Wil Ravelo has marched thousands of miles under a loaded pack.
He started in the Marine Corps as a Force Reconnaissance Marine, and when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan kicked off, he chased them—jumping to the Army, joining Special Forces, and landing on the streets of Baghdad in combat inside of a year. After the military he spent thirteen years with the San Francisco Police Department, much of it on SWAT.
He’s a father of four, a twenty-year jiu-jitsu player, and the coach behind what he calls operational conditioning: getting civilians ready to perform in their own lives the way an operator stays ready for a mission.
We were introduced by our mutual friend Michael Ostrolenk, whom Wil helped train for the 50-mile GoRuck event in Washington, DC.
I’ve done a 50 mile march every year since 2019, but never with significant weight on my back—so I called Wil to get a tactical overview. We recorded this a little over a year ago, and I’m embarrassed it’s taken me this long to release it.
A few things you’ll get out of this one:
Why he eats gummy bears by the mile
The mental tricks he looped in his head to survive Special Forces selection
“Be like a tiger”: the 18-hour fast and one-big-meal philosophy that left him stronger at 165 pounds than he was at 225
The footcare hacks he learned from hikers (you’re probably using the wrong toenail clippers).
Why he never trains past 30 miles – even to get ready for 50
The confidence test he gives every client
Follow him and learn more - @realwilravelo; wilravelo.com
50-Mile Math
Charlie: Anytime you’re talking about marching 50 miles in a day, with a 25- or 30-pound pack, that’s no mean feat. Michael said you were the guy for the tactical overview. So what’s your framework for balancing rigor with recovery—how do you push without overdoing it?
Wil: It depends on the event. A rucking event isn’t something you just walk into. You’re not going to say, “I’m going to go ruck 50 miles.” You’ll have a hard enough time saying, “I’m going to ruck five miles,” if you’ve never done it and your body isn’t accustomed to it.
In Special Forces selection—which happens before qualification—most of the events are graded on how well you carry a pack. Distance, weight, time, and how well you work with others. The first thing they do is hand you a pack. Minimum 45 pounds, not counting water or food. They tell you 50, but the standard is 45, and they don’t tell you that, so guys are over- and under-packing the whole time. You get dinged if you’re under. The final event is 24 to 28 miles, the day before you turn in equipment. The GoRuck event we did was modeled after CAG selection—40- to 50-mile rucks out in West Virginia, across two states. Fifty miles is fifty miles. That’s a lot of distance.
Now, to your question. If you overdo rucking too fast, you’ll damage your feet. Tendonitis. Strained little muscles. You can fracture the small bones in your feet. Your ankles, your knees. And the whole time that pack is on your shoulders, cinch straps digging in. When I came back from selection, my upper back was nothing but knots—I’d been holding a rifle the whole time, too.
So for someone training for a rucking event: start easy. Three-mile ruck. Twenty-five pounds—that’s the GoRuck challenge weight, water doesn’t count. It’s easy to slide a 25-pound plate into a pack and go for a walk. If you’ve never walked three miles, scale it down. You’re not running, but your heart rate is up and your body’s under a lot of stress. And don’t ruck more than twice a week. Even that’s pushing it, depending on the weight.
Say your goal is a 12-mile ruck. Week one: Monday is your ruck day, three miles, 25 pounds. Tuesday is a run—two or three miles, not for speed, just for the cardiovascular tank. Wednesday is rest: lift, stretch, do yoga. Thursday is a longer run, five or six miles; if you’re not a runner, go from one mile up to three. Friday is your second ruck, identical to Monday so the body adapts. Even and even.
Week two: same three-mile ruck, but timed. The Special Forces standard is a 15-minute mile under load. Hit that on average and you’ll make your distances in the allotted time. When we did the 50-mile GoRuck in DC, I wasn’t worried about finishing—I was worried about the time. I was pushing guys forward the whole way.
Charlie: So you’ve got three variables—distance, weight, speed—and you don’t want to increase all three at once. When do you start stepping each one up?
Wil: This is where it flips. By about week three, your distances start to drop and your weight starts to climb. You’re still doing the three-mile ruck on Monday, but I expect you well under a 15-minute mile by now—hauling ass with that 25-pound pack, four miles, five miles, fast. Then on the longer ruck day you start building toward the 45-pound plate, and that’s where the miles get added. Bump up two miles at a time, depending on how you feel.
You’ll hit a point, somewhere between 12 and 20 miles, that just sucks. It’s like running a marathon. You’re out there all day, the pack eating into your shoulders and lower back, and it’s always there—every time you take it off and put it back on, it’s worse than if you’d kept moving. And every time you stop, your feet matter. You build the calluses slowly. Push too fast and you get blisters, and then you’re back at the beginning.
So Monday is my flux day—speed and weight, short distance. I can put 60 to 75 pounds in the pack. Buy a 60-pound sandbag at Home Depot, or a cement bag and tape it up. I’m not telling you to carry it 10 miles. Carry it two, carry it three. You’re building the chassis. The real work happens on the second ruck—the last day of the week, at competition weight. “I did eight miles last week. This week, 10. Next week, 13. Then 16.” You keep ramping.
When my wife and I trained for GoRuck, I never hit 50 miles in training. That’s an overdo—it’d take a week to recover and I don’t need that. If I can do 30, I can do 50. The difference is your brain’s already there; the rest you just push through.
“If I can do 30, I can do 50. Your brain’s already there—the rest, you just push through.”
Charlie: Let me play that back. You’ve got a flux day—call it Monday—where you vary speed and weight, distance stays short. A long day—call it Friday—that mimics actual conditions. Once you’ve got a baseline, you add two miles at a time, and the flux day doubles as a gauge: if you can’t hit a 15-minute mile, you’re not ready to add distance. And underneath it all, you’re building strength in the gym.
Wil: Traps, traps, traps. Shrugs, upright rows, grab the trap bar and go to town. I do a lot of jiu-jitsu, so the grabbing and pulling is built in—that helps too. The whole point is keeping them from fatiguing under the pack. The first hour or two, you’re fine. By hour four or five, you hate your life. By hour nine, you’re numb. Every time you take the pack off you get that little ahhh—then you put it back on and you’re worse than before. Then a deadlift for your lower back, squats for your legs. Build in any direction you want, but the upper shoulders are non-negotiable. You’re carrying that thing for hours.
Foot care
Wil: Best thing I can tell you for your feet: go slow. If they start heating up, change socks—old Army thing, always carry a clean change. I’ve worn nylon slip-socks over my regular socks so they slide against each other instead of against my skin. A blister is heat plus friction. Eliminate the friction.
Carry a blister kit. I use one of those little nylon shoe-cleaning pouches the military gave out, fanny-pack-sized. In it: small pointed scissors, the kind you’d cut nose hairs with, to cut tape and lance a blister. Nail clippers—Mr. Clipper makes a flat-bladed pair; most are curved. Avoid the curved ones, because a rounded toenail digs into the toe and becomes an ingrown, and that’ll wreck you 20 miles in.
Charlie: How did I get through 36 years of life without knowing this? Why don’t they teach this in school?
Wil: Honestly? There’s a book, How to Get Selected for Special Forces—the guy put some of this in there. But really, just follow the hikers. They’ve figured it out forever. We ruck in SF because we go to combat with everything we own on our back. Hikers are doing the same thing—they’re just doing it for joy.
One more trick: if you get a blister and don’t want to lance it, run a needle and thread through it, pull the needle out, leave the thread in. It wicks the fluid without making a mess. And mark your hot spots before they blister—tape the spot with athletic tape, then duct tape over the athletic tape. The duct tape slides; put it straight on skin and you lose half a layer when you rip it off.
“A blister is heat plus friction. Eliminate the friction.”
Wil: The one thing you have to learn is to shut your mind off from the pain. When I ruck, I listen to an audiobook or a podcast. Sometimes I just zone out and live in my head. In selection we couldn’t bring radios—you’re alone in the middle of nowhere with a map. I lived on two songs: Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” and Mariah Carey’s “We Belong Together.” I knew half the lyrics to each. I looped them and went into zombie mode.
At some point you start picking up the pace without meaning to. There’s nothing better than doing painful, hard things while you’re in your own head. You find a bunch of answers in there. I’m in pain. I have to keep going. I can’t quit. That’s a really good thing.
“I lived on Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’ and Mariah Carey’s ‘We Belong Together.’ I knew half the lyrics to each. I just looped them and went into zombie mode.”
Gummy Bears, Sunflower Seeds, and Eating Like a Tiger
Wil: I’m not a big fan of eating mid-ruck. Mike asked me once about a protein shake—come on, you’re going to feel like shit with all that sloshing around. I live off sunflower seeds, for the salt.
Charlie: Yep.
Wil: And gummy bears. Gummy worms. I’m in the middle of hating my life, and every mile I give myself one or two. Little treats. The seeds stay in there for the salt and hydration—I’m managing my water too, because I’m carrying it. Overseas you didn’t have endless water; you had what you had. If you want something more substantial, Honey Stinger waffles. They give you the feeling of something in your stomach, all carbs and sugar—same fuel marathon runners use. But anything heavy, protein shakes, dairy—think about it: how much can you tolerate while running? Same idea.
Charlie: And the gummy bears—Haribo, real gelatin, real sugar—there are people who’ll argue those are practically a supplement.
Wil: I believe in that.
Charlie: When you’re burning fuel like that, the sugar’s nothing. I read once that the average person has enough body fat to walk from San Francisco to LA on their own reserves—not even an obese person, just someone at 20, 25 percent. There’s something to that metabolic flexibility. I used to lean keto; lately I’ve come around to more strategic carbs. What are your contrarian takes on nutrition?
Wil: First—I’m in the worst shape I’ve been in, because I just had complete ACL reconstruction. I was in a jiu-jitsu tournament, the guy had my leg in a weird position, I pulled on it twice and dislocated it. First time I told myself, that didn’t happen. Then I did it again and it came out even easier. Stood up, collapsed, went to the ER. Complete ACL tear, cracked patella, sprained LCL. Total destruction. Eight weeks in, nine months out.
Here’s how I think about food. Americans consume way too many calories, and we’ve made it okay—whether that came from breakfast-cereal propaganda or the milk and pork industries or the “three square meals” thing. I look at nutrition the way a tiger does. When a tiger is hungry, it gets up, works for its food, kills the animal, and eats the liver and the major organs first—the most blood and nutrition. Then it walks away. Other animals clean the rest. The tiger goes and does whatever tigers do. It only eats again when it’s hungry, and it has to work to do it. We eat because we’re bored, because we like sugar, because every food was engineered so we’d want more. It’s money.
“Be like a tiger. The tiger gets up, goes and kills, eats the organs, walks away—and then goes to do tiger shit the rest of the day.”
I eat twice a day—an 18-hour fast, a six-hour window. I’ve gained the most muscle when I’ve dropped the amount I eat. The bodybuilders-eat-all-day model is technically true, but those guys turn into bulls in the off-season, and the only reason they look the way they do on stage is a lot of drugs. For everyone else: eat a lot less than you think you have to. Henry Rollins said it—stay hungry, stay lean. Miss meals.
I don’t eat in the morning. After two weeks your body changes; the first morning meal starts to feel nasty. Coffee, espresso, tea, water, all day. Real food doesn’t happen until three or four. The first meal is the big one, mostly protein—I’ve already rucked, already lifted. Plate of meat, a little white rice if I want the carbs. I’m giving myself a little sugar because I earned it. The only way I eat carbs is if I’ve earned them. Rucked 15 miles? A cup of rice. Just rolled in jiu-jitsu? Half a cup.
I went from 225 in Afghanistan down to 165 before I tore my ACL, and I was stronger for my body type at 165. At 225 I could lift a house but couldn’t run a block. The main protein is beef—the majority of vitamins and minerals come from animal product. I don’t eat pork. Chicken I hate from years of bodybuilding. Eggs I love.
Charlie: I’m with you on the animal piece. Pork’s hard to get clean from the modern supply. Beef has this miraculous capacity to convert grass into the highest-quality protein—even conventionally raised beef is cleaner than the average pork or chicken.
Barefoot in My Shoes
Charlie: We didn’t talk much about running. I picked up the once-or-twice-a-week run from you—cardiovascular base, conditioning the feet and legs without the weight. Any special protocol? I keep most of mine where I can breathe through my nose, under the lactic threshold, then mix in some sprinting. Polarized, zone two plus zone four.
Wil: Same principle as the ruck. Beginning of the week is the shorter run, because it’s Monday and I don’t want to blow myself out and limp through the week. Then I add miles toward the end—long-run day might be a 20-miler. I keep a conversational pace, seven to nine-minute miles; I’m an old man, I’m not racing in the sixes. I like to be able to talk to someone next to me.
That said, I add fartleks—run a distance, sprint the next, slow it down. I do it to stay in the game. I got to a point where I hated running even though I needed it, so you have to make yourself enjoy it. It’s like jiu-jitsu—I’ve had a love-hate thing with it for 20 years, still a purple belt because I keep deploying and resetting. The 30-minute drive to class, I’m dreading it. This is going to suck. Warmup hits, I’m fine. By the end I look like I went swimming and I’m laughing. Endorphins through the roof.
One more thing—I run barefoot inside my shoes, no socks. Makes me feel like I’m gripping the earth. If you ever run actually barefoot on a soft surface—I’m in Florida, the dirt’s basically sand with grass on it—you’ll feel the connection. Maybe that’s the hippie in me. Rucking is pain; it’s a relationship with the dark side of your own brain. But running, I feel the earth.
Charlie: I’m with you on barefoot. I walk around barefoot but run on gravel, so I wear minimalist sandals to get most of the way there. Especially downhill—your legs feel like springs. You’re not heel-striking and braking with every step. You’re accelerating.
Wil: You said it perfectly. That spring. All that foam under your feet, you lose the touch. Once you get it back, you change your mind. The bigger principle: do things you enjoy. If you have to run, make something about it enjoyable. Pop a gummy bear every mile after mile six. Give yourself something to look forward to.
The Father-Soldier Trade
Charlie: You’re a father of four; your kids are a little older than mine. I’ve got four young ones, and the time component is the biggest challenge. It’s not the will—it’s fitting it in. How do you think about that?
Wil: You have to give yourself—I hate this phrase—grace. You’re not going to do everything. You have to figure out what your purpose is. When I was younger, what mattered was being a Green Beret. Going to war. And I missed half of my two oldest kids’ lives chasing it. I’m 48 now, and those times don’t come back. The most important people are your intimate family and your closest friends.
Five years ago I was at my wit’s end with them, because they weren’t my priority—I was a cop, I was on SWAT, I was going through the COVID years. The kids were noise. As you mature you realize the accomplishments were the right thing for that time, but they go away. What’s left is the people.
So figure out what you enjoy. I can’t tell every guy go be a dad—you might be a dad by responsibility but not by joy. Fine. But when I overcommit, everything bogs down. I overcommitted to football boards, baseball boards, started a wrestling club, said yes to everybody. So the first thing I had to learn—before any of this worked—was to set boundaries. I can’t do that. Great idea. I’d love to. But I don’t have the time.
Coming out of Special Forces and Recon, you’re always the guy who raises his hand. We need two guys for this mission—that’s me. Your reputation is everything. That’s great for combat and terrible for the rest of your life, because you become a people-pleaser. I had to learn to say no. I quit football this year because I’m running the wrestling team—two kids in high school who want to wrestle, no program in our area, so we built one, my wife grinding behind it the whole way. My son and I doing jiu-jitsu together—that’s a bond. My oldest is just like me, so we butted heads; now we have a shared thing.
Your real focus has to be the thing that makes you happy. Because if you’re not happy, you’re not taking care of yourself, and if you’re not taking care of yourself, you can’t take care of anybody else. I tell my guys: if you can’t lift your own body weight, you’re not here for anybody else, because you’re not even here for yourself. Put your mask on first. Then take care of the people around you. Not selfishly—so that you can.
“You’re not here for anybody else, because you’re not even here for yourself. Put the mask on first.”
Charlie: There’s an old line—I think it’s originally about prayer, but it applies to walking: walk 30 minutes a day, and if you don’t have time, make it an hour. Because when you walk, you have time to think about what matters. That changes your trajectory by a couple of degrees, and five or ten years later you’ve wasted so much less time. And on the march itself, the smallest things decide it—the toenail clipper you’ll need at mile 42, when a blister suddenly threatens to end the whole thing. It’s one thing to go out with an injury. You don’t want to go out because of bad foot care.
Operational Conditioning
Charlie: Your website talks about operational conditioning. Give us a definition, and a feel for what working with you looks like. The hour we’ve spent has already changed how I train and given me confidence I’m not just doing something I made up.
Wil: In special operations, guys are assaulters or operators. To remain operational means you’re ready to perform—my shooting’s on point, my gun’s ready, I know my tactics, I’m ready for whatever mission. When I say operational conditioning, I mean that for civilian life. I’m making you operational for your life.
First piece is confidence. The SEALs are the most confident guys in the world—from the day they step on the platform at BUD/S, everything tells them they’re the greatest thing on earth, and they believe it 100 percent. When I left Marine boot camp I thought I could take on the entire Oakland chapter of the Hells Angels. I weighed 160 pounds. But I believed it. You have to build that for yourself, without anyone giving it to you.
The test is whether you can take your shirt off at a moment’s notice, because you put in the work. And this might sound bad—when I see someone overweight, I don’t see disease or “no time.” I see someone lacking discipline. These eight weeks with no movement humbled me too: I had to cut what I eat or I’d be 30 pounds heavier, because I can’t burn anything.
So: confidence, because you know what you’re capable of. The look, because you put in the work—people believe what they see. Then performance. Right now I can’t run 10 miles; before this I could go 20 on a moment’s notice. Pull-ups, over 20. Pushups, over 100. Squat, deadlift, bench—twice my body weight. Jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai for years, fought MMA when I was younger. But because I’ve trained, I avoid conflict. I walk down the street, I see the guys looking for problems, and I don’t make eye contact, because I don’t have an ego to prove. I’ve proven it. The guy who’s been fighting an hour a day, every day, doesn’t want to fight in the street.
“Learn how to fight, learn how to shoot—so you don’t have to test yourself.”
I’ve been in fights, as a cop and before. Even when I won—even when the other guy was on the ground—I came out with a chipped tooth, a broken nose, a torn shoulder, ripped pants. You never come out clean. Plus you could be killed, or arrested. Your confidence walks you into the boardroom, into your boss’s office, without intimidation, without that embarrassed posture. You sit down and the read happens before you say a word.
Charlie: I was just writing about Pete Hegseth’s speech to the generals. It made news—he talked about bringing back standards, called out generals walking around the Pentagon overweight, used the word fat. I don’t have a strong opinion on Hegseth himself, but one thing came through: the people sending troops into war ought to have some skin in the game. Peace through strength. The whole history of the 50-mile march is built on the same idea—if every citizen were in fighting shape and knew how to handle a firearm—
Wil: —stay operational. Just be able to—
Charlie: —be a man.
Wil: Be a man.
Charlie: The enthusiasm is contagious. Each of us can influence our own small sphere just by being a little more energetic. By getting in the arena. I really appreciate the time—I’m going to strap one of my kids on my back and head out for our ruck. Hopefully we get together and ruck in person next year, maybe with Michael and the team.
Wil: A lot of stuff in the works. Next year’s looking like the big rollout. I’m a little screwed because of my knee. But you and I will be carrying packs together, having this same conversation in the middle of sucking somewhere. I guarantee it.
FOOTNOTES
GoRuck — Endurance-event company built around team rucking; the DC event Wil and Michael did was modeled on CAG selection.
Michael Ostrolenk — The mutual friend who introduced us; Wil trained him for the 50-mile GoRuck.
CAG / “the unit” — Combat Applications Group, the Army’s Delta Force.
Get Selected! For Special Forces — The prep book Wil references for foot care and selection lore.
Honey Stinger waffles · Isopure — His on-the-move carb fuel and his preferred clean protein.
“Stay hungry, stay lean” — Henry Rollins, punk frontman of Black Flag turned spoken-word fixture.
“Enter Sandman“ / “We Belong Together“ — Metallica and Mariah Carey; the only two songs Wil could replay in his head through selection.
Operational conditioning — Wil’s name for his practice: training civilians to be “operational” for their own lives. @realwilravelo on Instagram; wilravelo.com, where the William Ernest Henley line— “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul”
