This is the third year in a row that I’ve participated in the Udder Mud Run and this wonderful local OCR keeps getting progressively better. It is a fairly challenging race that every athlete or just a “fun runner” of any fitness level can complete while enjoying a family friendly event that’s a blast for everyone.
The Play Pen is a relatively new Obstacle Course Training Camp that opened in November 2014 and is operated by Coach Quentin Pullen or Coach “Q” as he is known in the OCR Community, an SGX certified trainer and works in conjunction with The YMCA Located in beautiful Newport Beach overlooking the lagoons of Orange County. The camp is open daily and holds boot camp/ CrossFit sessions regularly throughout the week. The Play Pen includes obstacles such as tire jumps, a gut checker, an 8ft wall, hurdles, rope climbs, a cargo climb, a multi rig and a low crawl. On August 2nd, The Play Pen held its inaugural event “Battle on The Bay”. Six OCR Teams from the Southern California area came together to go head to head to see who is the baddest OCR Team in West.
I pride myself in not being just someone that runs the larger OCR company races, but also goes to the less known and what some would consider less challenging (not me) obstacle courses.
Insane Inflatable had a huge turnout and it was easy to tell many of them arrived early and hung out after and the festival area was good times the entire time I was on site. The MC did a good job of firing up both the racers and crowd the entire time, which helped make the festival area even more of a good time.
Terrain Mud Runs held their Signature Event last weekend in Flagstaff Arizona. Set on Fort Tuthill County Park at 7000 ft in the Ponderosa Pines Terrain Racing offered two course distances of a 5k, 10k, and 1/2 mile kids course. It was a fun and challenging event for all ages and athletic abilities. The perfect weekend adventure for the entire family or as we have come to call it in the OCR Community, #RaceCation.
Most racers on the coasts of America have not heard of Conquer the Gauntlet (CTG) because their race series is held in the center of the US. However, out of all the races I have done, CTG is currently at the top of my list for my favorite race series.
The Pennsylvania Spartan weekend has been one of the most anticipated Spartan race weekends of the year for me as last year’s Pennsylvania Sprint course was my favorite Spartan course I did all year. I also was super excited that Spartan was stepping it up this year and offering a Super at the same venue and I had high expectations for both the Super and Sprint to be good races.
This was my third trip to Canada for a Spartan Canada event and like the first two; I was very excited to be going back to Canada and to another Spartan Canada event. Just like the first two events, registration was super-fast and nice and easy and completed in less than a total of two minutes.
This was a new event that first came to my attention in May. Chris Reese, a Steve Austin’s Skull Buster challenge participant, happened to be at another local race with me and filled me in on his upcoming event. Chris’ OCR background and contacts give him a good insight into putting on an event. I was not going to do this race initially because it fell on a Saturday and I figured I would have to work.
Reebok Spartan Race headed back to Palmerton, Pennsylvania on July 11th and 12th. The event was hosted at the Blue Mountain Ski Area in Little Gap Valley, this Super/Sprint weekend was one of my favorites to date. With #effNorm as the race director, he spiced things up this year by adding a very challenging Super course on Saturday in addition to the Sprint course on Sunday.
