Over the course of July and August I did a total of two rucks, the longest of which was like 3 miles.
Getting started, I found a loop that ran about 1.5 miles. On the first trip out, I used basic strap ladders to attach the straps to the frame. Half way through the first run, my ruck was falling off of the frame. It was the middle of the night, pitch black skies on a rural/country road. For around a third of the trip, I had both hands holding straps over my shoulders to keep it all together.
When I came across a house that had a lantern at the end of the drive, I stopped and tied knots in all the straps. It was better for the rest of the trip, but I couldn’t wait to make improvements.
I didn’t want to go out again with a pack that wasn’t up to date with my latest ideas of “best practice.” So over the next few weeks I sewed all the straps in place. I did a couple each night until all the yellow and red straps were securely fastened to the frame.
In the earliest revisions of the frame I used all black straps, but it was a complete mess - once everything was off the frame, it was very difficult to determine what straps should go where for reassembly. By the time I began recording my updates, I had swapped out straps and begun my color-coded system: Red for sleep system/bottom shelf, Yellow for ruck sack/main storage, more colors TBD.
As progress unfolded with the straps, I was also beginning to accumulate the equipment and materials determined essential according to my initial planning. Part of the goal is to strengthen myself to carry the full load, but at the same time, I also hope to keep an objective eye on decreasing weight by eliminating anything that doesn’t have a true practical justification for being there. Essentially, while packing your ruck with weights is common practice in rucking and ruck training, I wanted to start out with all the weight set by functional contents.
Once we’re up to speed on the progression of test runs, I’m looking forward to doing a full tear-down, parts ID, and reassembly, but we’ll get into contents once we’ve gotten through the basic history of the test track.
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