The Little Chemist That Could: February 2024

This race has consistently been one of my favorites in Greenville... it's always a challenging course through hilly neighborhoods close to home. It's not a huge race either, just a few hundred participants, which makes it feel more like a small hometown race than one of these giant ones with thousands of runners.

I did a little jog to warm up before the race but didn't do much preparation, and wasn't sure what to expect results-wise. At last year's race, I had been consistently running Altamont almost weekly, so I felt well-prepared for the hills. This year I think the last time I ran Altamont was on a rainy night in early December, and before that it had been months. Obviously I'm still running and training regularly but hadn't done much specifically for this race or for speed.

So, once the gun went off I set out and decided to just run what felt right... push if it felt good, ease off if it didn't. Of course that's relative because running hard uphill doesn't ever feel "good" but... well, you know what I mean (maybe).

The first mile was the fastest (7:03) and it was net downhill, so that makes sense. After that I settled into a mid-to-upper 7s pace for the remainder of the race, with just one mile squeaking above 8 minutes (mile 8 @ 8:09) although the final mile was close (7:59).

Final time was 1:16:46, only 5 seconds slower than last year! Pretty amazing year-to-year consistency in my opinion. :)

Post-race crew awaiting awards

First place age group! 🎉

Shifted focus to this event back in November when we started to get a little nervous about the Charleston Tough event and whether it was going to happen (turns out it did, but details were minimal and I think we made the right choice).

In the week or so leading up to the weekend in Savannah, we noticed several changes in the dates/times of the events. Even the Friday afternoon of the event weekend, the time for the Sunday Basic kept shifting. Thankfully all got sorted out and we were able to do all 4 events as planned.

Here's how it went...

Worked from home on Friday and left midday to get down to Savannah mid afternoon. Checked into the really cool hotel (dinosaurs! geodes! old power plant!) and then met up with John for early dinner at a Mexican restaurant.

Event 1: GORUCK Light

10# plate in ruck + supplies

3-4 hours

Starting at 1900 hours

John and I packed up our gear and decided the ~mile walk to Forsyth park where the event was being held wasn't too bad, so we rucked our way to the start. It was already dark as we walked, so we had our headlamps handy and arrived at the starting area (which was on the far side of the park from the direction we were going) in plenty of time. We decided at that point we would not be rucking back to the hotel afterwards.

We stood around as participants (called "GRTs" in the GORUCK community) gathered. Ended up being about 25 of us altogether. At the prescribed hour, Cadre Barbarossa (our leader for the event) had us stand in formation, inspect our gear, and then spread out for some stretching/yoga to start things off. After going over the logistics and expectations, we headed over to Cadre's car to collect the coupons (i.e. the items of varying weight that we would, as a team, carry around throughout the event). Coupons ranged from 25# sandbag kettlebell to a 120# sandbag to several cases of water bottles as well as an American flag that went with us everywhere.

I won't go into all the details since some of the mystery around GORUCK challenges is what makes them fun/unique. But suffice it to say we rucked in loops around the park carrying coupons as a team, trading off as needed, and stopping as a team to do challenges (both physical and trivia-based). We had enough breaks to make it manageable, but by the 2200 timestamp when we finished, we were excited for the patches and beverages to be handed out.

the LIGHT team

One patch, one beer.

Event 2: GORUCK BFF (Basic Functional Fitness) Test

This event was a prescribed set of 4 exercises, all known in advance, with GRT's choice of weights. I chose the BASIC set of weights, which is what I had done back in November when I first signed up for this event. I wanted to see what I could improve over the months of training.

I'm most proud of the improvement in the sandbag burpees, although it was only by a few... those things are HARD.

Only got one photo of John finishing the 1 mile ruck/run.

Patch #2 earned

And then it was time for the day's main event...

Event 3: 12-Mile Star Course

10# plate in ruck + supplies

~15 or so checkpoints

Start time 0900 hours

This was a different kind of event. You had your rucksack with supplies and prescribed weight, but other than that, it's all about the miles. We were given a handful of checkpoints at a time to go out, take a selfie, and then return back for the next set. John and I teamed up and he downloaded an app on his phone that delivery drivers use to plan routes - it turned out to be extremely helpful in plotting the shortest distance to cover all the points and the most logical order in which to visit them.

Took us just about 4 hours total and we covered almost 11.5 miles. Definitely a long day on our feet, but we made it enjoyable!

The rest of the evening was dinner (fooooood) and early sleep time.

Event 4: GORUCK Basic

20# plate in ruck + supplies

5-6 hours

Starting at 1000 hours

This event was similar in style to Friday's Light, just longer in duration and distance. Same setup of carrying coupons as a group from point to point, doing various activities & PT at each stop. We were concerned there would be rain moving in towards the afternoon but we finished up right before it started to sprinkle on us. I managed to carry the 80# sandbag for the last ~1/4 mile or so, and was pretty proud of that!