Lost Dutchman Rucking Club – Ruck Club Spotlight

The Lost Dutchman Rucking Club is spread out across four different parts of Arizona, but that doesn’t stop them from being active and getting out to ruck and connect with their community. Check them out!

Ruck Club Name: Lost Dutchman Rucking Club

Links: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter

Ruck Club Size: We tend to be spread out instead of having large groups rucking. Currently, we have LDRC chapters in 4 areas of Arizona:

Phoenix East Valley
Phoenix West Valley
Tucson
Sahuarita

Each area holds weekly rucks that have 4-5 attending, sometimes more, sometimes less.

We try to do the larger events, like the Travis Manion Foundation Operation Legacy, as a single group. We just did that in Phoenix and had 32 pax attending.

When/How/Why did Lost Dutchman Rucking Club start?

Here in AZ, we had a state-wide regional GORUCK group (Copper State GORUCK), but it included anyone that had traveled into AZ for events, cadre, and people from all over the state – including people that had stopped rucking all together.

I wanted to focus my energy in my area of the state and started Lost Dutchman Rucking Club to run rucking events in Phoenix specifically. I was running rucking events in CSG for a while but officially stood up LDRC early 2018.

What sort of activities does Lost Dutchman Rucking Club do?

Mainly, organize weekly rucks in a few different locations for people to participate in. We like to participate in the GORUCK Challenges and Callouts as well. LDRC also tries to help get people involved in other events/races that have rucking divisions – like 5k events or workouts. One that is near and dear to me personally is the City Ruck Tour. This year’s tour is just starting and we will be participating and then trying to get other ruck clubs across the country to participate in tour stops near them.

What do you think is the key to having a great Ruck Club?

Consistency. When I was starting out, I was always changing day/time to try to include the most people. But I realized that I will never make everyone happy and the constant shifting was getting confusing. So I picked a day/time and except for special cases, have stuck to that schedule.

Empowerment. Even though I lead the ruck club, I know I cannot attend every event we have because we are spread out with different chapters. I am looking for people that want to step up and help lead these events regularly. That is the only way that we would be able to have the 4 different chapters of the ruck club.

We also try to make each event accessible to pax of all levels of rucking. We want each ruck to be good for new ruckers as well as the experienced. A lot of that goes to location. We pick locations/routes that will allow pax to tap out if they are only able to do 2-3 miles, but allow the rest to go for 4-5 miles if they want. This doesn’t happen all the time, but we try.

Anything else you want to share that would be of interest to readers?

One thing that I like to do as a ruck club is to connect people. I know people in my area are rucking on their own or in small groups. I don’t want to take over their rucks, but I like to help find people to join those as well so people are not rucking alone – even if they are not a LDRC event. Connecting people and building the social part of the club is important as well.

Also, the Lost Dutchman Rucking Club was featured in the local news.

Awesome. Got any more pics?