile conditioning run, take a long freezing cold shower, and THEN see if you can meet the PFT standards. I had a friend in the military who trained for years to get on a very high end specops course, and they ran the full PFT test within 5 minutes of him stepping off the bus. He failed (some leg cramp apparently), couldn't re-apply. Was literally on a bus off the base 3-4 hours after stepping off the bus. Apparently there's a lot of BUD/s pre-qual courses to help filter these guys out though.
  
• A lot of guys like Richard Machowicz mention it's vital to get used to training and working out in the cold. Stretch, take a 10 minute freezing cold shower, and THEN go for your runs. I read somewhere he credits that for one of the only reasons he made it through BUDS, is having taken 6 months of cold showers before coronado.
  
• Brandon Webb has a great book, about half of it being about his BUD/S experience. Obviously it's all a mind-fuck. He mentions everyone comes in to BUDS more than capable from the neck-down. These guys are out to mind-fuck the shit out of you and get you to quit. The PT just passes time.
  
• On the running side, it sounds like you want to be at AT LEAST 60-70mpw. Running about 15-20 miles throughout the day, every day is apparently the norm. They also recommend spending a lot of time running on sand and on trails. Needless to say they're pounding out miles on coronado beach.
  
• If you haven't seen it, search for 'buds class 234' on youtube. About 15 years old, but the most comprehensive BUDS video on the interweb. They used that footage for the opening of Lone Survivor.

Sorry I can't remember exactly which one, but I'm pretty sure it was one of these:
http://smile.amazon.com/Seal-Team-Six-incredible-operations-ebook/dp/B004OA63JE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397330250&sr=8-1&keywords=seal+team+6

http://smile.amazon.com/Warrior-Soul-Memoir-Navy-SEAL-ebook/dp/B000FC0XZK/ref=pd_sim_kstore_10?ie=UTF8&refRID=1DMA7D0QB52DR9XKD9P3

http://smile.amazon.com/The-Finishing-School-Earning-Trident-ebook/dp/B001RLTFDO/ref=pd_sim_kstore_8?ie=UTF8&refRID=1DMA7D0QB52DR9XKD9P3

http://smile.amazon.com/Inside-SEAL-Team-Six-Missions-ebook/dp/B005HFNK28/ref=pd_sim_kstore_7?ie=UTF8&refRID=1DMA7D0QB52DR9XKD9P3

EDIT: Or this one. http://smile.amazon.com/The-Red-Circle-Americas-Deadliest-ebook/dp/B0071NMCKA/ref=pd_sim_kstore_6?ie=UTF8&refRID=01PHG2R9GTTNCCKK7Y60

By the way, all of these are excellent books (in my opinion), if you're interested in this kind of stuff they make a great read.

[This] ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0071NMCKA/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1374966522&sr=8-2&pi=SL75)

:D