S.O.S. (Stories of Service) - Ordinary people who do extraordinary work

62 Miles of Grit: Honoring a Navy SEAL Through the Ultimate Adventure Race - S.O.S. #241

• Theresa Carpenter

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A 62-mile race that lets you sleep at night and still pushes you to your edge? We’re bringing a new kind of endurance event to the Colorado backcountry to honor Navy SEAL Ryan Larkin and fund life-changing sleep recovery through 62 Romeo. Over three days from Montrose to Telluride, ten fire teams face rugged terrain, military-style navigation, and surprise challenges that reward strategy and teamwork—not just speed.

Rob Sweetman, a former SEAL and founder of 62 Romeo, shares how Ryan’s legacy fueled nearly a decade of work in sleep science and why sleep performance sits at the core of mental health, hormones, energy, relationships, and long-term success. We walk through the race format—bronze, silver, and gold medals for day-by-day finishes and a platinum winner crowned by points—plus a design choice that flips the endurance script: planned overnight rest to model healthy recovery while still testing grit. It’s built to be hard, safe, and meaningful.

We also dig into the technology bringing the story to life. Our media team engineered custom LoRaWAN trackers and 3D maps so friends and family can follow teams in real time, watch live check-ins from aid stations, and experience the landscape from afar. With up to 80 volunteer roles—from registration and gear issue to camp operations and hydration points—there are countless ways to join the mission. Prefer to compete? Applications open for four-person fire teams and solo candidates who want to be placed, with a fair, safety-minded selection process.

More than a race, this is a movement that turns grief into action, connects people through the outdoors, and funds sleep scholarships and nature retreats at Happy Canyon Ranch. If you believe in the power of nature, teamwork, and real rest to heal, you’ll feel at home here.

Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a purpose-filled challenge, and leave a review to help more listeners find the mission. Ready to volunteer, watch live, or apply to race? Your move.

Race details - https://www.rliar.org/

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SPEAKER_00:

One of the ways that we connect with one another and build wellness is through being with nature. And one of the things that we've been seeing a return to in a lot of literature and in a lot of wellness advice is the idea of returning to what we do in the military all the time, which are ruck marches. And today on the Stories of Service podcast, I'm going to be talking to Rob Sweetman about a very unique ruck march, but it's also a march that is in memory of somebody who tragically lost their lives. And we want to do what we can to prevent others from going down that same road. So, Rob, welcome to the Stories of Service Podcast.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you for having me, Teresa.

SPEAKER_00:

Awesome. Well, I can't wait to talk to you. I am the host of the Stories of Service Podcast, Teresa Carpenter, ordinary people who do extraordinary work. And to get this started, as we always do, an introduction from my father, Charlie Picker.

SPEAKER_01:

From the moment we're born and lock eyes with our parents, we are inspiring others. By showing up as a vessel of service, we not only help others, we help ourselves. Welcome to SOS Stories of Service, hosted by Teresa Carpenter. Here from ordinary people from all walks of life who have transformed their communities by performing extraordinary work.

SPEAKER_00:

And today we're going to be talking about the Ryan Larkin Inventational Adventure Race, which is a three-day endurance challenge. It will be held this June 2nd through the 14th across the rugged terrain between Montrose and Teleride in Colorado. And this was created to honor the legacy of Navy SEAL Ryan Larkin, whose life, service, and spirit continue to inspire those who knew him and those who have learned from his story. The course will span 62 miles in tribute to 62 Romeo, the nonprofit, founded after Ryan's passing to help service members and veterans address sleep-related challenges. And this number will also carry a purpose. It ties the physical demands of the race to a mission grounded in healing and support. And today we're going to talk about how this event will capture the values Ryan embodied: grit, humility, quiet professionalism, and a fierce commitment to the people beside him. And this is designed to reflect the kinds of challenges Ryan embraced, blending adventure racing with military-style navigation. And we saw some things earlier that we'll talk about through the volunteer called, which is never before technology with navigational style adventure racing and problem solving and team-based endurance tasks across the Colorado backcountry. Welcome, Rob.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you for having me. Glad to do this.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm so glad to have this conversation. So, first off, what got you to do this? What inspired the idea behind creating this one-of-a-kind adventure?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, Ryan Larkin, the Navy SEAL sniper medic who took his own life, um spurred all of this. It was, he was a platoon mate of mine, and it deeply impacted me. And I thought that sleep had something to do with his situation. Um, definitely in the eight, almost nine years I've been working in the sleep science space, something I dedicated my life to after Ryan uh took his life. We now know without a doubt that sleep impacts mental health, but it also impacts uh hormonal function, energy levels, um how our relationships pan out with our spouses and our friends and even progression at work. We've got research to show uh lifetime earning capacity based on sleep performance. So this whole thing, the race, is about the organization 62 Romeo that we started. It stands for 62R, and that means six weeks to sleep restoration, and it just adapted over the years. So, since we kicked this whole thing off in Ryan's honor, we've helped thousands of people, uh, hundreds who have physically graduated through our rigorous sleep course and improved their own lives, and then all of the people that they've gone out and helped. Now, with that said, uh 62 Romeo, uh, we've worked with a lot of volunteers, uh a lot of firefighters, a lot of first responders, a lot of uh military, of course, and and I've come full circle and helped out actual Navy SEALs. That's how I got my name, the Sleep Genius. And so, because we're running into all these people who are actually top performers, what ended up happening was after we got sleep on track, we all hung out together and started doing sporting events. So we've been going to New York City, doing the New York City SEAL swim and other charity events, and it turns out that uh this sort of cohort of people that we work with within 62 Romeo are actually athletes. So I've dreamed of having my own race, having an adventure race where we could bring people together in the outdoors in shared brotherhood, sisterhood, fellowship. Because we know that being outside in the outdoors, fresh air, grounding, all of these things um actually improve our mood. But then when we have a challenge that we overcome together, now we've got bonding. Now we've got some fun stuff. And the truth is uh that's kind of, especially in the military, but that's kind of how we like to function, isn't it? We like to get out there and do hard things. So this is a very hard race. Um, I designed it over three days, 62 miles for 62 Romeo. And with that said, uh, obviously a three-day race is going to be difficult, uh, but we designed it in a way that everyone can participate uh in terms of physical level. Now, I've made it an invitational, so only the people that are invited can come out and race. However, uh, that's not meant to exclude anyone, is just because I can't support more than 40 people on the course. So four team, four man teams or four woman teams. We've had some women step up to the plate that are interested. We're gonna have 10 four-person teams. We call those fire teams. Now, here's where it gets fun. This is exciting. So these four uh people will be in a fire team on a simulated mission, and we're gonna have sort of a breakout, and that kicks off the race, right? And when that race is kicked off, basically what we're saying is these military fire teams are on E. That's escape and evasion. And we're gonna have military things along the course that we're not gonna announce yet, but it will be completely military scenario based. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Now, if you just want to finish the race, you go through day one, we will have a campsite set up so you can rest. That's what makes this different than any other adventure race. We're actually letting people get sleep. How can we be a sleep organization and not let people get sleep? Uh, so we will let them get sleep, they're gonna sleep all night, and then we'll launch everybody again the next morning. So, day two, you if you can complete day two, basically what we've done. Oh, yeah, this is a great image here. So if you finish day one but you can't continue, you'll get a bronze medal. If you finish day two and you can't continue, you'll get a silver medal. But if you can finish that final day through the Telluride Mountains into the beautiful ski town of Telluride, we will be there to welcome you with a huge banner. Everybody will have food, we'll have beverages, and you will get a gold medal. That's it. If you're invited, you show up, you finish the race, done. Now, to make things a little bit more spicy, because I know all of you are thinking, well, who's gonna win this race? It's not just based on time. Time is a factor, but we're going to be introducing military challenges. We're gonna announce those on uh June 11th, the night before. The race will be June 12th through 14th. We'll give your team a chance to come up with a strategy. You will try to attain if you want to be a competitor for first place, which everyone will, you'll try to attain those points-bearing items. Uh, I'm not gonna tell you what they are, they will be challenges of varying different types and they will be unique. So, not everyone will have an opportunity, all the challenges. So, it'll be a bit of a race to the challenges, it'll be a bit of a strategy of what challenges to uh approach. You won't be able to finish all the challenges, you won't be able to do everything, but the the platinum metal winner, the overall winner will be the highest points. Um, and so all of this to me is just very exciting. Now, why are we doing this? Um, other than to bring people together and just have fun, because we have so much fun doing events like this. I actually don't think there's any events quite like this, but uh we want to have fun and raise money. And so when we raise money, that money goes directly back to scholarships for people to put through the sleep program, as well as scholarships for the new retreats that we've been running out at Happy Canyon Ranch. All of this starts at Happy Canyon Ranch in Montrose, and 62 miles later ends up in Tell Yuride, 62 miles, three days, and I just couldn't be happier about this.

SPEAKER_00:

And some of the images for my listening audience that I'm showing uh through the podcast are images when Rob and a couple of his teammates mapped the course and did a dry run, and we're really able to see what would be involved in taking on a race like this. And I'm sure some of my audience members are like, Teresa, why are you promoting a race when it's invitational only? Well, there is so many opportunities to get involved. There are going to be a lot of portions of the race that are going to need volunteer participation. So, Rob, can you tell us a little bit more about what some of the ways that people can be a part of this and can volunteer and help out?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, absolutely. Um, this is a this will be a televised event and we're gonna be live streaming, we're gonna have positions on maps, we're gonna have everything available for anyone at home to see what's going on. This is Netflix grade um live action engagement with this race. And so, with that said, we've got a lot of racers. We've got 40 racers, and hopefully in coming years, we can actually expand that to more and we can invite more people. That's just all we can support right now. We're estimating as much as 80 volunteers. Now, some people could be repeats, uh, but we have roughly that many slots of people that need to fill uh to come out and help. So, what that means is people show up day before to help out with registration. Uh, the next day we have people helping set up for the uh commencement ceremony and the opening remarks by Ryan Larkin's dad, Frank Larkin, who is also Navy SEAL. He's gonna fly out and uh talk to our guests about his perspective on the whole thing. That's him on the 60 minutes special about his son. Um, and so then we're gonna need volunteers to put up tents and move stuff around and issue gear. And then when we get out in the field, we'll need people to be at the stations, aid stations. Um, you know, folks that are participating in this race are gonna need water and hydration. Uh, so we're gonna provide all that, but we need people, we need people to come out there. I would definitely say that the preference is in on the western slope of Colorado. Um, if you can come out and help. But if you're willing to uh fly in or travel in or come out, I think this would be worth your time to come out. It's this amazing event. Um, by the way, this is some of the most beautiful territory you've ever seen. Um, all the way into I mean, this is really epic, breathtaking uh landscapes, and you could be a part of that. So I encourage everyone to take a look at uh what it takes to volunteer. And actually, I've invited uh Teresa to manage all of the volunteers coming in if she's up for it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yes, that that is going to be an adventure in and of itself, but I'm ready to do it. Rob asked me last year when I was at or this past uh August when I was at the New York City SEAL swim if I would take this on. And being someone myself who loves hiking, loves to be in the outdoors, loves anything that is healthy and not very expensive and and just healing, I thought this was something that I really wanted to get behind. And I fully support Rob's efforts in making this happen. And not only, as Rob said, is this going to be just a three-day hike, this is going to be a high-tech three-day hike with a lot of technical assets and ways to track the participants and update in real time on what they're doing. I think that's what's really going to be exciting about this. And I'm really looking forward to the people at home who will be able to track the participants in real time, see where they're going, see what they're coming up against, see what they're seeing. And I think all that's going to do is inspire more people to come back and do this the following year. What is that? What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, this listen, this is state-of-the-art stuff we're talking about here. Um, our team that's managing the facilitation of this race is incredible. Um, in fact, the media team has already built our own 3D printed cases for our own PCBs with something called LauraWan. In essence, it's just a GPS tracker, right? And we have customized equipment. Uh, we're gonna have multiple ways to track position. Uh, and typically you don't bring GPS on an adventure race. We are uh for a ton of reasons. One uh for safety, uh so we can monitor where everybody's at. The race is already gonna be hard enough. Um, and so then we're gonna present that map data. Um, so you'll be able to look at a map. We're already testing it right now. You'll be able to look at a three-dimensional map of the mountains, and you'll be able to see exactly where your team is at. If you're viewing your uh brother or your friend or your sister or somebody is out there, um, you can see where they're at. And in fact, we're gonna have stations set up to live stream. So we're gonna be live streaming as people come in and sort of get, you know, hey, how are you feeling? Uh, you know, I'm tired or whatever. So you'll be able to have a full interactive experience, and that would not be possible without all of the software and the hardware that we've built out.

SPEAKER_00:

And your son is also looking forward to supporting his dad in this amazing opportunity. So I'm I'm so excited and I'm so honored to be a part of this with you. For the people that are coming out to volunteer, they're gonna have a lot of opportunities too. They're gonna have the setup, they're gonna have the registration, and they will also have an opportunity to volunteer at the checkpoints and where the teams maybe are camping each night. There might be some assistance that's needed there as well. Is that correct, Rob?

SPEAKER_02:

That's right. Uh, we're gonna have volunteers at every station. We're thinking about breaking it up into three uh sections throughout the day, sort of a morning, afternoon, and evening shift. Uh, but with that, um, we're gonna need a lot of help. And if you love being in the Colorado outdoors, uh backcountry, this is for you. And in fact, it's not just the volunteers we need, uh, we're also going to be looking for veterans and first responders. And not just it could be a civilian, uh, but this is sort of a military-themed thing. So if you are a civilian, uh just be prepared for some military-like equipment and things. It's a little bit more difficult than just hiking with ultralight gear, uh, but we also need those teams. So, probably at the first of the year, we're gonna launch a big campaign to say, hey, it's now time for you to sign up. And so, if you want to be a volunteer and come hang out and maybe even observe so you can apply to be a participant the next year, great idea. Uh, but then those teams, we will be releasing a registration application for teams, and you can be a solo person and get put into the pool, or you can be a team, you've already got a team of three or four, and you're ready to go, then you put that information into the website and it gets put into our database. Um, if people drop or if people are not uh approved to be in the race because they've never done anything like this before and they're not ready for it, we have a pool. So if need be, we're going to be plugging in people. Of course, team captains can interview a potential uh person from our pool and see if it's a good fit. They don't have to accept that. And if we're left over with um not enough teams, still the 10 team slots, which I don't think will be a problem, but we'll see. Um, then we'll take those pools and we'll create teams uh of people that don't necessarily know each other. And so this is all about uh having fun and getting together and doing something difficult. In the military, we didn't always get to decide who our teammates were, uh, but it was a person to the left and right of us that really meant the most uh through these challenging times. So, probably first of the year, we're gonna be opening it up for volunteers and for racer registration.

SPEAKER_00:

I love it. I love it. And as we're winding down the call and getting a better sense of what this will provide, I do have a question for you. And that is why do you think it is important for people to participate in activities like this?

SPEAKER_02:

You know, when I first got out of the SEAL teams and I dove into sleep science, uh, one of the other things I was working on was uh I volunteered with an organization called Guardian Grange. And the goal of Guardian Grange, the founder called it a veteran regenerative network. Basically, we wanted to teach uh, you know, military people how to do permaculture, uh, which is basically farming and animals and and everything is in eco-balance, right? And what I found in putting together these workshops for people is that I would have veterans come out and just cry. They would just decompress right there. And it wasn't because we were doing anything particularly special, it's because we were outdoors, we're doing things with our hands in the fresh air, sunlight, more out in nature, we were not in the city. And um, when you have that type of environment, natural decompression occurs. It's just natural when people are stuck in the city in a stressful situation or too chaotic. Um, oftentimes they just can't let the trauma resolve. And once you get out there in nature with the fresh air, oftentimes with a little bit of exercise or physical activity, especially something tangible you can see in front of you. Um, that really does something. This is how we're wired as humans. And no one who works in this space would disagree with me that this is truly restorative just to be outside in nature. But the way we structure this with challenges and goals will truly be an enriching and rewarding experience. My guess is. Is that people who go out and do this together in the team are going to become best friends for life? Um, this is something that they've done together, as well as the volunteer staff. I think that this is something that they're gonna want to come back every single year and be a part of because of the excitement, because the beautiful team that we have, because all of the views and all of the epic, you know, this is gonna be intense. So I encourage everybody to consider being a part of this, uh, both for yourself, your own healing outdoors and nature, as well as supporting an incredible cause that is making huge ripple waves of impact.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And we definitely want to give the tribute where the tribute is is is is most needed. And this is in memory of Ryan Larkin. And there is a fantastic show on 60 Minutes on his father's advocacy towards studying the brain science that he has looked into for his own son that he feels led to uh his untimely death. And I think that that's such a beautiful way to honor him and to do something in community, in camaraderie, with fellow service members, with volunteers who are civilians, or with just about anyone. I mean, we have people on our volunteer, on our uh team, our planning team who are not military that just love to support this cause and want to be a part of it. So I love what you're doing, Rob. Is there anything else that I haven't mentioned or asked you about that you'd like to put out to your audience at this time about the race?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think that it's important to say that you know, this started with a very tragic situation, a tragic situation that oftentimes is too commonplace in the military communities as well as first response. And so taking something like this terrible and making lemonade out of lemons, as they say, is what we have done. Now, in order to fund people to improve their sleep or to get them out of nature on the nature retreats at Happy Canyon Ranch, we have created the Ryan Larkin Invitational Adventure Race to raise money to help those people. And we're already raising money, we're already doing it. So why not come out and have some incredible fun over the weekend of June 12th through 14th to be able to support all of this?

SPEAKER_00:

Love it, love it. All right. Well, I'll meet you backstage just to say goodbye. But thank you so much as I go full screen for giving our audience a little taste of this. We'll have this podcast posted up on your website. We'll also have some reels that we'll make from this to try to put this out and spread the word. But thank you so much, Rob. It's a pleasure as always to host you on the Stories of Service podcast. And guys, thank you so much for joining me tonight. This was a short one just to put out about this new adventure that I have found myself in in retirement and taken on. So I'm very, very blessed that at this point in my life and in my career, I can take on things like this that speak to my heart. And I'm sure you'll be hearing more about it in the months to come. Take care. Enjoy the rest of your evening, and thanks a lot for joining us tonight. Bye bye now.