Chattanooga Brew Ruck Challenge — Sergeant Red Beard

Although this is ostensibly a blog about mountain bike racing, I’ve chosen not to remain so rigid to that idea. Instead I’d like to use it as a blog about mountain bike racing AND other events that I chose to do that may or may not be the best of decisions. Back in early January I was scrolling through Facebook when I came across the event page for the Chattanooga Brew Ruck Challenge and I sent it to Jordan as an example of the types of events that I’d like to do with her…in the future. Well much to my glee she was all about it, so I signed us up. The basic premise of the event was teams of 2 or 4 ruck with back packs (20 pounds for women, 30 for men) to the local Chattanooga breweries and complete a set of challenges at each location. Some of these challenges were trivia and some were physical. The order of the breweries was set, but you don’t know the next location until you complete each challenge. You can take whatever route to get to each brewery that you like to.

Saturday morning brought several inches of snow to the Chattanooga area. When I picked up Jordan we couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. This event was going to be hard enough as it was since we hadn’t trained for it, but snow was going to add another layer of difficulty…and fun.

The first “stop” was at The Tap House in St. Elmo for the pre-event meeting, gear check, and ruck weigh in, and first trivia/penalty challenge. The first trivia question came, which we answered very wrong and meant a penalty was coming after I did the lemans start. Fifty squats later and we were on our way to The Terminal Brewhouse. Rucking to The Terminal was mostly uneventful. We chatted with some people along the way and talked strategy about cutting some time off by walking through the neighborhoods. After a couple miles we arrived to our next trivia question and posted the required selfie to our Instagram team page.

Stop number three was Wanderlinger Brewing Company, hidden behind The Moxy Hotel…a quick trip to be sure. We weren’t too enthused about the 10 burpees that were required at that spot, but we powered through nonetheless. Another quick selfie and we were on to the next stop.

The next stop on the train was Chattanooga Brewing Company. On the way to CBC was when we started to get some separation of the groups, with some getting tied up with trivia penalties and the speed of the rucking getting to others. CBC brought three trivia questions, one of which we got wrong. Which meant a we had to complete a 30 second plank with our packs on. Planks survived and selfie taken we moved on to the next location, stopping for a mirror selfie along the way.

The fifth stop on the ruck was Barley Chattanooga. This challenge was to take a picture of a moose somewhere inside. While inside we snapped our selfie with the Abdominal Snowman, another of the moose, then head out to get the next location. It was here that we found out we were currently in second place of the 2 Person teams and overall!!! This was a bit of a surprise to us both, now the pressure was on. Could we catch the people in front of us? What about staying in front of the people behind us? We trudged on, both feeling pretty strong at that point. The next location was Renaissance Park, which didn’t mean good things for our bodies I was sure.

Rucking to Renaissance Park was where things started to get interesting. It was starting to get hilly and we had to decide which bridge to cross over on. We picked the walking bridge, which in hindsight was probably not the best decision as it was still covered in snow. We arrived at Renaissance Park to the smiling, devious looking faces of more volunteers…they knew what was in store for us. First we had to bear crawl up the grassy hill with our packs on, then upright rows using our packs as the weight. Hugging our packs and doing reverse lunges was next, followed by 20 step ups. They finally took mercy on us and let’s us proceed to Heaven and Ale so we could get our selfie and find out what the next stop was.

When the women at Heaven and Ale said the words “White Oak Park” I died a little inside. Then a little more when she told us we had to use Hamilton Rd to get there. At this point we were almost 7 miles in and I knew then that the 10 mile estimate of the changed course wasn’t even close to accurate. We trudged on heading towards White Oak Park. We were about halfway up the hill when we came across the first place team; there was no way we were going to catch them.

Arriving at the park, we were presented with more physical challenges to complete on the grass filled in lines of White Oak. First up was bear hugging our packs and heading up the hill, across, then back down. These were followed by holding the packs against our chests, then squatting and pushing the packs above our heads. High Low Planks with the packs was next. Finally we had to do a relay up the hill and back down. I went up first, tagged Jordan, then glanced to my side to see that we weren’t alone at the park anymore. We dubbed them CrossFit couple because they definitely had that look about them. We were slightly confused because we hadn’t seen them at the start, but there they were at White Oak Park.

Originally the course called for a stop at Big Frog Brewery, but weather had caused a change of plans. I was both relieved to cut off the additional miles, but also disappointed because I’ve been wanting to check them out. Jordan and I plan to swing by for a date night at some point in the future. We grabbed some nutrition, put our packs on, and headed back out of White Oak Park on the long haul to Hutton and Smith. I was keeping a close eye on time as we only had two hours left to get to the last location and a long way to go. On the way down the hill on Hamilton Rd we started see the groups coming the other direction. We felt comfortable they they wouldn’t catch us, but were worried about CrossFit couple since they looked like legit baddasses. We were correct. We made it down the hill no problem, but they passed us full on running just before we hit Market St. We were now in third.

To give our shoulders a bit of a rest we flipped our packs to the front and kept grinding towards the Market Street Bridge. Along the way Jordan expressed concerns of a blister, so we took a break at Market and Cherokee to have a look. There was no blister, just a hot spot, so she threw a band aid on it to protect it and we started moving again. Part way up Market Street Bridge, Jordan had a moment of distress. She later told me she almost cried. Somehow she reached down and decided to gut it out. She started feeling better once we passed the halfway point of the bridge, so we pushed on down Market St before heading left on MLK and arriving at Hutton and Smith. There was no trivia or physical challenge there, so we got our selfie and moved on.

Odd Story Brewing Company was the next stop and we were presented with more trivia. Somehow despite near exhaustion and physical pain we managed to answer all the questions correctly; which was good because the penalty would’ve been singing and no one wants to hear that. The final leg was upon us!!!

Naked River Brewing was the last stop and finish line of the course. Jordan and I leaned on the gas; we had 40 minutes to get from Odd Story to Naked River. Plenty of time, but at that point we just wanted to get it finished. We arrived at Naked River feeling pretty exhausted, but happy that we’d completed the course in time. The patch was ours and we’d secured 3rd place in 2 person teams and overall. Final time was 4:15 moving time and 4:35 overall.

We headed inside for a much deserved post ruck beer and meal. We spotted CrossFit Couple at the bar and chatted with them. Apparently the weather had slowed them down and they arrived 15 minutes late, which is why we didn’t see them. So yeah…badasses, both of them. We drank our beer, ate our pork sandwiches, and sat through the awards and raffles before heading home. We spent the rest of the night on the couch nursing our sore muscles, watching Chasing Amy, drinking some bourbon, and eating terrible food.

I gushed about how well Jordan did in a Facebook post, but I want to say more here. Rucking isn’t easy but she stayed with me step for step. I did a ton of ruck marching when I was in the Army and I was pretty good at it. So for her to be able to keep up with me all day is super impressive. Jordan is an absolute machine and I can’t wait to find out what else she’s capable of. We’ve talked about doing more rucking in the future, so I think its safe to say that we’ll be back for Chattanooga Brew Ruck Challenge 2021!!!