Kansas City Family Timber Challenge starts with a quick pep talk to the kids (no parents allowed). The kids then help to get the families excited, and just like that you are on your way as you high-5 the cowbells over the starting line. This is the start of Family Timber Challenge.
My weekend started early Friday morning. REALLY early Friday morning. Walking with all my camping gear to the train station and then to the bus pickup spot in Utrecht, Netherlands. I was accompanied by teammates Daan, Wesley, and his girlfriend Nicole. And joined at Utrecht by Laurens and Ewoud. As part of the Dutch Mud Men, we prepped to head over to the United Kingdom to invade Rat Race Dirty Weekend.
Each time I stand at the entrance to race, I feed off the energy of everyone else to get me pumped to start off from the entrance with a burst of speed. I can’t help but enjoy the spirit of what these things are about to me, the spirit of pushing yourself to a new height and doing things you wouldn’t normally do. I started doing Tough Mudder thanks to a friend at work
I can’t applaud Bonefrog enough for really exploring and utilizing all the best areas for this race. Bonefrog runs three simultaneous distances Sprint (3-miles), Challenge (8 miles) and Tier 1 (11-ish miles). Since I’m a glutton for punishment, I signed up for Tier 1.
The SISU IRON is an epic 30+ hour variety endurance event that should strike fear in your heart. It’s reputation is that it will challenge you in ways that you haven’t been challenged before, and there is no way for you to predict what the key challenges are. The organizer’s goal is to find the chink in the armor of even the strongest athletes.
Spartan Race made its annual Beast stop at Mountain Creek Resort in Vernon, New Jersey. Heavy storms rolled into the area early Saturday morning causing every wave of athletes to be postponed 30 minutes. The extra time allowed Spartans to prepare for 13.8 miles of grueling climbs and 32 obstacles which would heavily tax the upper body.
It finally happened, after 5 seasons in obstacle course racing, I finally made my way to a Tough Mudder event. For years now I've been saying the only event they put on that I am interested in is the annual World's Toughest Mudder but this year they changed that with the introduction of their 6 race America's Toughest Mudder series. After the "South" event, I can now say that I am officially onboard with Mudder Nation.
For years now I’ve been trying to find ways to push my limits in search of that DNF (Did Not Finish). I realize that may seem like a strange goal to many people. But ever since I started Obstacle Course Racing (OCR) over six years ago, I keep doing things that would not have seemed possible…only because I tried. Each step has been to a new plateau for me something just out of reach, but ‘possible.'
The urban obstacle course advertised as the Ultimate Urban Obstacle Challenge took place right in the heart of downtown Toronto over two days this past weekend, Friday and Saturday. On Friday the first wave went out at 5:00 pm with all heats taking place in 5-minute intervals until 6:30 pm, these were all open waves with the Elite Waves and OCRWC qualifiers taking place on Saturday morning starting at 8:30am-9:30 am with all heats taking place in 5-minute intervals as well.
Last weekend was Strong Viking number 2 this year for me. Saturday most of us started the first wave of the day. Lieke, Mischa, Niels, Björn, Ronald, Ewoud, Kevin and myself started on the first 19km course. My goal was to do a mini-Varjagen weekend. Varjagen at Strong Viking means 4x 19km beast.
