How to Start a Ruck Club That Actually Grows (Lessons from Triton Ruck Club)

0:00 What does it take to build a ruck club in your city that people actually show up to week after week? Well in today's episode you're gonna find out you'll learn exactly how to go from just a few people walking together to Building a thriving rucking community that keeps growing over time Today I'm joined by Jessica Flores, co -founder of Triton Ruck Club out of San Diego, California. She breaks down what actually works, how to schedule your events so people show up, how to create consistency, how to retain members, and the biggest mistakes that quietly kill most rut clubs before they even get off the ground. If you ever thought about starting your own rut club, or even just wanting to understand how strong rutting communities are built, this episode will give you a clear, actionable blueprint. You're listening to the Rucker's Edge podcast, a show all about rucking that is designed to help you improve your rucking routine, lose weight, and ultimately gain your strength and energy back. Each episode dives into the science, stories, and strategies behind rucking. You'll learn from top ruckers, coaches, health experts, and performance specialists who break down what it takes to train smarter, recover faster, and stay ready for the next challenge.

1:02 So whether you're new to rucking or an experienced rucker that's already logged hundreds of miles, this is the show for you. I'm your host Spencer thanks for listening in before we get going if this show has helped you in any way it would be amazing if you could drop me a quick review on whatever app you're listening to this podcast on right now it helps me bring new episodes every week and more importantly more people looking to improve their fitness will be able to discover the podcast so you can help someone start or improve their rucking thanks so much Jessica, welcome to the Rutgers Edge podcast. I feel former guests have had some fantastic things to say about you. I've been following you on Instagram. Yeah, I've been following Triton Rut Club and the various chapters on Instagram. I'm really happy to have you here. And I think some of the listeners out there that are curious about starting a rut club are curious to hear what you have to say. So thanks for joining me today. Hi, Spencer.

1:51 I'm honored to have been invited to chat. Thanks. Yeah. Before we get into the details of Triton and the various chapters and how it started, I kind of want to ask you about your rucking journey. So how did you find rucking and what was your life like when you started rucking? Coasting, not going to the gym, just being awesome, but having a very sedentary life. And I had a bout of congestive heart failure and realized I need to make drastic life changes. for all the things we know about. And I started running, and it hurt a lot with my three left knee surgeries and one right ankle surgery. But I still ran because I really enjoyed the shiny medals that I would get at races and all these goodies. So I was fighting for every single race in the region, and I found jogging for frogmen. And I thought, oh, wow, this just ticks off all the boxes. Support the military. We're here in Southern California.

2:50 You know, get support. I come from a military family, so this is definitely deeply meaningful for me. And then the very bottom of the page in the sign of registration for Jogging for Frogmen said, members of the rucking division, get a free patch. Get this free patch and show the picture. And I went, what, free? Oh, free patch. I want that. Clicked on it, goruck .com. That was it. Boom. And then, again, tick the boxes. I love bags. And just the foundations of rocking, you know, walking, doing the same workout that I was already training for these running races, but now slowing it down, less pain on the joints, adding resistance to my daily workout by adding, just adding weight and burning more calories and just sweating it all off very quickly. Yeah.

3:41 And I never trained to run again. I just rocked and then I might, but my times improved and I got faster and I was losing weight. It was just. Everything, I'm reaping all these benefits. It was only 2019 when I came to rucking and found it and that first race. And then we started a walking club at work. And we actually are the Triton Ruck Club because UC San Diego are Tritons. That's our mascot, our name. And so we adopted that, the Triton. What did it look like when you started pulling in new members outside of the department? When you started your walking club, what was that like? People slowly just found us. I didn't really know how to market.

4:25 No one really does initially, right? And to this day, there's no budget. I don't spend a dime on marketing. But you have to be able to embrace every single platform. And if you want to grow your club, you truly need to just be prepared to market. And I'll create all different sizes of that image because you're going to put it on. I have a list. And everyone knows because you see us spamming it. But Facebook and different platforms and Instagram. Sandlot app from GoWork. We also partnered with Team RWB. Every single rock we do is partnered with them for their membership. So it goes on their website as well. I have put stuff on Meetup, on Sweat Pals, on, you know, just anything that we think will touch people who want to engage and get fit and are interested in community rocking or joint training. Okay.

5:21 So it sounds like word of mouth and some social media mixed in. People started to... To get the idea, started to learn about you and then started joining on some of these rugs. Yes, I think I was pretty active on Instagram initially. That probably hit the most amount of people, Facebook and Instagram. And so we just started building out there. I think I know the first person. I don't know if she'd want me to put her name out there, but the first person who found us was Jill. In NorCal and SoCal, Encarnacion, she rocked with us, and we did a stairs event. The next month for 9 -11, we did a stairs event, and it was just five or six of us. And then we had a beer rock, a brewery rock, which is always fun and successful. That's going to bring a different mix of people, but it's fun because as someone who came into this for health, not a lot of our events are food -based. our alcohol base because we're all trying to be healthy yeah yeah so it well it is the most often the most successful rock it's not the most um healthy or or um one that'll bring continuous membership because it's kind of a one -off event for us to do a brewery rock uh but we did but but when we did for the first time i met my one of my best friends in the world Alex slash Joris, who is my co -leader in this endeavor and the leader of the San Diego Triton Rock Club. So we have me with Triton Rock Club. We have San Diego. We have Team RWB Rockers, who we have Luis in San Diego, who leads that.

6:53 We have our NorCal group with Michelle and Christy. We have our Prevail group, which started as virtual and now is kind of North Carolina and Virginia Beach. That's Emma and now Long Beach with Nikki. So there's a lot. I didn't realize you had chapters outside of California. Do you have plans for starting chapters in other states? No plans for any chapters, but San Diego. In fact, if people ask me, Jessica, are you going to go to L .A. this weekend? I was like, you know what? My area of responsibility is San Diego. But I go to L .A. to help people out. But it's really like, L .A. has clubs. I want there to be 17 clubs in San Diego. ours Triton the biggest sure whatever but um but more rocking is is great and and uh everyone should just start it started we started ours because the closest club to us was California Rock Public based in LA and I wrote I checked in on their Facebook page to see if there are anyone active in SoCal or San Diego actually and and yes there were but I had to show up to an event to meet them No one was going to chime in on Facebook and say, yeah, I'll meet you at this location. I had to make the effort to show up and meet these people. And then the engagement began. So I wasn't really, you know, coming back from so many health situations myself and injuries,

8:25 doing challenge events and endurance events was not where I started rucking. You see my face now, but you probably have not seen my face more than five times in seven years on that page, on any of our pages. So I'm not the face of Dragon Rock Club. The community is. Different people. It grows and it changes every month. Any rock club will stay active as long as the primary leader or the current leader loves rocking and loves the community. I can see the evolution of our club has grown and flexed based on... How would I feel that way? Like, do I love it this week? And, you know, if I arrive angry at a ruck, the people at that ruck are going to feel that and not come back. So I need to be engaged and happy and willing to embrace this community every time I show up. And if that's the goal, you know, if the ruck is about. and we're going to be just head down and locked in and going hard because we're training for a heavy different story. But if I'm showing up and I'm going to have a social rock this weekend, there better be a smile on my face and some money in my pocket. And I'm going to share some patches and embrace the community and really work to network that out. That's really cool. Have you embraced that mentality from the inception? Have you always showed up with a smile? I've learned this. You know, looking at the playbook for someone when you start a club, and I'm looking at either

9:57 scheduling events, getting the word out, setting the tone of first events, but really about retaining members and gaining members. Your club is going to change over time constantly. And celebrate the people who show up. Don't mourn for the ones who aren't with you anymore. You know, and don't engage in the politics. Like everybody, everybody's going to have, you're going to have a lot of intrapersonal issues with people. I completely disengage from that. And I don't actually, since I used to be very, very active on socials personally, you know, I'm not anymore with the exception of probably Instagram regarding my personal family stuff and occasionally my rucking profile too, but I'm just not as active on socials because I... And I don't troll them anymore either other than to post what we're up to. So what I'm hearing is while you're there, you're kind of just living in the moment. You're celebrating the time that you have with each other right there and then.

11:00 100%. 100%. And you celebrate the people who show up every day. You don't mourn for the fact that where's this person? Why didn't show up? You know what? This other person made a major effort to show up. My favorite thing and my most present. impressive thing to me is when a solo rocker shows up to your to a rock and they've that takes a lot of courage yeah step outside your comfort zone absolutely yeah i would always take a friend i did my first basic light at the time i i i convinced a co -worker i completely outfitted her in a rock i said we're going here this is what we're doing she's not talking to me anymore but She'll still send pictures. Remember that one time you made me do this thing? And, you know, but the people I met on that rock, I still know now. I met at that girl rock event.

11:54 I noticed several of them are still very active in our club. And one of them once asked me, what happened to that girl you brought to that event? She was cute. Where did she go? Have you ever experienced burnout? Because you mentioned, you know. Me personally? A hundred percent. Yeah. But that's where you have Alex and Joris and Luis and, and, and Nikki who, and now Brittany, for example, who you have other teammates who you can depend on and, and Crystal who I can call and say, listen, I am, I'm not able to go this day. Can you help me out? Or, or I, I am not at, if you ask me my wrecking level, I'm still a beginner. I don't hit these trails. I will never do a tough, Never say never. But I certainly won't ever do a heavy. I don't have the capacity for it. And I don't even rock the long miles that I used to when I first started.

12:52 I can barely go 5K these days because I'm old and tired, but that's just on me, right? So I'm really definitely behind the scenes. I'm not necessarily leading these rocks anymore, but I'm still helping organize them. And the other day, a guy said he wanted to do a Lord of the Rings themed rock. awesome i saw that on the on one of the instagram pages just like that's a cool idea everybody dressed up right yeah he he designed a patch he knew he knew what he wanted he had he's he had a ton of trivia he decided what rowdy wanted to do and my goal was to celebrate that and advertise the fact that all these people came together and did this showed up in costume margarita amazing um had trivia i don't know anything about those movies so Or books. I read them, but I don't remember now. Yeah, it was remarkable. It was great. And just celebrate that. Oh, also, so then we designed a t -shirt and I got flagged for copyright infringement.

13:52 Oh, no. Uh -oh. I got some sirens in the background. I'm going to hold on for a second. Would they send you like a cease and desist or something? No, I submitted it to our t -shirt store that we have and the design was flagged. Design rejected, copyright infringement. Gotcha. So to your point before, relying on co -founders or other people in the community, stepping up and pulling some weight, you're the second person that has mentioned that in terms of running a or managing a Red Club chat. Hagerty at West orange Rutgers. He started that with a co -founder and he's mentioned, you know, if he travels, he's out of town. So who's, who's managing or who's planning these rucks. And so he relies on his co -founders as well. Um, so it's a, it's a team effort. Um, what was it? What was the, I know you mentioned, um, yeah, relying on others, but outside of that, is there another important thing that a club founder has to get right if they want the club to be sustainable? Is there anything else besides relying on others to kind of step in and help out? Oh my gosh. The number one is consistency.

15:00 Consistency. I'm a production manager for live events in real life. So a lot of this was kind of easy flow for me to set up. But the same thing that I carry at work, which is consistency in building events, you know, putting it on the calendar, building a calendar that's public. We have a Google calendar. Not many people know about it. I need to share that more. Primarily, our events are listed on Facebook. We do have a website that's in development, but it's not as popular as posting on Instagram. Number one is consistency. Build a calendar. uh decide what you know decide what your events are as a as a core like it's your skeleton and build out from there like every month we do a lake rock we do uh the go rock tribe a workout and then we do a coffee rock after that and those are always on the calendar and if not uh something else is in the mix similar um you know i'm looking at kind of the model of run clubs we just i we i'm kind of exhausted by looking at run clubs because they have so many opportunities for just get outside and run we need to go get our gear yeah right so my goal would be to but i we just physically can't be as active as like that so we we shoot for at least uh two events a month uh used to do try to get every weekend but uh number one consistency build an event and put

16:33 it on the calendar and then show up but you talked about some of the rucks that you go on you said you do a lake ruck coffee ruck can you describe the various events that you hold and Kind of like on what sort of schedule this would fall on? Yeah. Within the first two weeks of the month, we always have a ruck at Lake Murray, which is we have a couple of nice lakes with paths around them, concrete paths and or dirt paths. But they have a set trail. And then we show up at seven in the morning to a ruck. And then we have a little social hour after with fruit and donuts and coffee. And it's every month. no matter what.

17:14 I almost always in there. If I'm not, I ask Alex or Louise to cover and yeah. And that's partnered with team RWB too with the San Diego chapter. And, and oftentimes they reimburse me for those, the expenses of the, of the treats and treats. So that's nice. And that's a, that's a out and back 5 .7 mile ruck. And then. We also do a monthly WOD. Some groups are doing, heck, they're doing two or three a week, and I'm good on them. But we're really spread out. We have people all over this county, and so I'm very honored and happy that we can gather at least once a month from the WODs. So we do the programming from Go Rock for the tribe, and they initially offer this discount. And then now some folks are still engaged, but it's completely free. And actually everything with Triton Rock Club is free. I've been encouraged to help to fund things to start a membership.

18:19 You know what? I don't want to do that. I want to maintain that you show up, you're welcome. Because you know what? You can rock for free in your backyard. And, you know, unless you want to buy the patch. That's another story. Your patch is an expense. But we're just want to build a community of people and then, and I don't want to, I don't want to charge them because I don't want to charge them to something they can do on their own for free. Yeah, I agree. And should be. I think that says a lot about you because yeah, there definitely is an opportunity there to, to sort of, you know, make some money. But the fact that you're, well, one of the things you said in the mission statement is everyone's there for fitness. Like everyone is trying to better themselves. Why catapult ice on? Something like that. Let's just all get healthy together.

19:07 Mental and physical fitness. Mental and physical. Agreed. Let's kind of talk to the person listening that once they start a club but doesn't necessarily know how. You just mentioned some of the various rucks that y 'all go on. When you're setting the schedule for the various rucks for the club, How did you decide how often to meet and what to do or the right cadence for the different types of rucks? Is that something that you just kind of worked out as you added rucks or did y 'all have a plan from the start? I'm just curious about that process. We were already rucking on campus Monday, Wednesday, Monday, excuse me, Tuesday, Thursday and on the weekends. And we were doing that internally and I put that in the community. The only thing I don't like working about this at this university is parking and parking is a major problem. That's why we had to get off campus. So just because I don't want to charge people to go for a walk and parking here is thirty six dollars a day, which is ridiculous.

20:11 Yeah. Thirty six dollars a day. Yeah, that's almost criminal. Thank you. So we don't we don't want to charge people to pay for parking to just go for a walk. So that's why we started branching outward. And that immediately brought in the people. Like maintaining the isolation of being in one location, that restricted a lot of people. Oftentimes I would look at the map and say, oh, we haven't touched East County. But in terms of consistency and regularly scheduling events off campus, and that was... due to our team RWB captain at the time, he had to request, he goes, I just wanted to partner with them and say, hey, we got this new club thing going. I'd like to introduce Rocky to your people. He said, okay, you can start hosting events once a month. I'm like, wait, wait, what? I'm going to make you an Eagle leader. You're going to do this. I'm like, okay. So, you know, they have some onboard training. I listened to them. I'm like, all right.

21:08 And so that's where I learned that consistency is a key. And one thing important to me, someone asked recently, why do you do Lake Murray every month? And I said, because in June, hopefully in June, when Kyle and Josh come back home from wherever the heck they are off the USS Lincoln, they know exactly where we're going to be. And in June, July, August, they already know that when they come home from deployment, we're going to be there for them. I'm curious about the ebb and flow of... I guess members, was there like a, a moment that, I don't know, you noticed like a drop off or was, has it just always consistently been increasing in numbers or just staying consistent?

21:54 Were there any lulls throughout the, uh, throughout from its inception to where we are today? Oh yeah. Um, uh, we actually, this is a weird to say, but thank you to the pandemic and our amazing weather in socal because people wanted to stay active and they wanted to go outside and we were providing that content we really had events every weekend multiple events in fact even during the week we also partnered with the ucsd staff veterans association and they came up with ideas like the doing our turkey trotter halloween events and then there was another really cool one that they had I think it was related to Halloween, but, you know, just, you know, partnering with other groups to come up with ideas and then engagement and putting it out there. During the pandemic, our numbers surged because nothing else was going on. And people wanted to get outside and we didn't have to wear masks. We could be outside and we can enjoy people's company. And I didn't have anything going on. So it was basically my first full -time job. I was posting on our Facebook groups multiple times a day, every day, because the content was out there. Everybody was creating things at home, and we were just pushing out, doing rocks, posting online. So there was a genuine, for our group, a genuine surge during the pandemic.

23:15 I would say it has regressed somewhat post -pandemic because we've got other stuff we can do now. We can go do races again. Yeah. But however, rucking in general has actually diversified and gotten, I think, more popular now. It's kind of got a resurgence and a growth. I've sort of noticed the same thing. Yeah, it kind of, there's definitely a rucking season. And I was curious in California, I mean, you don't have great weather all the time. Do you see seasonal fluctuations with memberships or is it just the people that are there dedicated? You do? Okay. Absolutely. Absolutely. And again, you go back to your foundation.

23:57 Don't be discouraged. Just show up. Someone's like, oh, well, there's just not as many people. I'm like, there is half of this group. There are eight new people here today. So again, they're mourning for someone that they don't rock with anymore. I'm celebrating the people who showed up because they're going to be back tomorrow, hopefully. Because I know we have other things going on in our lives. But I mentioned it's the greatest courage is that solo rucker showing up in a new group. So I really just need to celebrate them and learn their name. And if they're military, I'll probably hand you a challenge going to. Oh, engagement. You know, building that patch, creating a patch or having it available and having something to hand to someone when they show up for the first time and to thank them for being there. That means a lot. Our club patch is not for sale. Well, it is for sale online, but I mean, I don't sell it. When someone shows up, I'm going to hand you a club patch because you are now a member of Triton Rock Club. We have other things that you can earn, but that initial club patch is open to everyone and it really embraces all levels, all are welcome at all times.

25:11 Great. In your wildest dreams, did you ever think that Triton would grow into what it is currently from back when it was a walking club? No. way my co -worker my you know it's the seven years so we have so we had different cycles of co -workers to say they're like wait you know i actually have our new york times article here there's a we were featured in the times thank you go back on that we were recently featured in le mans the french magazine the french newspaper daily newspaper i know with a photo wow there was a multi spread on in men's health yes i saw i read that article yeah Yeah. Wow. That's phenomenal.

25:51 Yeah. So never, never did you think it would get this big? No. And actually, I don't. So now, even though it was founded here on the campus, I actually don't advertise on campus that this club exists. I mean, that's a mistake. I need to restart. More with Jessica in just a moment, including her direct advice to anyone wanting to start their own rec club. But I want to take a quick break to say thanks for listening to the podcast. Please text this episode to a fellow Rucker that is maybe thinking about starting their own Ruck Club. Or maybe text it to someone you think would make a good co -founder for the Ruck Club that you're considering starting. Sharing this episode would help the show grow and help more people improve their health and lives. Okay, back to it. You mentioned that you're... You have Triton on the Sandlot app. What was your first involvement with GoRuck? How did you meet some of those folks? Did you reach out to them?

26:42 Did they reach out to you? How did that go down? Yeah, I mentioned how I found it basically just through Jogging for Frogmen. And we got very active, very quick. And then I started tagging them in and everything we did. And probably took over the hashtag Ruck Club. I don't know. Sorry, guys. Just so much active engagement. In 2021, Jason came to town. Emily told me that he was coming. And I think they were trying to roll out Sandlot. And we just embraced every single activity that was not just rucking, but also had a military affiliation. Because, you know.

27:22 having being such a strong navy and marine corps community here in socal it's just these are so many of our folks are veterans or affiliated or law enforcement affiliated that um everything that was you know related to rucking or running that had that affiliation we would jump on so anyway they were doing promotions for chad 1000 we um One of our members had this amazing backyard home gym, and he offered to do a tribe workout in his backyard. And Jason showed up with Emily's prodding. And we had an amazing time. I should repost those photos. They were just sick. So that, I think it was through active, active social engagement. And then when they hosted their first stand lot, first and second, I went. with a group of folks, real hard chargers. And they did all the crazy stuff and I did all the politicking.

28:17 And, you know, made sure like my big thing was like, we need to, that Marine HTB needs to continue because Cleve and the gang, it's an extremely special event, the Marine Recon Raider HTB. And if you're a hard charger and you think you're all that and you did brag, you've done brag, come out and do this event because you'll, you'll. experience more than what they do as marines from the mountains of horno and right into the oceans in san clemente same beach that they're going to hold olympics surfing by the way oh wow cool um so this you know that's kind of uh we've adopted it kind of like all of our members have done various iterations of the htb if not all of it and gotten their bolts and it's just so special but Because it means so much to the cadre. Because it's the training ground that they train on. That's awesome. So you mentioned earlier Jogging for Frogmen. I'm not familiar with that. Is that an organization? Jogging for Frogmen used to be part of the Navy SEAL Foundation.

29:19 And now it is led by the Travis Manion Foundation. And all the profits go to Special Forces families. The case of Travis Mannion Foundation, their efforts all go to survivor families and veteran survivors. So it's, again, just so close to being from Southern California and the Military Foundations of Rocking. It aligned with our mission. So our mission statement is that we're an all -level community of rockers united in fitness through rock training and rocking. As a community, we are committed to supporting each other. and endeavors benefiting local military and first responder families through charitable events and engagement.

30:05 Another thing that we do, which we adopted, which we inherited through some OG Ruckers who came to Rucking and the Go Ruck Inception events. It was this wonderful, we do the Santa Ruck annually and that benefits the Rady Children's Hospital and Ronald McDonald House. So we do a community ruck, everybody rucks their toys and donations. And then we also sell the patch and have a small fundraiser and we do raffles to benefit the Ronald McDonald House every year. So you throw the toys in the rucksack? Is that what you're doing? That's cool. And you go to a destination and drop them off? Where are you dropping them off? Rady Children's and the Ronald McDonald House in San Diego. Oh, that's really cool. I've heard of people stuffing non -perishable goods for Thanksgiving. And this is another cool thing for another holiday, Ruck.

31:01 That's awesome. That's really cool. We've done that, too. How many people come out for something like that? What kind of numbers are you generating? Oh, my gosh. Our Santa Brooke is definitely the most successful. Last year, we had about 55, but the previous year, there were over 85. And what happened is there was a National Guard unit deployed here in San Diego, and they were looking for ways for community engagement for their troops. And they came along and bolstered our numbers and built a great relationship with this group of National Guardsmen from Michigan. Shout out to those guys. That's great. No, that's fantastic. So what other community, what's the word I'm looking for? What other community outreach engagement activities do y 'all do? So you have the Santa Ruck, what else do you do? So there's a lot, being in SoCal, we try to support the 5Ks that we can do. Either there's already a rucking division or we will support them doing tables and fundraising.

32:02 But most often it's folks who are just jumping in for a 5K and then supporting an event or a cause. Wounded Warrior Project does a carry forward 5K here. I mentioned Jogging for Frogmans 5K from the Travis Mannion Foundation. And they also host the 9 -11 Heroes Run here too. And that actually is pretty more prolific that there's going to be a 9 -11 Heroes Run near you. And all of these can have a virtual element that you can do in your neighborhood with your friends. You can buy in, get the t -shirt and patch, and support these organizations, these quality organizations. Getting back to helping the person that wants to create their own local rec club, if there's someone out there that was sort of in your shoes thinking about starting a rec club, what would you say to them? What biggest piece of advice would you give to them? You've already mentioned several, you know, staying consistent, setting your schedule, getting the word out. Is there anything else that you'd give to them? You put things on the calendar and you show up. Guess what? For two months to six months, no one's going to be there. But then, you know, you invite your friends, but you're always there. The club is going to change. Unless you change leadership, that club is going to change constantly. And in your eyes. And you need to prepare for it.

33:26 And you also just, in terms of consistency, if someone else, like when Cody wanted to do his Lord of the Rings rock, I asked people to tell me at least three weeks in advance so that we could put it on the schedule and then advertise and push. And because people have lives, especially post -pandemic, we have a lot of things to do. Our personal schedules, you know, when our vacations are going to be, you know, our kids are going back to school. You know, we have... you don't want, we don't have big tournaments and you're like, we just want to work around what you have going on. And, and so put that, put something on the schedule and show up and put it well in advance so people can help plan their lives. If you're telling someone on an Instagram story, two days before you're going to go for a hike, enjoy your hike. Cause you're going to be on there by yourself. Don't expect to get a group of 15. You know, if you haven't set the schedule, like, Hey, every third Saturday we hike where.

34:23 when you know like so also the thing is like so i mentioned consistency communication i will kick back something like somebody wants to lead a hike i will ask you serious questions um all right not necessarily what's the title where where are you where are you hiking where's what's the all trails not bad for it will leak what's the distance what's the expected pace What equipment do you want something to bring? Are they going to bring a ruck and a sandbag? How much weight? Are you going to look and, you know, is weight required? Of course, water and nutrition. But, oh, and the other thing in San Diego, Southern California, parking. What's the parking situation? Is it paid? Is it unpaid? All of this information three weeks in advance, I want to know when I said it, because every single question, I want to answer your question about an event. before you ask it so so that new person can all they do is look for the people in the backpacks and they show up because every other question's been answered they know what to expect they know how many what their expected pace will be they know that you know how much they should carry or not carry i don't care if you carry a backpack or not just show up are you putting that information in the social media posts or is that in the google calendar goals it's supposed to try we try We try to put as much information as possible in the post and also on the event post on every platform. Embracing the multiple various platforms, you know, unfortunately, I don't want to be on

35:54 social media and I don't want to be on Facebook anymore. But you got to do it because that's where you're going to engage still with folks who are seeking community. So that's one thing. Be ready to open up to partnerships. And embrace every rocker. You know, I keep saying celebrate the person who's there. It doesn't matter where they came from. It doesn't matter what rock club they represent. You know, if they showed up, they're doing the work, build that community with that. Help, you know, with that person. Cool. And yeah. Well, Jessica, this was a lot of fun. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today. Oh, especially. I appreciate it.

36:36 All right, that wraps up my conversation with Jessica Flores from Triton Ruck Club. You can connect with her on Instagram at ruckinstigator, and you can connect with Triton Ruck Club on Instagram as well at tritonruckclub. I'll drop links to both of those in the show notes. If you want to reach out to me, head on over to theruckersedge .com or on Instagram at theruckersedgepod. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to follow or subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app so you're notified of new episodes. And you'll want to catch next week's episode because I'm covering rucking in the news again. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the first one I did back in the fall, so I figured I'll do another one. It'll be the spring news roundup. Okay, that's it for today. Thanks again for listening to this episode of The Rucker's Edge.