Since March, I was plagued by an adductor pain self-diagnosed (with help from my

friend L) as abdominal tendinopathy. I skipped a race in May and was down on

running, squating, and even surya namaskar. From what I read, I'd better let

time work its magic. The Chinese folk wisdom says it could take more than three

months. Two months passed and it showed no sign of relenting.

It was particularly frustrating to me because, in the wake of daily street

attacks on Asians, I was eager to go back to martial arts. The adductor pain,

however, made me feel like an invalid. L, who was nursing the same injury a few

months before me, switched to mountain-biking. I instead did some research and

decided to ruck.

I read about rucking from Mark Rifkind's (aka Rif) blog years back. It sounded

nothing special: one simply loads on his back some poundage and marches, as done

in the military. Rif must have done it for a reason, I thought. Maybe he

couldn't run due to injury or he didn't own a car to get to the trails. I was

attracted to the idea at the time but was too busy running and recovering.

Well, things changed. I needed an alternative for cardio. I used to swim, but

swimming felt inpractical in a pandemic. In a haste, I threw frugality out of

the window and ordered a ruck sack and 40 lbs of plates.

Two plates of 20 lbs arrived the last week of Apr. The afternoon of the same

day, I stuffed them in my backpack and loaded it on Tim. "Let's go for a walk."

We both noticed the huge difference between swinging a 20lbs kettlebell and

carrying the same amount of weight on the back. The latter felt much more

stressful on the shoulders. The kid took to it well, however. Since then, We've

been rucking almost everyday.

[Recently, I was inspired by some amazing mushroom hunters in north-east China.

At a body weight of 120 lbs, one could carry 100+ lbs of goods for three hours

through the mountains.]

Sunday morning, I revisited the podcast where Pavel talked with Tim Ferriss

about strength training. I relearnt of Plutarch's observation that the training

of a soldier and that of an athlete are radically different. The athlete has the

luxury of a pampered lifestyle and the soldier doesn't. I should've realized

that a long time ago. The point sounds obvious once pointed out but I wonder how

often do we reflect on its truth, let alone acting it out with practice.

Fri May 14, 2021, the 64-year-old Rifkind recorded

        45lb ruck

        5 laps

        3 miles

        45 min

        BW 177.6

        BF 13.7

Sun, May 16, 2021, I carried 40lbs for about 70 minutes over four miles. I

sweated but afterwards the muscles felt no burn at all. I guess the kettlebell

swings and running up Mission Peak prepared me well for rucking.