Rucking Until You Quit: Inside Last Rucker Standing with Brad Rooks

0:00 Two miles every hour for two days. How long could you go? That's the idea behind Last Rucker Standing, a new 48 -hour endurance event that combines the format of a backyard ultra with rucking. Competitors compete two miles every hour, and as the event progresses, the challenge changes. The goal is to keep going while the field gets smaller and the physical and mental demands continue to build. Today I'm talking with Brad Rooks, the creator of Last Rucker Standing and the founder of Buffalo Mentality, about how this event came together, what competitors can expect, how they should prepare, and the mindset he hopes people take away from this experience. 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.

1:01 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 into today's episode, I want to take a brief second to explain what's been going on with the Rucker's Edge. Because a number of you have reached out to check on me and make sure everything's okay. First of all, I really appreciate the wellness checks. One of the things I've come to love about this community is that you genuinely seem to care about the people who are a part of it. And I genuinely care about you guys too. That's a big part of why I started this podcast in the first place. I want to help people get healthier, get moving, and hopefully get some of their strength and energy back. So yes, I'm doing great. Thanks for all the check -ins. I appreciate it, guys.

1:43 The reason you haven't heard a new episode in a few months, it's pretty simple. When I started this podcast, one of my goals was to publish an episode every week for an entire year. I hit episode 52, and once I got there, I decided I needed to take a bit of a break. There's no team behind this podcast. It's just me. And getting an episode from idea to a finished podcast takes a lot of time and a lot of work. You know, I've got a family, you know, that always comes first to me. I have a full -time job and I'm trying to make sure I'm staying on top of my health and physical fitness in between. The Rutgers Edge podcast is important to me, but it has to fit into all those other priorities of mine. Could I keep putting out an episode every week?

2:25 Maybe someday if I had a team helping me, but right now I just, I don't have the time, the energy, financial resources to maintain that schedule. So moving forward. I'm going to publish one episode a month. I'm committed to that. That's what we're going to do moving forward. I thought about doing seasons. I've thought about publishing more frequently than just once a month, but monthly feels like a good spot for me right now. It gives me enough time to create episodes that I'm excited about while still keeping the podcast going and continuing to bring some of the stories, ideas, and lessons that I think are worth hearing. So this podcast isn't about to podfade. I'm going to be shifting gears a little bit and I actually have a few episodes already in the bank that I'm really excited to share with you. And the first one is today's episode with Brad Rucks.

3:14 Man, Brad is one of those guys where I hear everything he's got going on and I think, when does this dude sleep? He's got a family. He's running businesses. He's involved in multiple communities. He stays on top of his health and fitness. He's building Buffalo Mentality, Ruck90, and now Last Rucker Standing. I mean, come on, Brad. When do you sleep, dude? I wanted to have him on the podcast because The Last Rucker Standing is a really interesting new rucking event coming up in October. Yeah, it just popped out of nowhere. He explains that in this episode. He's really expedited putting this thing together. Really cool. Like I mentioned before, this thing has elements of a backyard ultra and Brad has put a lot of thought into making it more than just a rucking event. So welcome back to the Rutgers Edge podcast. It's good to be back. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Brad Rooks from Buffalo Mentality. Brad Rooks, thanks so much for joining me here on the Rutgers Edge podcast. We just, we caught up a little bit, introduced ourselves prior to hit and record. I'm just, I'm happy that you're here. I've been following you on Instagram and seeing this new event pop up, was curious about it. So happy to have you here to talk about it, educate some people out there about this new event, the Last Rutgers Standing, which is, I think, scheduled for October 9th, that weekend.

4:35 Is that accurate? Absolutely. Okay. Very good. Yeah. Thanks for being here. Super excited to be here, man. Thank you so much as well. I'm curious, what has your rucking journey been like? When did you start? What were you doing before rucking? So before rucking, man, I was honestly kind of wavering a little bit in my fitness. I go to the gym, hit the sauna, we'll do some stuff like that, but there was nothing super consistent and nothing that was giving me the ability to really process any thought. right and i had a buddy he was talking about rucking and he had this ruck vest and he's like man this thing's like uncomfortable i'm thinking get rid of it and uh i was like don't get rid of it like i'd like to try it you know i didn't want to go out and buy anything right then um and so i put it put in some plates i put it on i started rucking and after a few days realized like hey this is this is a different type of thing um it's not super hard to do but it ends up being hard if you continue in you know putting yourself under time but the the mental clarity and the the things that started being birthed just while putting time on my feet um was just night and day comparison to anything i've ever experienced in a physical activity and so i was hooked i was hooked like you know two weeks in i'm like i found something here and so i just started creating programs around it to keep me into it that's cool yeah so i i similar experience on my end the the The mental clarity I get from rucking compared to nothing else, any other type

6:06 of exercise, I guess, I was doing. What were you doing? You just hitting the gym? Did you do any endurance training as well? I hit the gym. Man, I would try running. I hate running, man. I've really tried to be a runner so many different times, and I'll probably continue to try to be a runner after this. But something about rucking, I mean, it's very similar in movement. i can i can do this and then i don't feel like i'm just walking i've got a little bit of you know a little bit of weight on it to make a little bit harder but other than that was just going to the gym um was meditating you know sauna stuff nothing but nothing that kept me away from the noise long enough to really make an impact yeah okay so one of the main benefits that you're getting from rucking is uh the mental clarity and how well it benefits your mental health.

6:52 You went on to create Buffalo Mentality. I'm curious about its inception. Was there a specific moment or in Iraq or some sort of life event that kind of spurred that thought? Maybe I should start sharing this with people. Yeah, absolutely. So Buffalo mentality came out of a conversation inside of an accountability group that I'm in. There was a guy that was having a hard time with something that he had done in his past. We'll say IRS or whatnot. And it's coming back. He's changed his he's changed his ways today. But that thing from way back then is coming and coming and showing itself. And he's like, I don't know what I'm going to do. Like my wife is going to leave me this other. And I remember this story about the cow versus the buffalo. and how in in storms and in nature you know they're they're similar size they they're in the same weather but they essentially respond very different to the weather through the storm that's coming a cow will try to bed down get away from it you know hide wait for it to come a buffalo goes directly into the storm usually in its herd and you know they're not taking any less damage they're just going through it quicker and because they're doing it they're building resilience and ultimately becoming bigger stronger you know animals along the way and so i thought about that and told this story to this guy that's this experience in this you know this hardship and i'm like hey like the only other option is to run away it's going to get bigger if you run away we have to face it and i said you know that's that's buffalo

8:25 mentality and it kind of just kind of came out right then i was up to like 3 a .m that night designing and i'm a i'm a creative graphic designer type in a type personality um and so i just started building kind of building the brand and trying to put some legs to it because it's like the thing is is we all have a tendency to just want to run and turn away from that thing right and it never turns out any better when we do it but if we'll stick to it if we'll put our heads down if we'll just do the hard thing eventually the storm will be gone and we'll be much better for it Yeah. Oh man, that's fantastic. What a cool story. So what, if you could, could you describe what Buffalo Mentality is and who it serves?

9:31 bettering your life because you've you know figured your mental stuff out that's awesome yeah i i feel like a lot of people could benefit from programs like that so thanks for creating that i'm sure you've helped numerous people footprint wise is it in person is it virtual So Buffalo Mentality is the mindset, is the brand behind. I'm building an ecosystem of challenges underneath the brand because if we're not challenging ourselves, if we're not holding ourselves to a standard and to a container, then we'll flip and we'll wander around. And so my first challenge underneath Buffalo Mentality is Ruck 90. And so Ruck 90 is a 90 -day rucking challenge to where I tell you to put on 20 pounds and ruck 100 miles in 90 days. easy gotcha easy if you show up every day exactly it's 1 .05 miles a day if you show up every day if you don't those miles start stacking up and they become hard then they all turn into the things that we've all done in our lives where we spin spin spin spin try to get the thing done and then move and spin spin spin trying to get the thing done versus just being consistent over time and and building a consistent lifestyle um ruck 90s all virtual So you could go to ruck90 .com and you sign up. It's 50 bucks. Essentially, you text in your miles to me. I've got an automated system that I've built out that'll iterate your miles, tell you where you're at in your progress, give you some motivation over time. One of my big things is if I expect action, then I can

11:03 measure inaction. And the best way to hold someone accountable is through visibility. And so I use data and... the understanding that you've committed to doing this thing to say, Hey, when you haven't shown up, I just let everybody know that you haven't shown up. I have a, I call it the stagnant Rucker report. I like that. And you, after four days to where you have just sat on your butt or you got busy or you went on vacation or whatnot, you're going to get a text from me. Hey, just letting you know. At day eight, so you have seven days, but at day eight, you'll be disqualified from the challenge because you're not being active. This is an active challenge, and we're not going to give people permission not to be active. And so if you don't want to be active, you won't be here type of thing, right? And it normally, people normally get, you know, I don't want to do it as being like a mean thing, but part of this, part of the $50, so to speak, is me holding you accountable to the thing that you thought was a good idea at that one time, right? We all think things are a good idea when we say them.

12:02 And then we're like, hey, back away from that thing, you know? Yeah. But the coolest part of it is that you stay active, you go 90 days, you cross 100 miles, you get a t -shirt. And then on the back of your t -shirt, you get the number, you get your mileage category that you hit. Nice. 100 miles is just the barrier to get your t -shirt. I've had people do 200, 300, 400. This last quarter, a guy hit our record, which is 1 ,000 miles in 90 days. In 90 days? In 90 days. Whoa. Yeah. Good for him. Yeah. I wish I had the time to do that. Yeah, he put in a lot of effort. Good for him. My record before that was 901. Wow.

12:46 Yeah. That's phenomenal. But yeah, I mean, going back to the accountability. portion you know you know numbers don't lie so it's easy to track and accountability is a great driver so that's a that's a good motivator there and yeah you're just you're you're doing your job as a facilitator like let's let's keep going let's get back on the back on the trail yeah um what i like about ruck 90 is it you mentioned you know um like records and stuff, but it's not really necessarily like a leaderboard. Like you're not really competing with other people. It's like, it's for yourself. It's for your own personal development, for your own accountability. So that's a pretty cool aspect. You're kind of, you're not really competing with yourself, but you're, you're trying to do something for the benefit of your professional or your, your personal growth. That's awesome. I feel like it's got, it's got kind of a 75 hard type of mentality. Like you can do it by yourself.

13:34 Um, but I do actually have a leaderboard. Oh, you do? Oh, yeah. Sorry. No, there's an app that you'll have, that you'll have access to. There's technology. You can see yourself. You can see your projected number of miles you're doing based on where you're at. It doesn't necessarily have to be a competition. It could be a very isolated challenge. There's some smack talking going on. Don't worry. That's Evan's. Cool. And that's also another good motivator for me. Well, that's how we got our guy to the last 900 record. It was him and one other guy that were going back to back. He would do a rock, submit it. And he's like, no, you're not being in front of me. And they would just leapfrog each other every day.

14:20 And they just drove each other like they push each other hard. I was very impressed. I was very impressed. Yeah. That's cool. Man. Okay. Okay. So, so what are the most common reason that maybe some people won't complete the challenge? I don't know if you're willing to go there or not, but I'm just curious. No, there's a lot of reasons. Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's many reasons. People, the reasons that I hear is, ah, man, I've got, I got vacation and vacation. We're going to be out of, we're going to be out of the country for seven days. I'm like, what does that mean? Why does that matter? You can't, you can't find a book bag. You can't figure out how to get 20 pounds on your shoulders and walk. Like this is not, I came to this solo excursion.

15:01 I forgot my ruck. It was the most embarrassing thing, right? Like I ruck every day. I forgot my ruck, but I have my laptop bag and I've got plenty of things that I can stuff inside of it to get it up to weight and we'll go do it. You know, it's, if you want the excuse, you'll make the excuse. right if you want to figure out how to do it you'll figure out how to do it um so vacations one people say um people get bored right they think they're like oh i hit 100 miles it was too easy like some of my super athlete type of people they're like they're like oh well i crushed it dude i hit 100 miles okay but then they stopped and they got disqualified well that's that's the point of this challenge is that we don't do the hard thing and we stop We do the hard thing and then we continue to see how far we can go. Right. Right. I built this essentially Ruck 90 as the anti weekend race, the anti last trucker standing, if you will. Right. Because I'm the type of personality that I want to train for the last trucker standing event. And then I do the event and then I go back and I have a few beers and I'm not really worried about anything fitness because I just did this really successful thing. Right. Right. But yeah. that's not good that's not a good way to to operate and so that's why i built things like rook 90 to kind of counteract that so that we're battle ready all the time right Oh, that's great. Okay.

16:24 So you did mention Last Rocker Standing. Let's get into that. So this is the other challenge. Outside of Last Rocker Standing and Rock 90, do you have any other challenges? There's going to be about 15 90 -day challenges coming out. Like Run 90 is already out. It's a running challenge. We'll have Hike 90. We're going to have some lower barriers like Walk 90 for people that don't feel like they can rock, right? So I'm trying to create essentially a 90 -day ecosystem. Not all fitness. Right. That you can look at and you're like, I want to plug into these directions this quarter and I'm going to go and better myself in that direction this quarter. And that's great. OK, so lack of last record standing. We kind of talked about the the one of the purposes for this. But was there a specific moment or a specific time that you were like, you know what we're going to do? We're going to do the last record standing. So we get into the format because the format is really cool. Yeah. So. Because I run in an accountability group where I have guys that I'm talking to every single week about my goals, my dreams, the things that I, the things that I'm just, I won't even call out to, you know, other people in my life. And they're like, hey, they'll catch it. I'm like, hey, that thing that you said, like, we got to do that, right?

17:38 And so then they'll point those things back to me. And I was with a few buddies two years ago. It was right after the Go One More Backyard Ultra. the bpns first first go one more backyard ultra and i was talking my buddy chris i was like man that's that's really cool if i ran like that would be something that i really want to do and we're like what like what could we do could we do this for rucking like would that even be exciting you know i'm like you're just walking you know what would anybody even care about that and uh and i kind of just it was just kind of that we talked about a little bit and then kind of left it alone um well this year it came back up a conversation through my accountability group they're like hey brad when are you going to do this thing that's really cool that we need to bring to life? And I was like, well, I guess it's going to be Q3. And so we decided that at the end of Q2 this past quarter, made it a three -month goal. And I said, hey, 25 people and a friend's backyard is my minimum goal. And then I'm going to nail that and then just try to make it as big as I can make it. And so my buddies have said, hey, I got your back. A few of them have given me some money to help me. I mean, this stuff's costing some real dollars here.

18:49 I can imagine. Yeah. Like we've got, this is an actual production. I mean, it probably total cost value is over 60 grand. Logistics involved. Yeah. Yeah. Now, but a lot of this has been given to me. Like I've got a lot of like great people that are, they're helping to financially support this to get this off the ground the first year. And it is super cool. Super, super excited to bring this to life. It did pop up. And seemingly for me, at least, it was like Ruck90 wasn't on my radar. Buffalo Mentality wasn't on my radar. But like I kept seeing like Last Rucker Standing. I was like, man, this looks really cool. And I kept seeing it grow and grow online. So, man, I'm happy for you. This is great. OK, so let's talk about the format because it does borrow some elements from like a Backyard Ultra. Can you go into the format real quick? Yeah. I call it a Backyard Ultra with a twist. Right. I truly believe if we put on 20 pounds of weight. went two miles and went as far as we could go it would go 10 days i really believe it i don't have 10 days to invest into that i don't have 10 days worth of cash to supply yeah yeah so i was like what is a format that i can create that would limit us to a 48 -hour event a 48 -hour endurance event is still an incredibly hard endurance event right but something that could use the backyard style um format but then at a certain point start creating an escalation that makes it hard for everyone. I think it's going to work. I think it's going to work. I think it's going to work.

20:17 So I've got Mark Jones. I'm not sure if you've heard the name Mark Jones. He is the world record holder for rucking with a 40 -pound ruck, 24 hours. He did 88 .67 miles. He's one of the first people to talk to me about this event. He's been talking to me about it for a few months now. he's kind of come to the to grips that like he's going to get to 48 and he's going to bypass that 48 and then my conversation to him is I'm not going to let you do it man you know and so I was like as hard as you're coming I'm going to come back even harder for you and everybody else to make sure we don't get there but it is a delicate balance right because I could make it extremely hard from the very very beginning and really only have super athletes out there that are pushing hard and and maybe it goes 48 hours or We can try to limp the field along to get it all the way to 48 hours, right? My goal for this is that guys like you, guys like me, but guys like Mark can come out, be in the same container, be in the same box, walk through the same corral together.

21:26 Me hit my personal records because I'm next to guys like Mark who are pushing, you know, harder than I can ever imagine. But also have, you know, my mom in the ring that she just did two laps and she's like, this is the best thing I ever did. you know yeah and so the opportunity is that the field will naturally start dwindling at some point and when they do we've identified who are the real super athletes in the group and now we turn the heat on yeah so it's uh it's that uh is that a farm i think with two open fields so yes it's at the gathering farm um which they're normally a wedding venue i've actually joked with them that They've not really been able to share much of my content because it's so off -brand with what they're doing. So they'll show some stories every once in a while. But I'm like, there's no real way to get you guys to be able to share some of what we're doing.

22:17 But it's normally a wedding venue. Maybe you could rock in a tuxedo or something. I don't know. That would be amazing. Maybe next year promo. That would be fun. But they've got a beautiful space. They've got some elevation. And it's 140 acres of land. I can create basically a perfect two -mile loop going in some of the woods, around some perimeters, down some gravel, around an old house. I mean, it's big open fields. It's some other tight little areas of the woods, but it's going to be a good time. Yeah, that's awesome. I like the open field concept because you'll be able to see your competitors. I remember like back in my cross -country days, there was a race around some farms and like you could see exactly where everybody was in the race. That was cool.

23:06 It was like really unique. So I think that's going to be a fun element to the competition, being able to see people, maybe people pretending to be straggling back, but saving something for the last couple of hours. I don't know. It's going to be interesting. It'll be interesting. Yeah, sure. Yeah. So what's the field looking like? You said you got Mark Jones signed up. Any other big ruckers in the space? Um, there's definitely some, definitely some strong competition that I think is going to, uh, to give Mark, um, some good work. Uh, but we also have man, just, just average people that are showing up that are like, I don't know if it's going to be a five laps. I don't know if it's going to be 12 laps, but I'm a, I'm a push, you know, as far as I can. And that's really what I wanted for this man is like these style of events are so intimidating to so many people, right? Like they, and they're normally. Not hidden, but this is not normally something that's like really put out there. Like you're not really until last all this this year. Like, I don't I don't know if there was ever really a production around a backyard ultra style event. And so, yeah, man, like just just motivating and inspiring people to to do things that they didn't think they could do. More with Brad in just a moment, including what to expect between each hourly ruck and a little on how they'll turn the heat up as the field begins to dwindle. But I want to take a quick break to say thanks for listening to this podcast. Really appreciate you tuning back in.

24:30 If you know someone looking to start competing and rucking related challenges, please text this episode to them. Sharing this episode would help the show grow and help more people improve their health and lives. Okay, back to it. So, okay, it's two miles every hour, 48 hours. What's going to be happening between people finishing and waiting to start? their next loop like is there like a staging area or is it everybody bring your own stuff whatever you need you got to support yourself situation or what's that so the way that i've designed it because again this is a three -month road map um and i'm trying to create you know the best product i can in that time right so the way that i've designed it it's a 100 self -supported race okay so everything that you need to support yourself for the 48 hours you need to bring if we have space spaces for 10 by 10 canopies you can bring a cot you can bring a tent you can bring chairs you can bring two crew members to help you food water i mean bring everything that you could possibly need for this style of event but what i will say is i'm trying to figure out ways to support and do some things Out of the like the abundance of things that are coming in. If we've got if we've got other resources, I'm going to try to provide them. And I don't want to talk about them because. Yeah. So they'll be exciting. That's if we're able to pull it off. Yeah, that's great.

26:00 And I've seen. Yeah, you've got a lot of buy in from pretty substantial sponsors, which is amazing. And just a short span of time to pull in some sponsorship like that. That's awesome. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. It's I I've just got a great network of people that really believe in what we're doing. And they've they put us in front of the right people. to make your connection yeah uh Is there a space for RV parking? Because I had a friend of mine compete in an event similar to this and they brought an RV and they set up shop. They were watching college football games in between runs and everything like that. Yeah, that's cool. There should be. I mean, there's a lot of space out there. There should be some space for RV. I know I've got a couple of guys like my medic. He's going to have his RV out there and be on standby the whole time. And I've got a few other guys that have talked about bringing RV. And so we'll cross those bridges as they come in. But yeah, we should have plenty of room to park it. If you don't mind, let's move into the competitor's mindset because you mentioned previously the story of the cow and the buffalo and reading the copy on the landing page for Last Rocker Standing, you talk about the storm.

27:07 Can you kind of go into what you think that storm would be for an event like this? When do you think it's going to happen? What do you think the competitors are going to be thinking? not only am I trying to build a cool event, not only am I trying to build something that's hard, but I'm also trying to build an experience, right? And so the storm represents things that we all face literally through our lives. Every year we're dealing with something. It could be big, it could be small. And when those things hit and when life becomes harder, we don't necessarily just get to walk away from it, right? And so that's what the storm represents in this capacity.

27:47 I cannot. give out any as far as details of like what and when and how it's going to happen but um it will happen um the field may be responsible for when it happens um it could be time based you know it could be when um our most average athletes are are falling off and you know the the stronger people left um it could just be at an hour mark um and so i i'm building that kind of as a suspense mechanism. One, people like to know what they're walking into always, right? But that's not life. Life doesn't give you that. And you have to roll with the punches as things come. And so I will say, things that are on the table are pace, like how fast we do the lap, distance, however we could figure that out, right? Adding weight, which is... 100 the first thing that people think we're gonna do i'll tell you it's not um and then and then movement how how we move our bodies right that could be brutal if you really think about it and so i'll let your mind take you to what those uh those things could be but i have a strategy and it's not what you think um and it's not as brutal as what you think but i think the way that we do it over time is just going to wear you out yeah physically definitely and i think um just doing loop after loop after loop for two days straight mentally, it's going to be like, oh my gosh, like, are you going to have like a horn or a bell or something to signify that? So yeah,

29:19 we'll have, we'll have horn. We'll have three minute, three minute, two minute, one minute warnings, 30, 30 second, 10 second countdowns. I'm planning for some tech and some, some coolness around some of that. Oh, cool. Yeah. So we're going to try to automate that. We're building it. We're building an app for everybody online that can. Yeah. That can watch and follow their favorite Rucker. We're going to have Rucker profiles so you can see, you know, my name, who I am, how old I am. Hell yeah. A couple of little different details about me. Right. And that way, like, hey, I want to follow Brad. Like he's a guy. Yeah. Yeah. Some buy in. And then when and then when I tap out, like they're going to be like, well, now I want to follow Mark. I'm not going to let this thing go. Right. And so not only building community that way, but also getting some buy in because. My major thing, my main thing is to impact people. And if I can use people like Mark to, to hear his story and to be like, man, that guy's cool. And if I can inspire you to walk out and grab some weight tomorrow, man, like that, that's, that's a win. That's really cool. And so we'll, we'll be live streaming for 48 hours, um, along with the app and everything.

30:26 Um, the big thing for me is wanting to get people from the outside that would never have an experience to see anything like this, to see it, to hopefully get sparked to do something cool. That's awesome. So I'm just, I'm going back to like the, the mental aspect of, of braving the storm. I'm just picturing, you know, I don't know, 36 hours into it. The rocker just finished a loop just in time and is already hearing like the two minute. warning bell and just like oh my gosh i gotta get back out there that's gonna be hard that's gonna that's definitely lying in the sand you're gonna cross it again or what's gonna happen so right really intrigued such a cool concept i'm glad that you're hosting this i'm glad that yeah you have so much support doing this is really cool uh i will definitely be logging in to to view it where can i go to do that just uh the landing page Yeah. Last record standing .com. Um, we will, we will have everything there. Um, there's, there's still spots there for free to sign up if you'd like, um, volunteer opportunities. Um, but yeah, we'll have the live stream there as well. And you can sign up right now to get on the watch party and that's where we'll, we'll send you the live stream link as soon as it's live. Awesome. Moving in towards the, the, the last couple of sections here of our, of our episode, uh, strategy. Um, has anybody shared their training strategy? for the last record standing um do you know i i just am thinking about doing like repetitive things over and over clearly people want to get down that like two mile mile rhythm um but again they don't know what to expect necessarily right has anybody

31:58 shared with what sort of training strategy they're doing or um anything like that so yeah so um actually i have a buddy joe baker he's uh he's actually a a go rock um an instructor he he teaches you know people for, you know, go ruck events and things like that. And he actually built us a last rucker standing, uh, guide. And so if you, if you sign up, you get a link and it's got his guide in there and you just start at the week that you're on. Um, but it's, it's definitely rucking, but it's also some other movements and things like that to, to help build a little bit of strength and hopefully some resilience before they get out there. But just getting on your feet and moving is your best bet right now. Yeah.

32:40 Do some mock trials at home, walk around the block, you know, wait 30 minutes, do it again, wait 30 minutes, do it again, see how your legs feel. Yeah. Because the lactic acid is going to be a big component to this in the later rounds. Oh, for sure. Yeah, maybe add some extra weight instead of just the 20 pounds, throw maybe 30 or 40 pounds in there, train with that. That way when you get to race day, it feels a little lighter. Sure. So, okay, someone wants to sign up, they go to lastrockerstanding .com. Is that accurate? Yes, sir. Okay. They go there. There's all the information that you could ever need on there. If there's information that's not there, you can always reach out to me on our Instagram, lasttrackerstanding .com. But yeah, everything's there. The rules are there. Information of what you need to bring is there. So read it all. Don't say it wasn't there. Don't say you didn't know.

33:27 Yeah. Yeah. Come prepared. Yeah. And it's in Moore, South Carolina, which is near Greenville, if I remember correctly. It's a little north of Greenville, right outside Spartanburg, South Carolina. Yes, sir. Moore. Okay. Good deal. Well, awesome. Brad, again, really appreciate you taking the time to have this chat. I'll include links in the episode description for The Last Worker Standing where you can go to sign up. But again, appreciate your time. This was a lot of fun. Yeah. Thank you, man. Thank you. So glad to be on here. All right, that wraps up my conversation with Brad Rooks. If you are interested in learning more about Last Rucker Standing or competing in it or watching it as it unfolds, head on over to lastruckerstanding .com. If you're interested in Joe Baker's program, the coach that put together the training program for the Last Rucker Standing, you can head over to his website. That website is joebakerfitness .com. If you want to reach out to me, head on over to theruckersedge .com or on Instagram at theruckersedgepod. And if you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to follow or subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast apps. You're notified of new episodes. The next episode, we will be talking to Jen Tillard. She has a really incredible story. She's a veteran.

34:37 She endured some injuries, had some surgeries, overcame them, and recently competed in a 100 -mile rucking event. Really great story. Can't wait for you to listen to it. But in the meantime, keep rucking. I will see y 'all in the next one.