GoRuck Star Course 50 Miler AAR: 8/23

Pre-Event

Unfortunately I did very little actual rucking in preparation for this event, which was a huge mistake. I do CrossFit 6x week, and have for close to 9 years. So I have a baseline fitness and know my body pretty well, but had not conditioned my feet. The only rucking I did leading up to the event was 6 miles light ruck to test my boots, 2 miles 70# ruck, and the Sunday before I did 14 miles to test the load I would actually be carrying.

I wore the GoRuck Mac V1 boots, I thought they were great. I did change the lacing to skip the front section of my ankle. That was causing a little too much pressure and the side of my foot would ache almost immediately. The trade off was my foot slid around just a little bit because of the skipped section. For socks I wore the Injiji liner socks, with smartwool boot socks over top those. I did that to avoid blisters between my toes, while still having the moisture wicking and cushion of the boot socks. I only changed the sock liners once around mile 23, but kept the same outer sock the whole event. Other than that I wore Lululemon workout shorts, and a long sleeve Lululemon tech top because it got down into the mid 50s at night and I am cold natured. I love the Lululemon stuff, its good quality, super light, and dries quickly.

I used the GoRuck Rucker for the event, it seemed like it was built for it with the pocket for the ruck plate, hydration bladder, hip belt, and sternum strap. I also attached a small pocket to the webbing on one side so I could access snacks without taking the ruck off, and a nalgene holder on the other side. Inside the Ruck I had 3L hydration bladder, 4 PBJ, 4 Quest Bars, 2 packs cliff blocks, 2 packs sport beans, a tub of Nuun Endurance electrolyte powder, foot care kit (moleskin, tape, blister band aids, foot powder, body glide) a spare t-shirt, an extra pair of sock liners, and extra pair of socks. Also had sunglasses, headlamp, nalgene, leatherman multi tool, and wallet.

I did change my nutrition a little leading up to the event. The day before and day of I added more carbs to my diet. The entire week before and week of I made sure I was drinking a minimum 128oz water per day, so I would be hydrated for the event. I also used Body Glide on my feet daily to get them moisturized and in good shape for the event.

Start

We were told to arrive at 7:30 to check in and have our rucks weighed. I think we showed up a little late, checked in and weighed. My ruck weighed 43# at the start, which was heavy but similar to others. Pre event meeting started at 8:30 where Mocha Mike went through the instructions for the event, gave a great speech about the event, and then led the group in singing the National Anthem. Awesome. Immediately after that we received our waypoints for the event, and the clock started right at 9:00PM. We decided to have 2 of us put the waypoints into the Road Warrior app for redundancy, so we quickly added all those in. There were 17 waypoints including the start and finish. Looking at the map there were a concentration of points in the downtown Cincinnati area, a few points just outside downtown or across the river, and then 1 lone point way the heck up North. Roadwarrior had that listed as point number 14, meaning we would hit that point towards the end, and then have a long, long walk back to the finish at point 17. I suggested to the group that we keep the route but do it in reverse, walking the long distances as our first miles, and then knocking out the short distance waypoints in downtown towards the end. The theory was we would be exhausted and it would be motivating to be able to travel 1mile to the next point. They both agreed and that strategy ultimately saved us, as I’m unaware of any other teams that made it going the opposite direction. In fact one 6 mile section leading out to the far north point was almost entirely uphill going that direction, whereas our route had us cruising down that hill. I double checked our route distance and waypoint count with the Cadre, and tried to get some info if he thought our plan was good(Mocha Mike would make a great politician) he said the mileage and points were correct, then danced his way around the other question providing no real answer.

Go

We left the start point around 9:25 with our first stop being the observatory just about 4 miles away. Spirits were high and we were all talking and enjoying the experience. A few times we had teams jog past us in their rucks, but we stuck to our plan of a sustained pace (I didn’t see those teams at the finish). We hit the observatory, posted to Instagram, and took off to our next checkpoint of Hyde Park Square. We decided not to take a break then because the square was less than 2 miles away. Got to the square no problem, I decided to take my boots off and apply some body glide to my feet as the balls of my feet were already getting hot. Next stop was the Student Center at Xavier and we took off with only a short 5min break at Hyde Park. Roughly 5 miles to the student center, still feeling good, but my feet were starting to concern me. We hit the student center with a minor detour as the address for the waypoint was about 1/4mile from the point where they wanted the picture. Cadre were there waiting just to check in, so we quickly took our picture and went on. Next stop was the far North point of a church on Winton Rd, roughly 8 miles away. About a mile from Xavier’s campus I had to stop to do some foot maintenance. I needed a better, more permanent solution for my feet, so I took some pre-cut sheets of moleskin and covered the ball of my foot, then taped over that to hold it in place. That tape job stayed in place for the rest of the event, and was the best decision I made.

My face says it all. This was the beginning of my downward spiral.

The Grind

We knew from our route choice that points 14, 13, 12 would be a grind. They are the furthest out, and the furthest distance from each other. We also would be hitting those in the middle of the night. After our stop just outside of Xavier we went non-stop(aside from short pee breaks) all the way to point 14 which was a church off Winton Rd, near Wyoming, OH. It was during that 8 mile walk that the talking stopped. We were separated a little from each other, and all starting to suffer a little. Cadre and a few local police officers were waiting for us at point 14 with water, gatorade, bananas, and cuties (little oranges). Roughly 16 miles in at this point Next point was a tree house in Mt Airry Forest, roughly 7.5 miles away. Another grind, that took us through some of the less nice neighborhoods of Cincinnati. Luckily it was around 3AM and pretty quiet. Aside from the quick pee breaks we did this section non-stop also. As we approached the waypoint we saw another team that informed us that the park was closed and Cadre had said just to take a picture at the entrance instead (which saved us about 1.5mile roundtrip to the point in the park.) We were about 23 miles into the event at this point and 8.5hrs, with only about 25mins of accumulated breaks. I was hurting pretty bad at this point, and the picture for our check in reflects that. During our stop at Mt Airry I did my only sock change for the event. I changed sock liners, re-powdered my heel and sock, then put back on the same smartwool boot socks. Our next check point was Union Terminal, pretty much a straight shot down Colerain and Spring Grove it was roughly 6 miles away. We realized luckily that our route choice also meant that we were walking downhill vs the teams going the opposite direction going uphill. This section was my undoing. At Mt Airry my hamstrings tightened up and it was extremely painful to walk. It was also 5:30AM, we hadn’t spoke but a few words to each other in the last 5 hours, and my demons were starting to surface. Luckily we had planned 1 resupply with a friend of ours, and about a mile into that section we met him for a break, a donut, and a coffee. He also had a large bottle of water each for us, and this was our first water resupply. Honestly I was feeling bad and the stop didn’t do a lot to lift my spirits. We took off after about 10mins and continued with about 5 miles to Union Terminal. I fell behind my teammates immediately,my hamstrings were killing me, and I was feeling nauseous. Looking back I was dehydrated and needed electrolytes, but at the time I was miserable from being up all night, my body hurt, and I was falling way behind. Cadre casually mentioned in his brief that we would see our spirit animal, and while I wouldn’t call mine a spirit animal that is definitely when some old demons began to surface. I started telling myself that I wasn’t good enough, I was holding the team back, and there was no way I could finish. I’ve dealt with this demon my whole life, feeling inadequate, weak, and incapable. Here I was in the hardest thing I had ever done, over halfway finished, and here it comes again. I wanted to quit, I said it in my head 1000x. I would have to call my team to tell them, they were so far ahead. I was fighting back tears, couldn’t even look at my phone cause I knew how disappointed everyone would be. Keep in mind this wasn’t a 5min window of feeling bad, this was 2+hrs of self deprecating inner monologue. Somehow I made it to Union Terminal, and planned to tell my team I was done when we got there. Unfortunately the Cadre were there also, and I couldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing me quit. We took our picture, and sat down. At this point we were 29 miles in. Only 6 check points completed. Our next checkpoint was only 1.1 miles away, music hall in OTR. I decided to get some water for my Nalgene from the Cadre and put electrolytes in it, I also pulled out some CBD Medic muscle cream that I had gotten as a sample during Wodapalooza, and got some aleeve from my teammates. I put the cream basically ass to ankle trying to get my hamstrings to loosen up, and knowing that my calves and ankles were contributing. I decided to try and make the next waypoint to give all those things time to work, and see if I could get some relief. As we left Union Terminal we got stopped at a crosswalk at the entrance, and one of my teammates gave me a playful nudge and asked how I was doing. Still trying not to cry I said “please stop leaving me”, I could tell I caught him off guard and he said “what?” I said “stop leaving me.” What I wanted to say was “stop leaving me, it’s f**king with my head” but I couldn’t get it out. Either way he got the message and we did the rest of the event walking close to each other.

Last 20

Being close together, listening to them talk, getting some electrolytes, aleve, and CBD cream brought me out of my funk. By the time we hit music hall I felt better, and by the next waypoint I was ok. Next waypoint was fountain square, another sub 1mile point. Our strategy was paying off and we were starting to knock out check points quickly and felt good about it. After fountain square our next point was the Reds stadium, another short distance. Hit that and were on our way to the Roebling bridge to cross over to KY and our next checkpoint the Roebling murals. Right before we got to the bridge my wife pulled up, she had seen my face in some of our checkpoint pictures and knew I needed a boost. We asked her to get us some water, and I snuck a quick kiss from my daughter. We hit our next checkpoint at the murals and were on our way to Devou Park. We knew that we still had 2 major (sucky) checkpoints to get and Devou park was next. It was 2.5miles from where we were, and was an out and back point, meaning we were going to return back to almost the same spot, so 5 miles roundtrip. Shortly after our picture my wife found us and gave us some cold water. It was delicious, and only our 2nd water resupply. As we approached 75 on our way up to Devou Park we saw another team getting resupplied, and they had a full breakfast! They had already been up to the park and were coming back down. Kindly they asked if we wanted any thing and I took a pancake with a piece of bacon in it, and some coffee. Off we went. As we got to the base of the hill going into Devou Park I asked for a break, and we took our first real break with rucks off since Union terminal, also reapplied CBD cream here.

The hill at Devou Park sucked, but I had it built up so bad in my head that it actually wasn’t as terrible as I thought. Coming back out of Devou Park we stopped at a convenience store in Covington. I was starting to feel nauseous again, and wanted to get some more electrolytes mixed in my nalgene, and also get some plain water for my hydration bladder. We each got 2L of water, sat on the sidewalk right in front of the store and had a break. Next point was the Daniel Beard House in Covington, right near the bridge into Newport. Not too far, and was pretty uneventful. No break we moved onto our next check point the Peace Bells in Newport. Roughly 1.5 miles away, which was quick but it was starting to get hot and the route was mostly exposed to the sun. We got to the bells pretty quickly and took a break, more aleve, more CBD Cream. At this point we only had 4 checkpoints left, but the next one was an out and back style all the way to the Dayton, KY Fire Dept and then back to the Purple People Bridge (2.5miles each way.) It seemed like it took forever to get out there, and we were really starting to pay attention to what side of the street we walked on, trying to stay in the shade as much as possible. We were all hot and a little dehydrated, but it’s a fine line carrying enough water to survive but not making our packs any heavier at this point. We made it to the Fire Department, and took a break. We knew if we could just hang on that we would make the time limit. So we took off again, with the next point being a statue on the Ohio side of the purple people bridge. On our walk back from Dayton we passed a friend that was doing the 12 mile version of our ruck, and then another friend from the gym who was out getting beer. Seeing some familiar faces made the trip back to the bridge go way faster. We hit the next checkpoint, and didn’t stop.

There were only 2 checkpoints left and we had 3 hours to do them. Unfortunately the next checkpoint was the Taft House, which was on top of a giant hill that made the Devou Park hill look like nothing. We decided to take a break, hydrate, and have a snack before trekking up that monster. It’s Sycamore St in Cincinnati in case you feel like running up it. Anyways we made it up, we were so close to the end it didn’t matter how bad it hurt anymore. We checked in at the Taft House and took a short break. During our break we got a message on Instagram saying “Congratulations you have hit all your waypoints! Ruck back to the start point by 17:00 to complete your event.” That message was a shot of adrenaline and we took off the last 1.25 mile to Eden Park. As we round the corner into the park to finish I felt the blister on the ball of my left foot go. Who cares at this point I can see they have beer and pizza at the finish. Someone met us just shy of the finish with a semi cold beer (Rhingeist Truth) and we crossed beer in hand. Our official time was 17:53, good enough for 4th place. We got our picture, patches, pizza and collapsed along the tree line in the park.

One other thing that helped keep me going during the event was I wrote my brothers name on my left wrist. Backstory: my brother was diagnosed with colon cancer about a month ago at age 38, and started his first round of chemo 2 weeks ago. I didn’t tell him I was doing the event, and I didn’t tell anyone I had written his name on my wrist. The whole event I kept thinking how I wanted to be able to send him a picture of the patch and my wrist, to show him that his bravery and fight was inspiring me to take on this crazy challenge. He is also a fan of GoRuck and I thought he would think it was cool (little brother trying to impress big brother.)

It was really cool to hang out and see the other teams finish. There were 2 other distance rucks going on at the same time, a 26.2 and 12 mile, and they all finished around the same time at the same place. It was just a pizza party with fellow ruckers and a really cool environment. We hung out for a bit, then took a baby wipe bath in the parking lot, and went to a friends B-day party. We made it for 2 beers there and went home. We had been up for 36hrs + at that point and the event was taking its toll. That night I had a fever and was having trouble falling asleep because my legs hurt so bad. Eventually I drank some more electrolytes, had some ibuprofen, and was able to fall asleep. My fever broke in the middle of the night and I woke up in a pool of sweat (on the couch mind you, no way I was making upstairs to the bed.) The next day I felt better, I used the Compex to flush my legs, and aside from the blister on my left foot I felt pretty good.