On Sunday, the day after Rugged Maniac, I was feeling like my foot was 30% better than it had been immediately after Star Course ATL 26.2. It was showing signs of improving, but I still wanted to be patient and be careful.
Monday, Mar 18:
Body weight strength session
- Pullups: 7 with a slight kip for the last 2
- Crunches: 400/side
- Plank: 3 with sloppy form, then 2.5
- Adductor/Abductor Leg Lifts: 85/145
- Pushups: 30 + 20
- Shallow Single Leg Squats: 75 + 85
- Lower Leg Extensions: 100
- 6 in: 60s
- Squats: 50
- Russian Twists: 35 with 20#
- Weighted Dead Bug w/ 20#: 100
- Various 10# dumbell arm exercises
Wednesday, Mar 20:
Up until this day, I had stayed away from rucking. I decided that I felt good enough to try it again today. I went out to South End with my parents. I had explored the Rail Trail once before while geocaching, and I loved it, so I wanted to share it with them. That trail is awesome, with statues, brew pubs and other eateries with lots of activity, and nice views of uptown. There are lots of fun things to discover while you're walking.
Sunset is a great time to go, because it's cooler, there's a different kind of energy to the place as people go out for evening exercise or going out for the evening. The sunset and then the skyline at night are great, too.
Friday, Mar 22:
I hit the gym after work. From the previous weekend, I knew I could run ok. I hadn't been running any other time during the week, so it would be fine to try again without the risk of overdoing anything. I had been feeling really tired in the past couple of days, but I was feeling good and happy that day.
5.0 in 41:30, 8:18 ave, treadmill at 2 degrees of incline. I ran until my lower right back started tightening up a bit. Normally, with injuries and compensations, whatever leg has an issue, the opposite side's back tightens up. I used new shoes. The ones that have been in my rotation have all had many miles on them. It doesn't hurt to bring in some new ones with fresh cushioning. I wonder if that was some of the cause of my issues.
Splits> 8:37, 8:33, 8:21, 8:11, 7:47.
Sunday, Mar 24:
I had a lazy Saturday in bed all day. I think I even ate some of my meals in bed. By Sunday, I was itching to get my blood flowing again.
5.0 in 43:03, 8:36 ave, treadmill at 2 degrees of incline. I wore heavier shoes than usual, to rotate in a different pair, so the run felt a bit harder than normal. It was still good to get out, though. I'm glad that my foot's improving. I rucked 1.4 mi to/from the gym, on top of that.
Monday, Mar 25:
The ruckingchallenges.com March challenge was called the "1,000 lb Ruck". Of course you're not rucking a 1,000 lb ruck, but the idea is that you transport 1,000 lbs for 1 mile, cumulatively. After the issues after Star Course ATL 26.2, I didn't think about the challenge much, since I had kind of given up on it, and was pretty consumed by getting better.
My rucking friend was organizing a Pathfinder Coupon Ruck event, though, and it's hard to pass up a chance to ruck with some cool people. Ironically, the Coupon Ruck was the Pathfinder challenge that I had most wanted to avoid.... well, that and Triple Miles both sounded pretty awful. In Pathfinder, you get to pick 5 challenges out of a list of about 11.
The Coupon ruck consists of sharing about 80# between 2 people, for 10 miles. Sounds terrible, doesn't it? That's a lot. I guess it's pretty normal as part of a Tough, so it shouldn't be as intimidating to me as it is. You mix it up with different kinds of weights, and split the weight up in different ways throughout the challenge, to simulate different coupons and swapping schemes during a Tough.
Anyways, since I was planning to do the Coupon Ruck, I'd be getting in a decent number of pounds moved, so I did the math. I had 262 points from the 26.2 with 10#, and then another 78 points from the shorter rucks during the week. If I ended up doing about 50# for 10 miles during the Coupon Ruck, I'd have a manageable gap to fill to make up the difference.
So, I went for a ruck on Monday. I needed to see how a more substantial ruck felt, anyways. If I had any troubles doing 5 miles with 20#, for example, then it wasn't a good sign for the coupon ruck. Last-minute, I decided to try 30# instead of 20#. I almost never train with 30#, but I guess I wanted to try to be more efficient with my time that night. It ended up being great. It didn't feel that much harder, and it was nicer to do an extra 10# than to have to walk an extra 50%. I didn't bring any water, so just a 30# plate wasn't much different than what I might have during a normal ruck with 20# during a GORUCK event, anyways.
I also used the opportunity to try out a new pair of Salomon XR Missions. I love my original ones, but they're old, with worn treads and heel counters that are starting to crumble where I normally slide/force my feet in. I'm going to avoid the MAC-V1s for a while, until I'm well past feeling 100% again.
I was happy after finishing 3 miles and was tempted to stop it there, but I kept going. During the ruck around my neighborhood, it hit me that this was actually supposed to be prime Star Course DC training time, so I should be doing good training right now. I ended up with 6.4 miles. I could've pushed for even more, but there's no need to risk it at this point. A gradual buildup is the wise thing to do.
It went well. I was happy to have completed a good normal ruck again. I had to take the downhills gingerly, but the rest felt pretty good.
6.4 in 130 minutes, about a 20:00 pace.
COUPON RUCK
There were 5 of us who signed up for the Coupon Ruck. It was my first ruck in North Charlotte. On the event page, we were all indicating what kinds of coupons we could bring to the suckfest. It was kind of crazy... we were all excitedly sharing what kinds of heavy, awful things we had in our arsenal to make a normal ruck harder. I offered a few options. I have more stuff, too, but I had no desire to haul around a bucket or anything too unwieldy or with sharp edges like that.
We met up in the park, and decided which coupons to take with us. We had a nice assortment, and went with 3 sandbags (30#, 45#, 45#), an extra ruck (30#), and a kettlebell (15#). We had two Pathfinder Course Advisors in the group, so they knew what they were doing, and we had a good system going. Every 1/2 mile, we'd swap coupons. We went on a looped 2-ish mile course, which gave us chances to stop by the cars again, if needed, too. We took a 5-ish min break at the 5-mile mark.
It was a nice day for a ruck. It was one of the first warm days of the year... so it was actually a little sweaty, and we had all that coupon sharing going on, haha. Team building. The park was nice. The gravel was nice to our feet. It was scenic, with some trail areas and a section by a pond with a fountain. There was also a 5K going on that day, which added a little bit of excitement.
I was starting to feel the weight in the last couple of miles, but my foot was fine. I was breathing harder sometimes, and had to focus, but I was happy to find that none of the coupons were that bad. It was challenging, but you only had to worry about taking it half a mile at a time. It was a good group. Everyone was good about sharing the load, and we had a nice morning of rucking and hanging out.
10.0 in 210 minutes, about a 21 min pace including the break and the swapping time.
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