May 2019 Ruck – Backblast

May 18, 2019
0600-0900; 0900-1200
May Monthly Ruck: Legs were made for rucking
Shops at Fallen Timbers

First half: Wake, Isosceles, Huckleberry, Mother Rucker, Flo, Tupac, Bluto, Patriot, Billy Bob, Huffy, Mailman, Scrooge, Cousteau, Mercy

Second Half: Tupac, Billy Bob, Casper, Mercy

Before diving into this, I want to express gratitude and appreciation for everyone that showed up. It means a lot that you trusted me with 3 -6 hours of your Saturday am.

We started at 0600 with a few guys coming in hot. Rain and construction on the best exit to get to Fallen Timbers slowed up the process, but we started the ruck with 11 and ended with 14. No one dropped off, and it was nice to add to the group.

In the introduction, Mercy gave the core principles of F3 and the mission, a brief over view of our 3^rd F component – Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and Braedan’s Bridge, and off we went.  

We moved to the hotel parking lot, circled up, and did some warm-up exercises in cadence, then moved out around the parking lot and to the trailhead of the Wabash-Cannonball’s South Fork. Around this time, the rain started to pick up.

We took the South Fork to the North Fork of the Cannonball trail, onto Jerome Road to the Fallen Timbers Battlefield trail. With us, we had some sandbags and water jugs. The jugs were lighter than the sandbags, but the movement of the water, and the shape of the jugs, made the carrying awkward and difficult, as it should be during a CSAUP event.

We also had a weighted shovel flag, just to add to the difficulty.

When we exited the Fallen Timbers Battlefield trail, we were able to gather the last person of our group. We found out that we have a fugitive from Oklahoma among us. The fugitive also found out about his wanted status in the State of Oklahoma since he’s never been to Oklahoma in his life, but the situation did not bring around any more trouble than that.

We rucked over to the Fallen Timbers Battlefield Monument, and planted the flag and grounded our coupons.

At this point, Mother Rucker took lead for a segment. In two lines, we raced against the clock to dump our rucks completely, and hold them above our heads. Of course, we were not fast enough, and as a group we did some PT. There were crab walks, lunges, lunges as a group, bear crawls, and other exercises as we failed a few times to dump our rucks quickly enough, and then failed to shove it all in our rucks again.

(Pro tip on this exercise: after the initial dumping, don’t worry about putting things back in their specific pockets. Just shove it all in like a winner. This makes the dumping easier, and gives you time to help the rest of the team.

Also, at some point, even if you do things perfect as a team, the cadre will find issue with something if he wants to kill more time, so there’s the other aspect – something may get nitpicked as an excuse to do more PT that was already planned.)

After we successfully dumped and shoved it back in, we had a few minutes to pack up our rucks, and we moved out, down through Side Cut Park, down to River Road and along the Maumee River. We made our way back up to the footbridge that stretches over the Anthony Wayne Trail, and we rucked back to the starting point. While waiting to cross a street, we did some squats until the light turned. Some of us were lucky enough to do some squats with the coupons.

When we made it to our start point, we were lucky enough to have 20 minutes or so left. The standard for monthly rucks proscribes the length – 3 hours, and I wanted to be sure everyone got their money’s worth.

We circled up and did a version of the Robbie Miller WOD in cadence.  The full WOD is 12 rounds, 6 reps of each exercise. Rucks were optional for this. The 4 exercises: bent over rows (instead of pull-ups), burpee squats, 4 count mountain climbers, and ruck getups.

This was work, and after 2 rounds, ruck get-ups were switched out with overhead ruck presses. We pushed through one more round with this modification, and we had a few minutes left.

Wake was kind enough to let me know that I did not need to worry about anyone feeling shortchanged if we stopped at that point. By this point, the reason for our 3^rd F component had arrived, and I knew we had 1 more round in us. So we persevered and finished strong.  

My face when I’m wore out.

We put in a lot of work. It was a solid 3 hours, and I was proud of the work the PAX put in. We had rucked just over 6.5 miles, with a tough amount of PT. But this work was about to be put in perspective.

While circled up doing the WOD, Tammy and Braedan arrived and watched. Tammy and her son Braedan were the 3^rd F focus, and I was thrilled Tammy wanted to come speak to us at halftime. Tammy told us about Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. It affects mostly boys. When we workout, we breakdown muscle. Our bodies produce Dystrophin to help us build back our muscles. Braedan’s body does not produce Dystrophin. As you know, our hearts and lungs are important muscles. So beyond the impact of walking and physical activity, this form of muscular dystrophy threatens breathing and living.

Tammy painted a raw picture of this disease, with Braedan, 13 years old, standing there with her. However, Braedan and his family are inspiring. When they received this diagnosis, they decided to make the most out of life. Braedan is an avid hunter, and hunts everything. From hunting turkey to big game in Africa, Braedan and his family have refused to be victims.

With amazing perspective, Braedan once told his mom that he didn’t like Duchenne, but it was kind of a good thing he had Duchenne. Taken aback, Tammy asked why – Braedan said that then he would not have been able to meet so many people were it not for Duchenne.

Braedan lives life to the fullest, and is an inspiration to me, and I hope he inspires the rest of the PAX.

We have an opportunity to serve and help find a cure for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. On October 5, the 7^th Annual All In for Duchenne casino night is being held at Tam-O-Shanter in Sylvania. We have opportunities to volunteer, attend, or donate items to be auctioned off. I asked the PAX to consider these things, and I will be posting more information, along with a calendar event on GroupMe.

We closed out in ball of man, as Braedan joined us.

As the circle disbanded, Cousteau was awesome and thoughtful enough to give Braedan an F3 patch. Tammy was thrilled with our response to her and Braedan, and I look forward to coming through for her and Braedan for their casino night.

The second half of the ruck started up as Casper joined up with Mercy, Tupac, and Billy Bob. We dumped the coupons and weight on the flag, focusing on keeping up the pace. We headed back over the footbridge over the Anthony Wayne Trail, past the Battlefield Monument, down to Side Cut’s paths along the Maumee River. This time we rucked through to the Silver Lake area, looking for to get some elevation in. We had some patches to earn via GORUCK’s monthly ruck club callout. We needed 1,500 feet of elevation, or 1,500 stairs climbed. We rucked through an outdoor event that was being held in the Silver Lake area with our American flag.

We thought the sledding hill was going to be an option to earn the elevation, but there was an archery activity taking place, with arrows being shot towards the hill. We reconsidered and moved on.

Along the way, Tupac EH’d several people and ate wild Asparagus

Planting the flag, we found a flight of 15 steps. With some quick math, we figured out we needed to go up and down these steps 15 times. We split it up into quarters and pushed. It was not easy, and Casper who co-Q’d the beatdown at the Fortress just a few hours before which happened to skew heavy toward leg work, was blessed with more leg work.

A lot of people were in Side Cut while we earned our patch. Again, this was not easy, and it was hard-earned. I was proud of the push we made as we earned this patch together.

We stopped a short second, ate some Gushers, and headed back to the starting point. It was a beautiful day, the sun was out, and it was wonderful weather.

We got back to the starting point, hitting 7.5 miles for the second half, 14 miles total for Tupac, Billy Bob and me.

I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to lead this ruck. I’m appreciative of all those who came out. I’m glad I was able to present a cause that means something to me.

Legs were made for rucking, and one day, Braedan might have that opportunity because of the money raised to help end Duchenne.