Kicking off My First Pathfinder Ruck Training Program

PATHFINDER is probably the most well-known ruck training program in the rucking community.  My initial exposure to it was maybe seeing pictures of peoples' patch boards, and seeing the finisher patches from Pathfinder.  At the time, I thought "who needs to be trained on how to walk with a backpack", and didn't give it any more thought.  I also assumed that those patches were like participation patches, which would be another assumption that would turn out to be wrong.

(example of a patchboard on google)

A couple of months later, I started listening to the GORUCK show podcast consistently, and that was awesome.  It fed my obsession, so I was soon searching for other rucking podcasts and discovered All Day Ruckoff.  You start with the most recent episodes that sound interesting, and start working your way back through their archive.  I found a June 2017 episode about that PATHFINDER ruck training program, and that's where I learned more about it. 


The program consists of a certain number of rucking miles that you need to cover during the 12 weeks, a certain number of challenges that you select from a list, and a certain number of rucking workouts (which are like strength workouts, but using the ruck as a weight in all kinds of creative ways).  The community is another big aspect of it, first with your peers, and also with a course advisor whose sub-group you get added to.  In the facebook group, you are able to get encouragement, advice, camaraderie, and more feeding of the obsession 😏


If you take a look at the list of challenges, they are no joke... they are true challenges.  There are 11 to pick from, and you pick 4 or 5, depending on which program you've signed up for.  Each one pushes you hard in a certain aspect of training, and the challenges are quite varied, so you are also challenged on being well-rounded.  Breadth and depth. 


I had decided that I wanted to sign up for the program at some point, but the question was when.  The next class would start on Aug 1st.  At first, I was hesitant, since that 3-month period would be at the peak of OCR racing season.  However, the two are reasonably compatible... both require and build on strength, and that's where I have the most room for improvement.  And, if I were to delay it until the class after that, I'd be running into my next marathon buildup, and that is more speed-oriented and less strength-oriented.  Now would be the time.


The night before July 31st, I got 5 hours of sleep.  The next day, I was understandably tired after work.  I considered napping then running, but my feet were too worn for a run.  I considered doing a midnight ruck to kick off Pathfinder, but it would've meant finishing at 3am and then getting 3-4 hrs of sleep, so I didn't do that.  I did, however, plan out my schedule for Pathfinder. 

I did this so that I could determine what pace I needed to set to complete everything in time.  I had to account for weeks I'd be travelling, or tapering or recovering from other events, too.  I'm happy with how the plan turned out.  It's going to force me to do more than I'd normally do, and some of the challenges scare me (that 20 miler!), but it should be a great adventure chasing this down. 

My first activity for the program was on August 1st.  It was raining in many parts of the country that day, but I was determined to start off on the right foot.  With thunder grumbling overhead, and the occasional lightning strike, I rucked for 4 miles in the rain.  My baptism into the program.

Completing the program is going to be a challenge.  I realize now that those Pathfinder patches on the patch boards were earned with a ton of work.  Even for those who don't check all of the checkboxes by the end of the program, though, they'll still be getting much stronger through the process, with all of the miles and workouts and challenges, and the groups are going to still be a great place to encourage rucking.