Two mighty warriors and an old man hit the ruck’in trail for a trip up to the NC State Capitol building. The goal was to complete the 4.25 mile course in 1 hour, complete with loaded rucks, Buddy/BP/Frank/KeyLo and his friend Rice Boy.
The Thang
Quick leg warmup in the Pullen parking lot – Squats x 20, Imperial Walkers x 20, Lunges x 20
Hit the road Jack! Fast trot down to the Rocky Branch Trail along Western Blvd in search of a water crossing with a bank less than 60 degree slope. Found one about 1/2 mile down the trail so we did some creek walking. Air temps were not too bad, upper 30s, I’m sure we’ll have to embrace the suck much more on 2/16/13! Exit creek after 100 yards or so and continue fast trot.
Creek walk caused us to miss first mile goal of 14 min so we found a nice hill at Dorthea Dix and did a couple quick hill repeats as a penalty. Rice boy (25 lbs bag of rice) rides on the shoulders pretty well but BP is just a butt!
Continue fast trot, worked on moving in formation and doing our head counts, but it’s pretty easy not to lose anyone when the PAX only consists of 3. We’ll get more practice with that at Morrow Mtn this coming Sunday 2/3/13. Looking forward to that. The Shore puts on a great party!
YHC caused a couple navigation errors (done that before!) so we had more penalties (20x sets of merkins, squats, and squat holds).
After a couple more water crossings, including under the road, we headed into the heart of the city. Climbed an embankment under the highway, walked the tracks for a bit, and climbed another embankment to finally put us on Salisbury St. headed to the Capitol Building. Check the Buck Rogers decoder report for elevation changes up those embankments, those were no joke! Luckily we didn’t spook any sleepers under the bridges.
Back to fast trot, rotating coupons every two blocks. Did some F3 advertising along the way as we got some interesting looks from folks out for a Sunday stroll around town.
Reached the Capitol Building, tapped the cannon, took a quick water break and headed down Hillsborough St. for the final leg back to Pullen. Continued the F3 advertising campaign, tried to pick up the pace as we passed St. Mary’s girls school in case any F4 happened to be watching. Not sure we were successful with that or not…
Took the last turn back to Pullen, up the hill to cross the tracks and finished strong back to the parking lot. Cooled down with a final set of squats, merkins and lunges. Final time was 1:28 with a final milage of 4.75 miles. YHC was winded and reached a new heart rate threshold of 160 bpm average for 60 min of our 1:28 trek.
Buck Rogers decoder report:
http://www.trainingpeaks.com/av/R24BDLVOSCLCMBVWDWATX3SFEE
