As the racing season swings into high gear, we traveled 4 hours East to Owl’s Head in Mansonville, Quebec, Canada for the Spartan weekend. This challenging location offers a vertical incline of 540 m (1,770 feet) with a top elevation of 756 m (2, 480 feet). The base elevation alone is 216 m (709 feet).
Back in March I shared the upcoming Memorial Beach Challenge 2017 by interviewing one of the race founders, Mike Vaules. This 2+ mile OCR is all on the beach of Ocean City, NJ. The tide was high this morning so in some spots, the beach was very narrow due to severe storm erosion over the winter. But that funnel did not stop the 425 runners from doing this course. No. What stopped them was exactly what Vaules said to me back in March. The hardest obstacle here is the sand.
Being used to the competitive atmosphere in most of the OCR races I have participated in, I thought I would start off the 2017 racing season with the race that is made to get the first time OCR runners into the fold, Tough Mudder.
With recent temperatures in the 90's, Saturday's chilly weather was a little unexpected for a lot of mudders heading to Tough Mudder Philadelphia over the weekend. The one and only, Sean Corvelle, was on hand to pass on inspiration to all mudders at the starting line.
A day at the beach. Normally that sentiment will drum up fun in the sun; with family and friends enjoying a day on the sand. Today was a different twist on “a day at the beach”. Today was the ForeShore Adventure Run in Muskegon, Michigan. Located directly on Pere Marquette Beach, on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan; was to be a challenge unlike anything else I’ve experienced.
This past weekend, my buddy and I traveled out to Sherwood, OR to get down in dirty running the 5k Foam Fest! This was hands down, one of the most fun races I have done. The course was great, the obstacles were unique, and the crowd was ready for some good, muddy fun!
Toughest Mudder the 8-hour Tough Mudder event took place over the weekend outside of Philadelphia as the series made it's Northeast stop. The race began at midnight and after 8:00 am finishers began to cross the line. Many favorites from the World's Toughest Mudder community came out to the event in the hopes to gain contender status (25 miles) for World's Toughest Mudder.
For anyone looking to start their addiction to OCR’s, look no further than Warrior Dash. This weekend’s event at Camp Warwick in Warwick, NY, was both challenging and liberating for a newcomer such as myself. The main hub of the event was abuzz with newcomers and pros alike, all eager to get on the course and into the mud!
Since so many people have been complaining that Spartan Races are becoming stale, they decided to call upon the weather Gods and order a huge rainstorm for the Spartan Race sprint at Citifield to mix things up. OK so maybe this isn’t true, BUT the weather was another obstacle we had to deal with.
Tough Mudder returned to Atlanta in 2017 at Bouckaert Farm, with 3 of their race formats: Tough Mudder, Tough Mudder Half, and Toughest Mudder. We were at the race and have a recap of the full Tough Mudder race.
