Ruck, ruck, ruck!

I have been getting a lot of emails about preparation for the 12-miler at Air Assault. My advice to those people is always the same: ruck, ruck, ruck! Ruck heavy and ruck often. If you take a look at the packing lists in the previous post, the ruck at Air Assault is not that heavy, maybe about 30 pounds, 35 the most. However, when you train for it, I'd train with at least 45 pounds. You don't know what the terrain is going to be like at your school. If it's Camp Smith, you know from me that the terrain sucks and the hills are brutal. My friend who is down at Fort Knox right now tells me he's doing his 12-miler on an air strip (or so he currently thinks) so it will be largely flat. Having the extra weight in your ruck while you train will make your rucking experience at Air Assault that much easier.

When training, hold yourself to the Army standard of 15 minutes per mile (try to finish each mile in at least 14) and work yourself out from there. Be comfortable with a ruck on and have boots that are well worn in. That will make your life so much easier at Air Assault.

For the 12-miler at my school, we had an Air Assault Sergeant keeping the pace for passing. Meaning, if you were behind the Air Assault Sergeant with the flashing red light, you were failing and you had better pick it up. So if you need someone to motivate you while you're there, you have it.

As for a good general work out/ruck plan, I have found a great one in this book. It's called "Get Selected for Special Forces" and can be found here http://www.specialops.org/news.asp . Scroll all the way to the bottom and buy that book. All the proceeds go to a great cause and that book will not hurt you, I guaran-damn-tee it. In the back of the book, the authors give you a 30 day work out that includes a lot of muscle building, cardio and rucking. I'm currently on Day 4 of the 30 day plan and I'm loving it. This book is probably a smart investment, even if you have no aspirations of going into the SF at a later point in your career (but who doesn't want to go SF?)