First Ruck

I went for my first ruck yesterday. Rucking is not a new idea for me—I have just been avoiding actually doing it for over a decade. This year, I walked around the backyard once or twice with a weighted pack for a little bit but that was it. Yesterday, did 1.5 miles around the neighborhood in 26 minutes with a 10-pound weight in my pack. Today, I can feel it in my upper back and a little bit in my left ankle.

My partner got me a GoRuck GR0, which is a 16L minimalist assault-style pack, for Christmas in 2013 but I’ve just been using it as a normal backpack. A few months ago I listened to a podcast with Jason McCarthy, the founder of GoRuck, and I learned a lot about how and why to ruck from that conversation. His recommendation was to carry the pack high up on your shoulders—he doesn’t use the waist belt or the sternum strap. Dr. Peter Attia uses both of those straps but also carries up to a 90 pound load. Since I’m starting with a light load (less than 10% body weight), I removed my waist belt but kept the sternum strap.

To pack my weight, I put two synthetic foam yoga blocks at the bottom of my bag then wrapped a beach towel around a 10-pound Rogue change plate so that there was one layer of towel between the plate and the back of the pack. I cinched a Gunner tie-down strap—one from NRS would be fine too—around the towel bundle to hold everything in place. This kept the weight high and close to my shoulders. It also filled the pack so nothing bounced around.

It was hot and sunny when I went out. There’s a lot of shade in my neighborhood but there are stretches of road that get a good amount of sunlight. My subdivision was designed in the 50s and the roads look like a doughnut where if you follow the outer loop, then the inner loop, it’s exactly one mile long. This layout was deliberate—they used to race horses around the “track” formed by the roads in the early years. It’s really convenient for measuring exercise. There’s also some hills—which aren’t too common around here—which helps keep it interesting.