St. Louis Park woman breaks world rucking record

Thanks for joining us here in All Day this afternoon. 2.32 here on a wonderful, rainy Thursday afternoon. Hey, we got to talk about something here that's just fascinating because running a half marathon is an incredible physical endurance in and of itself. But imagine running with those 13 miles with 40 pounds that's actually strapped to your back. it's exactly what one St Louis Park woman recently did Megan Corey she's an endurance athlete who recently crushed one but not two records all at the same time um in the growing sport of rucking and she joins us now live to talk all about it congratulations to you Megan thanks for joining thank you so much thank you for having me okay we need to start at the very basics. Up until literally two weeks ago, I had no idea what rucking was. And I think we need to start there. You're the best person to explain it. I want you to do it. Rucking is simply movement with weight on your back. So you predominantly see that in the form of walking with weight on your back. You see that when people go walk their dog, walk with their friends. And I like to take get to the speed rucking form where I am running with the weight on my back. Now this has a military context, right? Correct. Yeah, rucking did start in the military when troops were carrying heavy loads long distances. And so you still see that in the military as folks train for what they're doing. And it's really become popularized in fitness as well because you can get your heart rate up when you have the ruck on, as well as have that extra weight for muscular endurance reasons as well. Okay, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm just assuming it comes from the term rucksack, military rucksack? You are correct. And does it start at like 10 pounds, 20 pounds? So what are the different classifications or categories here? Yeah, so with rucking, the beauty of it is if you're doing it for fitness, you can do whatever weight you want. So I recommend, if you're just getting started, go for about 10% of your body weight or start with 10 pounds even and go for a walk, see how it feels. Increase your weight over time if you want, if it's feeling good and go from there. All right. So the backstory of this is pretty incredible because you unknowingly broke a 20 pound record last year in Tennessee. So how did you figure out that you'd run the time and that you would make this record? And what was your reaction when it was done? Yeah, so funny enough, I went down to this half marathon in Tennessee. They had a cash prize, and I thought, well, that sounds fun to win a cash prize, potentially in a rucking division. And fortunately, I won. And a couple days after the event, a fellow racer reached out to me and said, hey, look at these records for rucking certain distances. And I didn't realize it at the time until I started looking at them. And I had actually broken the 20-pound half marathon record for a female. But with Guinness World Records, you have to pre-declare, have everything documented ahead of time and during the event, which I didn't do because I didn't even know they kept records for that until a few days after the race. And it got me thinking once I found that out, well, hey, maybe I should pre-declare it and try this officially. And 20 pounds turned into, hey, why not 40 pounds? And I actually turned 40 earlier this year. So I thought, well, hey, 40 pounds, 40 years, kind of a fun way to tie it together. Okay, so I got to ask about that. 40 pounds for 13.1 miles, that's a workout. So how does that change your body mechanics when you're running? How does that change how you train for this, knowing that your body mechanics are perhaps going to do different things for you. Yes, I do a lot of weightlifting. I do a lot of running without the ruck. And then I put the two together and really slowly increase the distance I do to get to that point. And I would say it changes your body mechanics. If you see any videos or photos of me during the attempt, I look more hunched over than you would just running. and i take shorter quicker steps uh i'm not the tallest person in the world uh so it kind of works out i'm closer to the ground for my stature uh but my cadence is definitely shorter quicker steps and uh more hunched over with the ruck on my back the hunchback of Notre Dame right yes oh my goodness and um for our viewers who are hearing about this for the first time and thinking that, is this something I should try? What kind of advice do you have for them? Rucking is a lot of fun. It's very approachable. I definitely did it on an extreme end with the distance and speed that I did, but I would say it's super approachable. Start with, like I said, 10% of your body weight or even 10 pounds, put it in a backpack and go on a walk and just get moving, have fun with it. I always have so much joy and positive endorphins when I get to go outside and putting the ruck on my back and getting that additional load does make me smile in a fun, gritty, mental and physical way of knowing I did that extra work when I was doing it. So I encourage everyone to get out there and just try it and see if you enjoy it. And if you do, keep going with it, whether that be a little bit further the next day or maybe a little bit heavier. And Megan, I don't know if there's a way of tracking this, but is there any way of knowing and have you been able to track that you were able to burn more calories, have a better workout, depending upon how much weight you have in your backpack? Yes. So one of the reasons rucking is very popular is because your heart rate does go up when you have that weight on your back. So you are burning more calories walking because your heart rate is going to be a little bit higher when you're doing that. So I track with a fitness watch that tracks my heart rate. And so I'm not putting in the weight that I am rucking with. But because I can see my heart rate, I know if I'm rucking with 10 pounds, my heart rate might be a few beats per minute higher than if I were walking without it. Or if I add 20 pounds, I might be that much higher on my heart rate as well. So it's really about getting your heart rate up higher without maybe even moving faster. So doing that same walk speed you do now, but having that additional weight will get your heart rate up higher which will in turn burn more calories and can be tracked by any form of a heart rate monitor. You know, I can almost hear our viewers talking back to us right now and probably wondering, okay, how many miles, what's your distance when you go out and train for this or do your daily workout? Yeah, for training for something like this, I would do runs anywhere from five miles to a long run where i would do a full 13 miles i didn't do the full ruck attempt uh until the the day of uh but i did up to an 11 mile uh ruck but i would say you know if you're if you're not going for a half marathon ruck go any distance you know if you normally walk a mile in your neighborhood put the ruck on for that mile if you'd like to walk uh around the lake and do a 5k around the lake put the ruck on for that distance and so it can be very personalized to where you are at in your current fitness level and your current distances that you go. And Megan, I'm curious, when you compete in a ruck race like this, how many other competitors are you? I mean, is this kind of a growing sporting competition? It's very niche now, as far as you don't see a lot of ruck events here, especially in Minnesota. You see them where there's larger military bases and folks kind of know more about them. So I've done the Tough Ruck in Boston, which is an event where 1,000 people are in it, and every single one of those people has a ruck on. That's probably one of the biggest ones there is. The race in Tennessee had a ruck division, and there were, I think, probably about 30 people in that ruck division. And in the race I did Sunday, I was the only rucker because it didn't have a ruck division. And the Milltown's Race Series was kind enough to allow me to ruck in their race. And I've talked to the race director, and she's actually considering adding a division for next year. So it would be awesome to bring it to Minnesota and have divisions for people that would like to do it in a race setting. Well, here's your chance to recruit some people to ruck with you. Yes, yes, yes. All recruits welcome. Okay, so what's the next mountain you want to climb with this sport? Great question. I'm always, you know, looking for the next thing that excites me. it's kind of a snowball effect i find out about something and say all right this is my next big thing so i'll be doing different uh hybrid fitness races and different rucking events uh coming up but i haven't quite found my next big one yet uh that's as big as this world record attempt so i'll have to uh keep my eyes and ears open and see uh what excites me next and where things take me well i tell you what we've sure enjoyed having um a little conversation with you here about this this afternoon. Congratulations on the Guinness World Records that you won while rucking. Thank you. Boy, I hope you're able to accomplish those goals going forward, too. Thank you. Thank you. And I would encourage everyone out there to give rucking a try and see if you enjoyed it as much as I do. Hopefully you do. All right. Her name is Megan Corey, Guinness World Record holder in rucking. Hey, so great to have you on the show here this afternoon. Thanks for having me. Great to chat with you. All right. You have a great weekend. And you're watching Fox Thank you.