Today (I wrote this text on the 22nd of February, 2026), I managed to return to rucking with 37.5 kg (83 lbs) on my back and shoulders.
Why did I stop doing the rucking with a rucksack weighing 37.5 kg? If you read my blog regularly, my Dear Friend, undoubtedly, you know why I did it. On the 15th of January, 2026, I had an injury to my right calf. I had a hematoma. The doctor said I should give up rucking until the end of February 2026. As you see, my Dear Friend, I not only returned to rucking, but returned to my best accomplishments one week before the doctor told me to return to it! Did I get crazy by not listening to the doctor? Perhaps I got crazy. Still, I wrote many times during the last weeks that I simply felt that it was not the weight of the burden on my back that was the problem, but the pace of my walking.
How did I know it?
It was because I had similar injuries in the same right calf in 2011 and 2016. I can simply imagine that I will have the same injury in the future. For today, I am simply glad I could get back to one of the most potent sports activities people could imagine: walking with a heavy burden. How many steps did I take? “Only” 7k. Why only? It was because, before the injury, I could take 12k steps without a single break (today, I had to do one break). Undoubtedly, I am motivated to rebuild my form before my injury.
I hope it won’t take so much time as I would expect in the first days of my injury. After all, in one of my posts from the past, I was wondering when I would increase the weight of my rucksack to 40 kg (88 lbs). As of now, I must get used to 37.5 kg and try to take 10k steps without a break.
