Courtesy Freedom Ruck
Photo courtesy Freedom Ruck
It’s going to be 12 degrees in Richmond on Friday morning as Victor Wise heads to Washington, D.C.
Wise and friends are set to take the 105-mile trek up Route 1, and they’re expecting to make the trip in 48 hours. That seems like a long time, even considering the traffic that snarls the road as you get closer to D.C., but these five guys are making the trip on foot.
They’re calling this Freedom Ruck, and it’s a mission, a way for them to honor America’s service members and veterans and promote patriotism. They’ll start at the Virginia War Memorial at 7:30 a.m. on Friday and will finish at Arlington National Cemetery on Sunday.
They’ll be flying American flags along the way and will be raising money for the nonprofit Navy SEAL Foundation. It’s the fifth year for the project, and, as you’d expect for early January, the weather has rarely cooperated. Last year it snowed, and this year the temperature is expected to drop into single digits overnight Friday and Saturday.
“This will be the coldest it’s ever been,” Wise said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
Wise is a onetime Richmond resident who worked with the Martin Agency and is now manager and COO of Collegiate School graduate and Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson’s West2East Empire.
He made a separate trek last year in Washington state while his compatriots walked the route through Virginia, but this year decided to join them here so he could visit spend time with friends and family. Other walkers this year include his brother, Ben, and friends James Lafferty, Robert Davies and Alex Miller.
The first year, the men hiked with 50-pound packs, but this year they'll pack lighter, and they’ll be wearing most of the clothing they usually carry in the backpacks to ward off the cold.
They hope to average about 3 ½ to 4 miles per hour and make it to Fredericksburg Friday, with stops along the way at chain restaurants. The pace inevitably slows as fatigue sets in, but they generally get a second wind in Old Town Alexandria as they near the finish, says Wise.
Five flag-wielding guys with rucksacks walking along Route 1 certainly draw some attention, so they’ll have plenty of company, too. Sometimes passersby stop and salute the flag, while others will join them and walk a mile or so. One year, a booster heard about the trek and drove from Richmond to Fredericksburg to meet the team and deliver a $1,000 check.
They get police escorts at times, and they also have motorists constantly honking horns in encouragement.
“It keeps our morale high,” says Wise.
