My Most Difficult 20 Miler (30#)

 Sunday, Jun 21:

The day after the 12 miler, ED was still here, so we decided to explore more street art in Uptown.  I definitely wanted to see the Black Lives Matter street mural that I had only walked past the day before.  We parked at a school that looks like it's been abandoned forever, and not something only temporarily abandoned for COVID.

The route ended up being great, since we passed a number of murals on our way into Uptown, and then saw more in Uptown itself.

The mood on that street was interesting.  It was on a Sunday morning, and people there were masked because of COVID.  There wasn't a big crowd out, but the mood there was somber and respectful.

We stopped by a little Vietnamese-owned cafe, twice, for ED to get take-out drinks, but I didn't get anything.

We covered 7 miles in 3 hrs and 11 minutes.

After that ruck, we made a quick stop at a shopping center, where I got some groceries at Trader Joes.  A picture of COVID times... My first time visiting TJ since COVID.

We went to the NODA area afterwards, since they had some street art, as well as a good brewery.  We decided to just do the brewery part, though.  Chocolate Mint Beer... difficult to execute, probably.  Fun to try... it wasn't bad or good.  Just their attempt at making something unique.  

Another sign of the times... QR code menus to reduce the risk of transmission:

Monday, Jun 22:

HDT IR.1.1 (Arms and Core) in 31 min, followed by IR.1.2 (Core and Legs) in 43 min.  It felt good to work out again, even though I felt weak prior to the workout.  It had been 5 days since my last workout (Deck of Cards).

Wednesday, Jun 24:

I decided to go for the 20 mile overnight.  Early in this round of PATHFINDER, I had done the 15 mile overnight with 20#, when I was still signed up for Forward.  I remember thinking at the end of that 15 that I was glad that it was just 15.  Now that I was doing Advanced, I had to do 20 miles with 30#.

I decided to post updates in the PATHFINDER Class 024 Group 17 Facebook Group along the way.

Once I drank Celcius with its caffeine, there was no turning back.  I needed the little boost to get myself out the door and make me brave enough to take it on, somewhat on a whim.  It was a Wednesday night, after all.  I wanted to do it then, to give myself more recovery time before the July 4th TL.  I also wanted to get it out of the way in case "life happened" in the last month of this PATHFINDER class.  It's also good to not have 20 milers looming over you when you have to stay on track with HDT, too.  I was already feeling a bit restless, so why not use it to burn some energy.  I just had to be done before my first meeting of the day, which would be at 9am.  I had no pace goals.  I just wanted to go slow and steady enough to finish.

(I was still optimistic at this time!)

I started off in MACV1s, but after 6 miles, the left heel was folding in weird way that kept bugging me, so I switched to the Salomon X-Missions for the rest of the ruck.  I used the restroom while I was home.

The first 12 miles went pretty well, with a 20:34/mi average pace.  I had to stop about then to start recharging my watch battery, though.  I don't know if stopping is what did it, or if I was going to start slowing down anyways, but the ruck got painfully difficult after that.  I started slowing down and needing breaks.  

I took my first stretch break at a crossroad of a dead-end road where cars don't go.  I started needing breaks every mile from miles 12-17.  Nothing was injured... my legs were just out of juice.  It was a death march.  I was struggling.  I couldn't believe that I had to break so often just to keep going.

I was giving updates the whole time.  At 4-something am, there was actually someone else in the group who commented back, asking if I was nervous about rucking alone.  I feel like I know my neighborhood well, and almost all of my rucks are at night, anyways.

The last 3 miles, my feet started feeling more normal again, and I was able to go without stopping all the time.  I don't know why the 20 had been so hard.  It was my first 20 with 30# plus food and water, but I'm not sure that this would've made a huge difference.  I thought my fueling was fine... the usual.  I think I probably should've taken my first break at mile 7-8, in retrospect.  The last 8 miles were at 28:36 average pace.

I made it, though, in enough time for a shower and a nap before my meeting.  Had some recovery products, too.

Saturday, Jun 27:

Did another TA PT test, hitting 26 pushups, 41 situps, and 7 squat cleans at 65#.  I decided to step back from 70#, since 70# didn't feel like it was going to happen.

Monday, Jun 29:

I did a 5K slick run in 23:30, followed by HDT 19.1.1 (Arms) in 40 min.

Tuesday, Jun 30:

HDT 19.1.CP in 20 min, the usual Sanddoom 30# SB AMRAP, then HDT 19.1.2 (Core) in 26 min.

July 2nd bunny...

July 3rd range day...

GORUCK Charlotte 12 Mile Star Course 2020

TRAINING LEAD-UP

Sunday, June 14:

The day after the Savannah 26.2 Star Course, I had to do the HDT Round XVIII-20 BW 30 min AMRAP Tie Breaker.  My partner and I ended up in third place, with us getting about equal numbers of reps.  Not bad for post-Star.

Tuesday, June 16:

We had a zoom meeting to celebrate Singelyn's birthday and show him the videos and the FB page that we had been working on.  

4 mile ruck at 18:22 pace with 30#.  I had originally planned on doing a workout afterwards, but I was too full of dinner to do it.  

Wednesday, June 17:

I did the Deck of Cards workout, Cleve Heavy Style, since HDT was over, and I could do some go-to ruck-based workouts that I haven't been able to hit in a while.  Spades = Brickyard ManMakers, Clubs = Flutter Kicks, Diamonds = Ruck Swings, Hearts = 8-count Body Builders.  Aces = 20, Faces = 15, Numers as-is, Joker = 1 min jog in place.  Used a 30# ruck.  I beat my previous time by 10 minutes by finishing in 64 minutes.  I was dizzy passing out wanna puke feeling during the workout.  I haven't worked out this hard in a while, even with HDT.  

I finished PATHFINDER Forward within about a month, so I got permission to switch to Advanced.  I had been using 30# for almost everything anyways.  I did 6 miles afterwards in the Speed Rucker.

Friday, June 19:

I decided to host a mutual friend, who was coming in for the Star Course.  He's from Nashville, and he's into Street Art.  He looks for it in whatever city he visits.  He found a website that highlights a lot of CLT's Street Art, and he wanted to check it out, even the day before his 26.2, so we went to Plaza Midwood for a ruck.  I went slick, so that I didn't strain my legs quite so much before my own 12 miler.  12 isn't huge, but I didn't want to drag down my team.  

We covered 7 miles in 3 hrs and 11 min.  2 crosswalks took forever to cross.  I never realized how much street art there was.  It's such a nice activity to do during COVID, since it's like an outdoor art museum.  We saw another family doing the same thing.  While we were exploring, I decided that this was a nice idea for a ruck club event.  

Afterwards, I ate indoors at a restaurant for the first time since COVID.  Luna's Loving Kitchen had the tables spaced out.  I kept the mask on until it was time to eat.  It was interesting to see how it would all work.  It's not something I would've done on my own, but it's different when you have a guest.  It was a late lunch, and I hadn't had anything for breakfast, so I was hungry.

We went to the airport overlook afterwards.  I love that place.  With COVID, there weren't as many airplanes as usual.

We went out for a late dinner, again indoors, at Copper.  They have the best Indian food.  

We went back to the overlook after dinner.  Sunset is a really nice time to go.  You get the colors in the clouds, and you also get to see the view at day and at night.  

TEAM FORMATION

I signed up not minding if I did this one solo, as well.  If people were looking for teams, though, I wouldn't mind joining others.  Since I would still be recovering from the 26.2, I had no plans on going fast.  There was a guy on Cabarrus Ruck Club looking for a team, so I offered to partner up.  He later had a buddy who also wanted to join.  Then, an OCR friend of mine was also looking for a team, so I checked with the original guy to make sure he was cool with it, and we became four.  That was a good number... two girls and two guys.  We were all aligned on not needing to go at any kind of crazy pace.  We were out to finish and have fun.  We decided to call our team 3 Cs, since we came from Cabarrus, Charlotte, and Camel City Ruck Clubs.  

A TASTE OF 26.2 SUPPORT

Originally, my new Nashville friend and an Asheville friend were going to do the 50 miler, but the 50 got cancelled.  I was going to crew for them overnight before doing my 12 miler, so once they switched to the 26.2, the new plan was for me to just help them mid-morning.  

When they contacted me, they made a request for bananas and oat milk lattes.  I didn't know that oat milk was a thing, but he was good with almond milk lattes.  The Asheville guy is a raw food vegan, and the Nashville guy is mostly a vegetarian.  I hadn't even gone to grocery stores much for myself since March, so I didn't try too hard to find bananas (that would've required another stop and more time, anyways), but I got the almond milk lattes at Dunkin Donuts.  Finding the coffee was a small challenge.  I had to find a place likely to have that drink, in the general vicinity of where the team was.  

Finding the team afterwards was even more of a challenge.  I knew where they were when they sent a screenshot, and they told me what direction they were heading.  I saw some teams along that stretch and got hopeful and was keeping an eye out for them.  But when I tried to look for them, they had already gone somewhere else.  And the way the roads were, the fastest way to get to their new place, per Google Maps, involved going like a couple miles around, so I had to loop back over to a place I had driven past earlier.  Eventually, I got to them and drove a little bit past them to a place where I could pull over and bring out their lattes.

I only made a single support stop, but I have a much greater appreciation for what Support Crews do, now.  I didn't have to stay up all night.  

Lesson learned: I should've arranged for the team to broadcast their location via iPhone, so that I could find where they were "live" without them having to actively tell me.  I had thought that with just one stop and pretty empty roads on a Saturday morning in Northern Charlotte, it would be pretty easy to locate them, but it wasn't.  

12 MILE STAR COURSE

We met up about an hour before the event, so that we had time to use the restroom, meet each other, get our gear ready, and not miss anything with the pre-event briefing.  Our 12 Miler only had 6 waypoints, including the start/finish.

I was going to optimize the route with Road Warrior, since I already had the PRO version of the app paid for from the Savannah 26.2.  MW was going to do point-to-point navigation with Google Maps.  I was the TL.  The two guys were along for the ride, haha.  We didn't have a pace keeper or break timer, since the timeline is generous in the 12, and we didn't care what pace we hit.  I was also responsible for HQ comms, since I like taking pictures.  When I did the comms check with HQ, the coordinator on the other end said "Back for more!  Have fun on Saturday", since we had done all of this a week prior.

Our first leg was just like the first leg of the 10K Sprint that I had done in January.  We rucked to Sycamore Brewing.  It did look different this year, with tables socially distanced, signs about masks, and a row of porta potties outside.

On the 2.4 mile walk to our next stop, Lucky Dog Bark & Brew, we did have to go over a fairly long bridge/overpass that didn't have a sidewalk.  There was a little ledge, so we tried to go as quickly and safely as possible on that.  

We did have to stop when one of the team members was struggling a bit from the heat.  We took a couple of breaks in the shade to help him recover.  Later on, we were able to save a few steps by taking what used to be a road that was now in the middle of green space.  We saw one other 12 Mile team wearing tutus at around this spot.

The dog brewery was pretty unique.  It's a combination doggie daycare plus brewery.  Their pub area allows dogs to roam free and play.  We decided to go in for a drink, since we weren't in a rush, and it might help the guy get even more of a chance to recover.  One whole side of the pub was open-air.

It was fun drinking with the doggies.  I got a sour, which is the best beer for hot summer days.  The break helped the guy a lot.  There were restrooms, too, which was good.  As we exited, we ran into my teammates from the prior year's CLT 50 miler.  They were taking a much-needed break outside and looked tired.

I offered to navigate to the next waypoint.  The drink was hitting me, which caused me to have to focus a little more than usual to navigate effectively.  We were all in a good mood.

We went into uptown, so we snapped a picture with BoA stadium.

We walked through uptown, and went by South Tryon, which I recognized as the new Black Lives Matter mural.  We didn't stop, but I made a mental note to check it out later.  It was a long stretch going through the main section of uptown and then the southern part.  We were starting to feel the miles a little bit.

Road Warrior was weird, unfortunately, and took us to a point that was about a quarter mile from the actual destination.  Fortunately, it wasn't crazy far off, but that is a little frustrating, and another example of why it's good to double-check with multiple apps.  Road Warrior isn't always reliable.  I got complacent.  Once we figured out that there was no statue where Road Warrior took us, we used Google Maps to figure out the correct area.  There were a few statues, but we found our guy!

As we departed that area, we came across another 12 Mile team with pink shirts.  We weren't trying to place or anything, so we didn't change our pace.  Our next stop was the Mint Museum.  There were a couple of equidistant ways of getting there.  Even when we accidentally passed one spot where we were supposed to turn, we could continue on and go an alternate route without adding extra distance to our route.

It's surprising how even an easy paced 12 miler can beat up your legs.  I know I was feeling the miles!  It makes me wonder how I've ever done a 20, 26.2, or a 50.

I saw a fun sign near our last waypoint, so I got a bonus pic

before we got our official pic

We rucked along a dirt trail on the border of Freedom Park to get back to the start point, where we got patched by Cadre Matt S.  It turns out that we were the first 12 Mile team back!  That blew our minds, since we had done a super casual ruck, and even stopped for a long break at the brewery.  That was probably my favorite part.  How often can you stop at a brewery for a drink during an event?

It's fun to mix it up at events.  Sometimes, I go with team members I know well (good for really long and hard events, since you want to be able to trust your teammates).  I've also gone solo.  And then I've teamed up with random people.  All are fun experiences in their own ways!