Beyond the Blog: The Carolinas CAN Ruck For Autism

Total mileage: 25 miles  Today our tribe changed once more, dwindling to just me and Monty. I woke up slightly more optimistic and better rested, having spent the night at a hotel away, from my loving family. It was a necessity and Cheryl was so understanding about the whole sleep thing This week we begin our march through the South Central Piedmont towards Fayetteville, with beautiful Rolling Hills and Uwharrie national forest awaiting us. I started just outside of Gold Hill, following a popular about bike route over High Rock Lake to Denton.  The trade-off in running these Country Roads is that there are certainly less cars, but there are way more dogs. Still I'll take a flesh-and-blood dog over a steel and metal car any day. But it's a choice I'd rather not make. Monty is an awesome driver and so conscientious of stopping and making sure I had fuel and rest. Of course every time we stopped, some guy in a pickup truck pulled up and asked us what we were doing,...

Total mileage: 25 Miles Today I was supposed to run out to Gold Hill, but for many complicated logistics and family reasons, I decided to run around the Concord downtown and Greenway, which was a pleasant surprise. Daniel had a stomach flu last night and another child needed transportation today. Things just got very complicated at home so it was best for all if I spent this last day helping out here. In any case I started the run at my home gym 300, all of the guys are seen above. I love this place and I love my comrade-in-arms. I set out for downtown, planning on making a huge loop, and was absolutely delighted to find my friend Claudia coming around the corner at Old Airport Road. She pulled over and we chatted for about 10 minutes, it really warmed my heart to see such a dear friend, we've known her and her husband Mark for 25 years.  I set off to Ruck The Greenway and the downtown area and got in 19 miles total before the sun just dried me up.  It was in t...

Total Mileage: 24.6 Miles I have the pleasure writing/dictating today's blog while I'm actually finishing up the ruck for today. I'm walking through the trails at University, where I have spent hundreds of hours running as well as training for this event. It's a beautiful sunny day, a perfect Mother's Day, and everybody just seems happy today. I started today's run in the neighborhood with Cheryl, and then drove down to Charlotte where I'm ran with Ted, Charlie, and Dimitri (F3 - KGB) 6 or 7 miles around Freedom Park and the surrounding neighborhood. A few miles later, I met Keith and his son Duncan, who is the most talented 8th grade runner I've ever met. He's also just a great kid.   After running a few miles with them, Ted called me back to his house, and they had very kindly made me lunch.  I wolfed down a tuna sub, my power food, and we started back out to Freedom Park. My total mileage at that point was 20.  I wanted to come back up to Universi...

Happy Mother's Day to all moms out there! You are all amazing, balancing so many responsibilities large and small, keeping us all together and doing it with love and grace.  I miss my own mom terribly.  She passed from covid almost a year to the day when I started this ruck. Here is a snapshot from Garmin console for the last week, in case anyone is concerned about my record-keeping:        A few notes about recording mileage: 1. On a few occasions, my Garmin dies before I finish.  Its usually pretty close, but it does happen. 2. My Garmin stops when I stop, but any motion usually gets recorded, like walking into the woods for a, uh, nature break. 3. I'm not doing this for any type of athletic record. This is about autism awareness and CAN! So if I seem a little casual about my record-keeping, it's because getting up every day and putting on that ruck sack is more important than trying to set any kind of new record. And really, who wou...

Total Mileage : 26 miles Starting the day today, I had no idea how enormous it was going to be, meeting with Ted, two groups of my F3 Brothers and finishing with a group of our neighbors, kids running in front of me. To be honest, I was a little bit nervous, once again fearing my ability to complete the day.  Ted, my long-time running buddy from over 20 years and countless races has seen me bonk before and I just didn't want to go to that place again. But even here on day 11, I'm still plagued by self-doubt and uncertainty as to whether I can meet the expectations of those supporting me.  Those inexorable demons aside, the day started out beautifully,  meeting Ted and the the group from F3 at the Mount Holly River Park. Cheryl was crewing for me today and as usual, calmed me down and off we went.   We ran 8 miles together...Ted, Spud, Catfish, Homeland, Tombstone, and Total Package. It what is really a great run, temperatures are perfect, although we...

Total Mileage - 25.2 Miles Today was yet another day full of surprises, moving encounters, and lots of physical obstacles. First, I was delighted to have F3 Brothers Heatstroke and Anvil join me all day on the Ruck. Their presence and support was uplifting and made the day go by much easier. We had a long haul in front of usc starting at Oak Grove and running Northeast through some beautiful countryside, unintentionally because I put us on a wrong turn. But that wrong turn let us to meet this young lad above. I can't mention his name, but he is a 12 year old with autism and is one of the sweetest kids I've ever met. His mom told us about his challenges with autism and she was close to tears. We are connecting them with Champion Autism Network to hopefully get them some support. But every encounter like this makes me realize the impact of what we're doing, hopefully changing lives in some small way and making kids like this have an easier path in front of them. I...

Total Mileage : 24 miles There was a big party on the second floor of our Comfort Inn in Gastonia last night, and I was anxious about what to expect running through the city, so I woke up tired, dejected, and unsure if I even could make it 10 miles much less 25.  As usual, Cheryl talked me off the proverbial ledge, and by 8:00 our team ledt for Six Points, Mooresville. To be honest I thought this day was going to be one of running down the streets skipping to  gas stations and trying to find parking lots and fast food restaurants where we could avoid cars. In fact it turned out to be one of the nicest rural runs I've had in a long time, ruck sack or not. We changed our route on the fly, finding the less traveled roads north of Shelby and passing through some really pretty countryside, surrounded by working farms, streams, and wooded areas. The most amazing thing though, is as I struggled through the first few miles, Jason (who is helping out today) decided he would...

Day 8: total mileage 25.6 Last night I was pretty down, having my butt handed to me from the last ruck through the wilderness area near Tryon.  Turkey and waterfalls aside,  I was a was like a single-man episode of the Walking Dead.  But I had a great dinner from Chili's and got dome good sleep and started the day more optimistically...every day is a new day, right? Today's plan was to ruck the greenway in Rutherford County.  Becky and Stephanie had done a huge amount of prep work with local authorities, and I want to give a HUGE shout out to the awesome police officers of Rutherford County and Rutherford.  They were so engaged and supportive, it was amazing.  They met us at the greenway in the morning, and again later in the day when I finished on the Purple Martin Greenway in Rutherfordton. I got in over 25 miles today, a big improvement over yesterday and mentally in a better place. Thanks all for your support! Godspeed, R.

Day 7: total mileage 20-21 After yesterday's total drenching, I should have checked the weather report to have been better prepared for the worst. I started out running the lovely Oklahala Greenway in Hendersonville, a 3.25 Mile stretch that winds around the river and through fields and ends at athletic fields on one end. It is really one of the nicest greenways I've been on, so hats off Hendersonville!  Unfortunately after about 14 miles the sky opened up and the we saw some lighting, which was enough for me.  We decided to drive to Lake Summit, a lake in the very south of North Carolina but still in the mountains.  It is a very private lake, and when we got there it was just pouring, with crashing thunder and lightning.  I've never run in such insane conditions but I looked over at Joe when we got there and said "Lets Go!".  He helped me gear up and off I went into the maelstrom. I ran for about 5 miles in this crazy weather and was rea...

Day 6: total mileage 25 Today had all the makings of a impossibly hard day. Nothing but hills on the Blue Ridge, pouring rain, and heavy traffic. But I made lemonade out of lemons, and with the help of Joe and Matt, we got through it. I knew there would be one day when it was going to rain all day, and we sure got it today. I started the day with a few miles straight up on the Blue Ridge, turned around and went back the other way, and then took the road down to Hendersonville. But it was raining so hard and traffic was so heavy that I had to turn around and run back towards Asheville where there was at least a sidewalk. By this time I had about 15 miles in but I was completely drenched so we decided to go back to Bent Creek, where we finished out the day yesterday. I had 10 miles to go and just took off...with all of the different routes available managed to get the mileage in. I was completely wasted by the time I finished however, because I did not stop for a real lunch t...