On November 10, 2018, I had the privilege of participating for the first time in the Fourth Annual Ruck N Run honoring those who serve and have served. Thankful to represent Team Run Like The Wind at this race.
Saturday morning was cold, the temperatures were in the 20’s. I arrived at the event early so I did not miss any part of the experience. Grateful that Got Your Six Coffee was there with coffee to keep us warm. The event had a fire pit going for us to stand next to stay warm and enjoy the fellowship. I also spent time in the church to stay warm and ran into friends and made new ones.
The event organizers did a great job with keeping the schedule, explanation of the course, and describing the exercise stations as well as offering suggestions/options. The event began at 8:30am with an opening ceremony with a black hawk helicopter landing. This ceremony continued with an honor guard from the Republic High School Junior ROTC, the National Anthem was sung followed by the playing of “Taps”. The emotion that is felt when our National Anthem and Taps are performed is difficult to put into words, tears rolled down my face as I thought about the men and women who serve and have served to keep us free.
The event began on time with the runners going first followed by those rucking or walking. I was grateful to my husband for being there to cheer me on and to my friend, Mike, for participating in the event with me. He asked if I planned to keep my ruck sack on during the exercises and I replied with a “yes”. I am grateful to Mike for his guidance in training for this event, it was very helpful. He reminded me that Army standard is a 15 minute per mile pace and we did our best to do just that. We arrived at the each station (push-ups, jumping jacks, mountain climbers, body weight squats, and burpees) performed the exercise (I trained to do 10 reps at each station, at some of the stations I did do more than that), and at the burpee station we did take our ruck sacks off. We finished strong even air shuffling to the finish!
Everyone received a finisher medal, a dog tag. After the race, Village Inn provided food. Everyone was cheering people on as they finished. People had the pleasure to meet the pilot of the Black Hawk and sit inside. The Black Hawk did a fly over when they left and it was a spectacular site. I am excited to do this race next year.