My First 47-LB Trail Ruck! One Month Until the Death Race

Gotta love Lake Martin. Little Alabama, little hidden treasure back here, guys. If you wanna chase big dreams, big goals, you gotta sacrifice and you gotta do stuff that very few people are willing to do. And I'm trying to accomplish something that very, very, very few people have ever done. ♪ Welcome to my life, welcome to my life, yeah ♪ ♪ On the bright side, yeah this music here ♪ ♪ Became my only life, I think I'm going crazy ♪ ♪ I'm not in my right mind, on the bright side, yeah, hey ♪ ♪ Yeah, one leg out that brand new Benz way ♪ ♪ Hometown asking, am I rich, yeah ♪ ♪ Repetition from my chest, that's a Benz break ♪ ♪ Seeing more behind the frame, future driver feel the shake ♪ ♪ Thinking ain't nobody feel the way I do ♪ ♪ But someone gotta feel the same, yeah, on the bright side ♪ ♪ Yeah, this music here became my only life, I think I'm going crazy ♪ ♪ I'm not in my right mind, yeah, welcome to my life ♪ ♪ Welcome to my life, welcome to my life, yeah ♪ ♪ Welcome to my life, welcome to my... ♪ Time to do a little death race training. I really haven't updated you guys since I've said I was gonna do the death race, and of course I have those monthly challenges. Well, I have been progressing with my walking, my uphill walking, just continue to do weights, doing ISO holds, started doing rucking. I just started with a little bit of weight in my ruck pack, getting used to a ruck pack and never rucked before in my life. So all this is new to me. So just kind of a learning how to adjust the pack right. And I've done, you know, I've rucked around while Gavin was golfing on the nine-hole golf course. I've rucked on my treadmill, but I've never actually rucked a trail outdoor. So I'm at one of the Lake Martin trails right now. I think this is a four-mile hike. Never even done the trail at all. So we're gonna try it. My pack is 47 pounds. I've got my trekking poles. I've never used trekking poles before. So I want to get used to the trekking poles and the pack and just go out here and enjoy this beautiful day. Let's get to rucking. The Cherokee Ridge Alpine Trail. Man, check out the views. Holy cow. Isn't this awesome? Lords of the air. Some type of birds out here. Let's see what else is on this stuff. Alabama Power, they own everything. About the camping, history, the dam, and I guess more than just the history and the dam. All right, looks like the trail's over here. Please sign in. All right, let's see what we got here. Cherokee Ridge Alpine Trail. Four miles to Chimney Rook Alpine Trail to Collage Bay Trail to Cherokee Ridge South Loop. All right, let's do the Cherokee Ridge Alpine 4-Miler. White, straight ahead. Get the old rucking poles out here. Get them locked in place. Yep, there we go. All right, pretty cool. Never really done trails before. So it's pretty neat. Pretty tight through here. Some of these areas. I got a white pack. Check out the old pack. Got my axe back there. Got just some weight plates and just some stuffing stuff. I do have my bladder as well for my water hydration pack. All right, well, this is what it's kind of looking like at the moment. I'll check back in a little bit. Going back downhill now. Made it down to the water. Which way am I supposed to go? This way. Back up the hill we're going here. Tight little rocky trail. Who knew this was in my backyard? Been here for four and a half years. Didn't realize all this was back here. Pretty cool. I just never really been a trail guy. But should be coming out here taking advantage of this. All right, one mile. One mile, 230 feet elevation. Roughly 27 minutes. Yeah, I feel like I'm just kind of going up and down the side of a hill along the lake. That's what it kind of feels like. Which that's fine and it's good. Up and down, up and down. And boy, I do feel it in my glutes. The weight pack going up the hills. So I'm just trying to be careful on the way down because I obviously have a lot of weight. I don't need to twist an ankle, tweak my knee. So I'm just trying to kind of be careful on the downhill. All right, continuing on. Pretty cool. Get up the big rock. Down the hill is the water. Gotta stop every once in a while and enjoy the scenery. See the bows, they can hear their music. Having a good old time on the lake, man. Good old Lake Martin. Gotta watch my step coming down through here. Dude, I'll tell you what, I love these trekking poles, man. They help keep you stable. They are definitely worth the investment. Heck, and I'm not even at death or peace. This is just around little old Lake Martin. Imagine the mountains of Vermont. They're really gonna be handy going up and down the mountain for four days. All right, mile and a half. Things are going well. All right, two miles in. 55 minutes. So I'm keeping about the same pace, like 27 minutes or so. 28 minutes, roughly. Which is, I think that's pretty decent going up and down these hills. Not a whole lot of flat terrain. I'm heading back down as we speak. Some of the climbs uphill are just really straight up. Not very long, but straight up. And obviously have to watch your footing. And then, you know, I was taking breaks to vlog a little. But honestly, everything feels pretty good. You know, I don't really feel the weight too much in my shoulders, which I was working on adjusting the pack to where that was the case. And feeling more of the weight in my hips. So that's been going well, I feel like. Back to the water. See the edge of the water. Winding around back down the hill. All right, well, halfway done. And it's been good. I've enjoyed it. It's hot as blazes, but that's good. I need the heat. I need the heat, baby. I'd rather have heat than cold, for sure. There's the water. Like a... Back up and around we go. Got the boaters out there enjoying some tubing. Some of them just hanging out with friends. Nice. Gotta love Lake Martin. Little Alabama. A little hidden treasure back here, guys. Got scared. Mile three. Back at the edge of the water. Man, this is awesome. So, 78 minutes. Oh, hey, there's the dam. I've been kind of wondering where the heck I was. All right, there's the dam straight ahead. This is where we like to actually come and do all of our wake surfing. There's the danger sign. You know, it dawned on me. Of course, it's a beautiful, hot Saturday. The lake is packed. As I was driving out here, just boats galore. Just everybody's out here enjoying the water and good for them. You know, I'm out here sweating and pushing and doing something I haven't seen anybody else doing. Now, I did just pass a couple that they said they helped maintain the trail. They come and look for downed trees and then report it back for a crew to come cut it. But that's the only person I've seen out here. Everybody else is on the water. Again, good for them. But if you want to chase big dreams, big goals, you got to sacrifice. You got to do stuff that very few people are willing to do. I'm trying to accomplish something that very, very, very few people have ever done. Finish a death race. And that's a big goal. It's going to take a lot of dedication, sacrifice. Honestly, I didn't really give myself as much time as I probably should. I should be. A lot of people train for a year for this. So I'm going to definitely be going in underprepared. But I'm also trying to go in healthy. I don't want to overtrain to the point where I hurt something. I pull something. I injure something. So I'm trying to push at a healthy pace. And so far, it's been good. And of course, I'd love to be further along than where I am right now. I'm literally a month out. And this is my first time on a real trail with my rucksack. That's a little nerve wracking because there is a ton of that. You'll be toting this sack around for four days up and down the mountains of Vermont. So and that elevation from what I've heard, I think up to Shrek's cabin is like a thousand foot elevation. I think the most this little place is right here. Steep hill is maybe 400. So it's a lot more than this. But anyway, to be honest, I just feel truly grateful. I've been out here praying and thinking, God, if my body's able to do this, you know, for four years, my spine would not let me do this. That bulged disc in our arm. And I really wondered if I'd ever be able to do this again or just be able to bear weight and be this active. It's honestly the ability to be able to be out here and doing this. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for healing me. Thank you for a strong body, strong mind and keeping me healthy and helping me build the endurance that I need to finish the death race. So, all right, let me finish up this last mile. I know we got dinner plans and I think LA's not happy because I got a later start. So I'm trying to speed up a little bit. All right, it's kind of a nice little cruise through here. This will be a nice little moment to catch my breath. I'm up and down the hill. A little ravine right there, a little water runoff, I guess. I'm pretty close to the end, so I'm going to kind of jog it out a little bit. Try to finish strong. It's kind of flat, wide open, it looks like. All right, I should be almost to the end. Maybe another two-tenths of a mile or so. Finish strong, boys, finish strong. And we're at the end. There's the truck. 4.06. I did take a little bit of a wrong turn, I think, coming at the end. But regardless, it was still good. Success. Can't beat those views, can you? Well, maybe Vermont will beat them. There's something about lake and lake water. It's awesome. All right, guys. Hope you're still trying to be your best. Keep pushing. You got big goals, got big dreams. You're going to have to work hard. You have to sacrifice. You're going to be at a lot of other people. We'll catch you next vlog. Subscribe, my man, Murr Squad. Let's go. Let's go, let's go. Shout out to the boys. Welcome to my life.