Ruck March

I did the 10 mile ruck with Surly yesterday. It was a bit chilly and breezy initially but turned out to be a beautiful day later. The temperature was right at freezing when I pulled into the parking lot which might have kept some people away. I don't know how well this event was advertised - I never would have known about it if it hadn't been for Surly. I think the only way he knew about it was because he knows the guy in charge. So there weren't a lot of people there but the local Marine recruiter "supplied" a nice size group that led the way which included a couple of flag bearers. There also was a couple of squad cars running interference for us through town until we hit the bike trail outside of town.

The Erie Lackawanna Trail is paved and runs through some decent scenery and has very nice facilities along the way. I used to run on part of it when it was still an active railroad way back when, my mother owned some property next to the rail line and my first house after getting married was just a short hop away, so I'm pretty familiar with the area. I rode my bike on most of the trail right after it opened but hadn't been on it for quite a few years. After hiking it yesterday, I'm thinking I should plan on getting out on it again in the future.

Both Surly and I were dressed appropriately and had trained adequately so we had a pretty enjoyable hike. He was toting about 30 pounds in his ruck. I filled mine with Styrofoam packing peanuts and a helium balloon. Actually it was about 18 pounds - plenty for an old man who has lost a bit of upper body strength. There was a young guy, maybe 35, former Marine, current law enforcement and martial arts guy who was humping an 80 lb. ruck. I'm guessing that was just about half his body weight. He struggled from the very beginning but kept after it until about mile nine and then had to bail out from under all that weight. Surly, myself and a few of Surly's friends hiked along with the guy to make sure he didn't fall out somewhere along the trail since he was the last man of the group. One of Surly's buddies carried the guy's pack for about the last mile - he was a big dude and wasn't wearing a pack, so him stepping up kept us moving. I mentioned to Surly as we were finishing the Haggard song above. The title says it all.

When we got back to the fairgrounds they had chili and hot dogs along with a whole bunch of doughnuts left over from the morning sign-up. They took a group photo, I had a bowl of chili and headed home.

My feet were a bit sore when I got home and I hobbled around the house later in the evening when my right ankle stiffened up but I'm doing fine this morning. The group from the boxing gym is doing their weekly run this afternoon, so I think I'll walk a couple of miles while they run to keep things loose.

And what's an event like this without a tee shirt? Not that I needed another tee shirt but this is the only ruck I've ever done so why not. Well run event, good cause, got some exercise and spent some quality time with Surly and some friends. Good day. Very thankful to still be able to get out and do things like this.