GORUCK rolled out its 50 mile Star Course challenge last year, and it sounded amazing. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it out to any of them. My schedule was already pretty full. In 2019, they rolled out it out to even more cities, and they added two new distance options - the 26.2 and the 12. I thought it would be so cool to rack up 50's in a bunch of different cities. Each city has its own event patch with the city's skyline, so it would be fun to collect.
I had signed up for the DC 50 and the CLT 50, after working with my event schedule to keep them spaced out from some of the more challenging events, so that there would be sufficient time to taper beforehand and recover afterwards. After a special promotion, I still had another event that I could sign up for, and I decided to go with the ATL 26.2. Since it was the week after the Myrtle Beach Marathon, I wouldn't be able to do the 50, but I felt confident that I could at least finish the 26.2. It would be a good opportunity to practice and figure out how the event goes, in preparation for the 50's, too.
Participants are supposed to form teams of 2-5. My friends were all doing the 50, so I posted in the event page, looking for potential teammates. There was a guy who was also looking for a team, so our team was born. This was about 5 weeks before the event. Both of us were just aiming to finish, and I was planning to be the one to navigate. We both downloaded Road Warrior to start getting familiar with the route optimization tool.
Two weeks later, another guy posted, asking if he could join. He was new to GORUCK events but had a good endurance background and happened to ruck a lot. We became the@3Ruckateers. He happened to be from ATL, too, while I was from CLT and the first guy was from Alabama. It was awesome that we had a local on our team, too, and when I gave him a choice between navigating or doing Instagram, he was game for navigating. The first guy was going to be our official team leader.
Our goals were to
- Finish (not concerned about pace)
- Learn and gain experience
- Have fun
PRE-EVENT
I left CLT on Friday night at around 10pm, and arrived at Piedmont Park at 2:30am. There was parking available on the street, which was nice. I was glad that I didn't have to find a spot a mile away and ruck in to the start. I mostly went with the packing list for gear.
Gear
- Extra socks
- Blister kit
- Pen, paper, printout of the participant packet
- 2L H2O and a Recovery Drink
- Food & electrolytes
- Cash, credit card, ID
- Tissue
- 3 Power Banks and cords (because my phone runs out of batteries quickly)
- Tac Hat
- Headlamp
- Buff
- 10#
- Carabiner and reflective bands
For clothing, I had shorts, compression socks, MAC-V1s, a t-shirt, and light hoodie.
I took a nap for about an hour, and then got dressed. D arrived, and we met A at the start point.
It's fun to encounter new Cadre. I had never met Flash or JC before. It would be interesting to do challenge events with them.
JC ran through the rules. We got our gear checked, to verify weights. We got a start point picture with the starting tent. The Team Leads got the waypoint lists. Our plan was for both A and I to stick them into our own Road Warrior apps, and check whether we got the same results. I had read that recommendation in an AAR, and that was a good tip. I had some trouble with a coordinate-based point at first, but A knew where that point should be and helped me fix it. One of his addresses needed to be updated, too. Sometimes, you could tell whether your pinpoint made sense, if it was at a landmark that you could see on a map. Other times, it wasn't as easy to tell.
We took our time, going past the official start time when we could depart, to make sure that this was right. I had heard that "you live or die by your route", and that issues have caused teams trouble in the past. When we got the same points, it was interesting to note that the sequence of stops between our two optimizations were different, but it was the same route, either way, and a very similar distance, so we were satisfied. The Cadre verified that we were good to go, and we were on our way.
The cold and our desire to find a restroom soon made us walk fast at the start. That and adrenaline. knew where to find our first waypoint, which was an Einstein statue at the Georgia Tech campus. Many teams had been headed in that direction in the brisk rush at the start, so we and and another team helped each other take pictures.
Our next priority was a restroom, which A helped us find. We weren't going for time, so we took our time there before heading out to the Olympic Fountain. On the way there, I asked A whether he had gone to the '96 games when they came around. It turned out that he wasn't even born yet! It made me feel old, haha.
We went to the state capitol, next. We were glad to get city waypoints out of the way first, when there was less traffic around. The waypoints sometimes have special instructions, where you have to take the picture of a certain thing, or from a certain place.
It started to get warm, so we took off some layers after this picture. For our next waypoint, we were doing a straight eastern shot. We had another restroom break. During that break, we found out that it wasn't a good idea to re-optimize after the route had already been optimized, particularly if the round-trip setting was applied. That probably added about 0.75 miles on to the trip, but not much, and it was good to figure that out early on. I also ate a granola bar during that long break. It did get chilly outside, since we weren't moving anymore, and it was windy along that wide road.
We continued on to the start point of the Battle of Atlanta.
We ran into some other teams. It's interesting how despite going to the same places, teams take different routes. We know why we took a different route, but there are always different ways to get to the same place. We did separate again shortly after. We had another long leg to our next point, the Bradley Observatory at the Agnes Scott campus. We took a quick break there to eat and drink a little.
Our team got along well. Everyone was easy-going, and it never got boring. The topic of places to eat came up often, and the houses in ATL are varied and interesting. The HOAs in the area must not be too strict, since there are all kinds of architectural styles and building colors in the neighborhoods we went through. We came across one house that was full of elaborate birdhouse structures decorated with all kinds of themes. And to think... not every team would've come across this, based on the route that you went on.
We went up through Decatur to go to Emory University, next. My sister went there, so it brought back some nice memory of my visits with her. Decatur was a nice little city to walk through. They had restaurants and stuff in their downtown area. And Pokestops. I did do a little bit of Pokemon during the event.
We went up through Decatur to go to Emory University, next. My sister went there, so it brought back some nice memory of my visits with her. Decatur was a nice little city to walk through. They had restaurants and stuff in their downtown area. And Pokestops. I did do a little bit of Pokemon during the event.
We had some fun with our pictures, to amuse ourselves, and to give a little treat to whichever GORUCK employees were on scoring duty. For each waypoint picture, you had to tag @goruckstarcourse and enter a certain hashtag. Once HQ "liked" your photo, you knew that they approved your post. It took between 5 seconds and 55 minutes for some likes, so I'm glad that we never tried waiting for the "like" before proceeding. You could check other peoples' posts for the hashtags, so you could get confidence from seeing that similar posts were previously approved for other teams. You knew you were at the right place, and you just had to follow the rules on being as close to the stated waypoint as physically possible, in the spirit of the game.
We had started seeing more teams. Some of them were the 50 milers, who had started the previous night at 9pm. They were still moving really well, and some people were hauling it.
We took another restroom break at a porta-potty. One good thing about the amount of construction/re-construction in ATL is that there are portapotties to be found in the neighborhoods.
We went to the Fairburn museum to visit the dinosaurs, next.
We were on a good pace, and we had made good progress. There were stretches of road through residential areas, and then we started going through more commercialized areas with heavy traffic.
We took another break at a park, to change socks. I normally don't bother, but it was a good call from D. It was nice to get some dry socks on. A hot spot was starting to form, but just on the outer back edge of my heel. Better to be safe.
Onwards we went. I was starting to feel it a bit more now. After stops, my feet would feel it more, and I'd walk slower than before. The sun finally came out from behind the clouds at times, too.
We went to a park in the Fourth Ward, and ran across more teams. We were all headed to the belt line. From there, we only had one more point to visit, before it would be time to head back to the finish. Our target was Sweetwater Brewery. We went along that gravel road for as long as we could, so that we could enjoy softer ground beneath our feet, with less traffic to worry about.
While we walked, D and I told A about our experiences at GORUCK events. I mentioned how even though I've done so many, I learn something new at each one. He asked what I learned from this event, and that opened up a good discussion about how the day went. It was kind of like doing an AAR after an evolution, and it was really awesome to get to talk through it as a group.
The beltline only went so far, so we had to move back onto Monroe to go under I-85.
I was really hoping for a beer there, but there was no beer. There were 50 miler teams working with their support crews. That was the first time we came across support teams. We didn't have any for our 26.2 team. It wasn't really necessary. Looking back, though, it would've been nice to have to carry less extra supplies around for "just in case" purposes. I'll keep that in mind for the 50. I didn't need to bring as much water or as many power banks as I did, since weather cooperated, and the electronics did fine. Though if anything had gone wrong in those areas, it is good that I would've been prepared, so I don't know that I would change that for the next time, despite the extra weight. We did dump at least a liter of water each, at Sweetwater, since we only had 4 miles to go from there.
Before we got to I-85, I was walking really slowly after the long break. D offered to take my ruck for a while. I could've kept it and continued on slowly, and it would've been fine, but since he and A were still full of energy, I let them take D take it for about half a mile while my feet recovered. It did hurt my ego when other teams came by and saw him carrying my ruck. But, for the sake of the team, I'll take a hit on my ego for a while, and for the sake of the team, D could take some extra weight for a while, so that we could make it to the end faster. We weren't pressed for time. We were still well under the limit, but why not by efficient? I did take it back after half a mile, since I wanted to finish with it.
We made our way back to the park along the same route that taken earlier, and went to our last waypoint in the park.
At the end, we got our ruck weights re-checked. We might've come in as the 5th out of 18 or so teams? Not sure. But I think we did great. A was amazing at navigation, and it was super smooth sailing because of it.
At some point during the day, someone had mentioned "all for one and one for all". Somehow, that phrase and how well-suited it is for the event didn't occur to me until then. When D picked the team name, I was just thinking that we were a team of 3, and "rucka" sounds like "muska", but it really is a good name for a star course team. The goal is to get everyone to the finish line, working as a team "all for one". Fortunately, we didn't have to deal with this scenario, but sometimes, if a person is injured or something, they may decide to withdraw, to not hold back their team and prevent them from finishing, too, in a "one for all". We got it done, though, as a team.
It ended up being a tough day for the 50 milers. They had some long routes and plentiful hills, apart from the rain at night. I was delighted to see my Pathfinder CA there, and we got to catch up a bit.
After changing shoes and a bit of stretching, the 3 ruckateers celebrated with some drinks and food at Nook. It was a great experience, and the team was awesome.
Following the event, a 4-hr drive back home. Somehow, I wasn't sleepy at all, even though it was a full 24 hrs since I had left home. Too much fun, I guess.
It turns out that I did have a massive blister on the back of my heel. Fortunately, it wasn't in a spot where it bugged me too much, despite its size and volume. I think I'm going to try a new pair of Speedcross shoes for my next distance ruck... something with more cushioning and arch support.
For now, it's time to pound bone broth, vitamin C, green tea, milk, and tart cherry juice. I have some recovering and healing up to do.
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